Sanus.. I fear you may be just a tad behind the drag curve.
There is already a potential Interim replacement contract (called GAP SAR) which is being competed as we write. Decision due in January we believe. This is a 4-5 year contract and if you look closely at the Ministerial statement, is to be replaced itself at it's end with the 2nd phase of the new long term procurement now announced. The competition timings for this second phase have yet to be announced.
The 1st phase of this new long term SAR policy and procurement is to replace all the present military Sea Kings with whatever wins. As the Ministerial statement says, this competition will have been decided on a 10 year contract by early 2013 to allow all the SAR
SKs to be replaced by the MoD's SDSR retirement date of March 2016.
At the end of both Long term competitions there will be only 10 SAR bases rather than 12 (Boulmer and Portland having closed)