Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Deferred
Paragraph: 35
F-35 fleet expansion faces high costs, slow growth, and unresolved deployment questions
Conclusion
Increasing the UK’s F-35 fleet beyond the 74 aircraft already planned would be one way to address the combat air capability gap, and this was an approach supported by several of our witnesses. However, although acquisition costs for the aircraft may have reduced, sustainment costs remain unacceptably high. The fleet’s slow force growth rate is a continued concern: the RAF’s failure to correctly calculate the number of maintainers required to service the aircraft is simply inexcusable. At present there are too many unresolved questions about the development and operational deployment of the fleet.
Government Response Summary
The government states it will procure a further 27 F-35 aircraft by the early 2030s and will consider increasing the overall fleet size in the mid-2020s as part of the next Strategic Defence Review. It also states it has adapted plans to increase F-35 maintainer numbers by 20% to improve resilience.
Paragraph Reference:
35
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
UK F-35 aircraft are being procured in ‘Tranches’, in line with Defence need. Delivery of our Tranche 1 buy (48 aircraft) will complete by 2025. The Government has outlined plans to buy a further 27 aircraft as part of a ‘Tranche 2’ purchase, which we expect to complete in the early part of the next decade, and which will allow the formation of three front-line Squadrons. We expect the production line to continue to run for many years. We will consider again in the mid-2020s the F-35 fleet size as part of the next Strategic Defence Review. Our decisions on F-35 will align with the needs of the Global Combat Air Programme to ensure the UK has the mix of combat air types it needs to meet Defence requirements and evolving threats; as part of that investment decision process, we will also consider the best variant (A or B model) to meet Defence’s needs. It is also right to point out that no procurement decisions on F-35 have been deferred; indeed, procurement was accelerated in 2015 to form two front-line Squadrons from the Government’s Tranche 1 procurement. We acknowledge the Committee’s concerns on F-35 technician numbers, though we reject that it was “inexcusable”. We set the number of technicians on our F-35 squadrons based on the programme’s original assumption of the number of maintainers required per aircraft. As we have gained experience of operating the aircraft, we have found that an increase in maintainers (by around 20%) will improve resilience in the engineering task and have adapted our plans accordingly. While RAF “owned”, the UK Lightning force is jointly-crewed and operated from both land bases and our carriers. The versatility of F-35, such that it can operate at high readiness from both environments, depending on the operational requirement, is a real strength and offers the UK more flexibility and productivity. The UK will continue to look for opportunities regularly to operate alongside our US Marine Corps (USMC) allies, as well as other partner nations, to improve interoperability, but it is not UK policy to routinely deploy the Queen Elizabeth Class carriers with USMC aircraft embarked.