Fears Labour could ditch F-35 fighter jet plans to save money

Sources say there are growing concerns that the defence programme could be scaled back to plug hole in public finances

The Ministry of Defence has been urged not to scrap Britain’s F-35 programme as the Government seeks to plug a multibillion-pound black hole.
This week Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, will warn “things will get worse before we get better” as Labour finalises how to fix the £22 billion gap in public finances it claims was handed to them by the Conservatives.
Defence sources told The Telegraph there were growing concerns that the MoD could look to scale back how many F-35Bs it purchases, as it was already struggling to find the funds for the original number it had pledged to buy.
Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army, warned: “Given the huge investment already made in the Carrier Strike Group programme it would be madness not to further invest and make sure we have enough aircraft with the right capability, otherwise the whole programme could look like a white elephant.”
The MoD had originally planned to buy 138 of the fifth generation fighter jets, but has only placed a firm order for 48 planes for delivery by 2025. Of this, it has received 34.
Earlier in 2024, the Tories confirmed they were negotiating to buy another 27 for delivery by 2033. Government sources insisted the MoD was still committed to the programme.
The next Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) Report, the Government’s yearly report on major projects, is expected to give a higher number of red ratings to large-scale MoD projects than the previous year. A red rating indicates that a successful delivery of the project is considered “unachievable”.
Seven projects are expected to have their delivery dates pushed back by more than a year.
The last IPA report for 2022-2023 gave the F-35B Lightning Programme an amber rating, suggesting a successful delivery was “feasible” but noted “significant issues already exist, requiring management attention”.
This rating was an improvement on the red rating it received the year before.
Spear Cap 3, a missile system which will deliver the principal air-to-air ground weapon for the F-35 fleet and is critical to the aircraft’s attack and control of its capabilities in contested environments, was also given a red rating in the last report.
Other red ratings for the same period included the tactical strike weapon Brimstone 3, the Core Production Capability, which delivers safe nuclear reactor cores to meet the Royal Navy’s submarine programme and Global Combat Air Programme.
A Whitehall source added that they would not be surprised if the medium helicopter programme and armoured cavalry, which includes Ajax, received the red rating in the new report.
The F-35 fighter jets, which each cost about £90 million, have been beset by repeated delays and cost overruns. The MoD has long been evasive about how many Britain will ultimately buy.
Sir Keir has refused to guarantee the future of Tempest, the next-generation stealth-fighter programme.
As defence secretary, Sir Ben Wallace raised concerns about the F-35s, saying that the costs of the fleet were “unacceptably high”.
MoD sources told The Telegraph there would be no official comment on the F-35s until after the Strategic Defence Review was complete.
Work on the F-35s first began in the 1980s. It has an estimated lifetime costs of $2 trillion (£1.6 trillion) in the US through to 2088, according to the Pentagon.