Douglas Chapman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Chapman on 2015-11-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the cost will be of the safe landing modifications required to the flight deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth; and what the implications for those additional costs are for the total cost before operational use of that carrier.

Mr Philip Dunne

The ability of the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) Aircraft Carrier to support F-35B vertical landings has been incorporated into the design from the outset. The cost of preparing the flight deck was included in the revised cost of £6.2 billion announced by the previous Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Philip Hammond), on 6 November 2013, (Official Report, column 251-254).

For information on the modifications being made to the flight deck of the QEC Aircraft Carrier, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 12 June 2014 (Official Report, column 237W) to the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson).