Grant Shapps – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Grant Shapps on 2016-09-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the future sales projections for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter in the last two years.

Harriett Baldwin

Initial Operating Capability for the UK’s F-35B Lightning aircraft is scheduled for December 2018.

The most recent US Selected Acquisition Report (SAR 2015) estimates that the production, sustainment and support revenue generated by the global F-35 fleet through the life of the programme will be over one trillion US dollars. The UK manufactures approximately 15% of each F-35 aircraft, however as the F-35 programme is still determining its Global Support Solution footprint, we are not yet in a position to determine the potential revenue for UK industry.

The programme is expecting to procure over 3,000 aircraft across the F-35 Partner Nations. This will be further supplemented by Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. FMS engagement and future sales projections are managed by, and are a matter for, the US Government.