Key Points and Summary – A new report from the UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee delivers a harsh verdict on Britain’s F-35 program.
-MPs acknowledge the jet is the best fast fighter the UK has ever fielded and note its successful deployment with the carrier strike group to the Indo-Pacific.
Capt. Ryosuke Sugimoto, a Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-35 Lightning II pilot, sits in an ejection seat wearing his new pilot gear after completing the 1,000th fitting in the pilot fit facility at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, May 22, 2024. This milestone fitting underscores the strong international partnership and commitment to pilot readiness and safety. (U.S. Air Force photo by 1st Lt. Jymil Licorish)
F-35A Lightning II’s from the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, land at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, April 15, 2017. The aircraft arrival marks the first F-35A fighter training deployment to the U.S. European Command area of responsibility. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Matthew Plew)
-But they warn that years of austerity and short-term cost cutting have left serious gaps: no true standoff strike weapon until the 2030s, chronic shortages of engineers, pilots, and cyber specialists, and fragile aircraft availability.
-The committee urges tougher definitions of “full operating capability,” a credible standoff plan, and a far more aggressive approach to recruiting and retention.
Trouble for the F-35 program in the UK
The F-35 is in the news frequently these days, from the historic announcement that the US will allow Saudi Arabia to purchase the airframe to the continuing drama over whether the Canadian government will go ahead with its planned purchase of the jets.
But in one of the original F-35 countries, the UK, a scathing government report last month slammed shortcomings in the nation’s F-35 program, largely blaming years of cost-cutting by the government.
The report came from the House of Commons’ Committee of Public Accounts, which, per The War Zone, is a Parliamentary committee that “examines the value for money of government projects.”
The Report
The Committee of Public Accounts report is called “The UK’s F-35 stealth fighter capability.”
“In the F-35, the Department has procured the best fast jet it has ever had,” the summary of the report says. “And it has deployed up to 24 of them out of its fleet of 37 on the current Carrier Strike Group deployment to the Indo-Pacific. But despite these achievements, there are significant problems with the Department’s procurement and management of F-35s.”
These problems, per the report, include “significant capability gaps,” including that the F-35 “will not have a standoff weapon that can be used to attack ground targets from a safe distance until the early 2030s.”
Capt. Andrew “Dojo” Olson, F-35 Heritage Flight Team pilot and commander performs a vertical climb in an F-35A Lightning II during the Bell Fort Worth Alliance Air Show Oct. 14, 2018, in Fort Worth, Texas. The F-35A Lightning II’s F-135 single-engine contains 43,000 pounds of thrust. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Alexander Cook)
Also hurting the program are shortages of several necessary personnel, including “engineers, cyber specialists, pilots, and qualified flying instructors,” which are not expected to be resolved for years.
“The length of time the Department is giving itself to remedy these issues seems very complacent,” the Committee report says. “And despite the shortfalls, it is about to declare Full Operating Capability. This declaration is based in part on subjective criteria and partly on a deployment during which additional support was received from the global programme, and after which there will be reduced aircraft availability for several months.”
One allegation in the report is that, over the years of Britain’s austerity measures, the program has focused too much on saving money at the expense of the F-35 program’s effectiveness.
“Over many years, the Department has adversely affected capability and value for money through its narrow and short-term approach to management and cost involving imposing delays and cuts to save money in-year,” the report summary says. “It has also failed to realistically appraise the programme’s whole-life cost.”
Per TWZ, in a subsequent session of Parliamentary questions, Tory MP Ben Obese-Jecty asked Luke Pollard, minister of state at the Ministry of Defense, how long it would take to fix maintenance engineer shortages, and Pollard answered three to four years. However, Pollard added that the Ministry has “increased its recruitment of engineers significantly in the last two years.”
“The Ministry of Defense has introduced a program of surging recruitment for the RAF so that it returns to workforce balance across every specialization,” Pollard said at that hearing.
The U.K. F-35s are operated, currently, by the RAF’s No. 617 Squadron and the Royal Navy’s 809 Naval Air Squadron (NAS).
The Committee’s Recommendations
In the report, the Public Accounts Committee issued a series of recommendations. One was to “ensure that for future major programmes it adopts a more robust and objective definition of Full Operating Capability that takes account of capability gaps and the ability to sustain that capability consistently after its declaration.”
Another was to “set out in the Defence Investment Plan how it will ensure a standoff capability in the coming years before Spear 3 is fully integrated onto the aircraft,” and to update the committee on how it “intends to increase F-35 availability so that its targets are consistently met.
The Committee also recommends what it calls “a more radical plan to recruit and retain the highly skilled personnel necessary to work on and operate the F-35.” It is also recommended that the department “urgently look to prioritise investment to bring forward completion of improvements to RAF Marham accommodation,” so it can be completed before 2034.
It’s also recommended that, in that Defence Investment Plan, the Committee set out “the expected long-term impact on costs and capability of any short-term savings measures,” and that it “build on its recent whole-life cost analysis by including all relevant non-equipment costs to give a more complete through-life cost forecast of the programme.” It is also asked to lay out what it sees as the “whole-life costs” of operating Dual Capable Aircraft.
“Making short-term cost decisions is famously inadvisable if you’re a homeowner with a leaky roof, let alone if one is running a complex fighter jet programme – and yet such decisions have been rife in the management of the F-35,” Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said in the Committee’s release of the report.
During our inquiry, the MoD told us that they viewed these kinds of decisions as costing the taxpayer many millions more in the long term than the money saved in the short term, as a ‘conventional consequence’ of budget management. This is exactly the sort of attitude that our Committee exists to challenge.”
The F-35’s History in the UK
The official website for the F-35 program, maintained by the Joint Program Office, spends a lot of time highlighting the UK’s history with the program and the numerous contributions it has made. The site even uses the British spelling of “programme.”
“Every time an F-35 takes flight anywhere in the world, the UK is part of the mission,” the F-35 site says. “As one of the original partners in the F-35 Lightning II programme, the UK plays a vital role in delivering the world’s most advanced fighter jet.” The site also says that more than 100 British suppliers contribute to each F-35, led by BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, and Martin-Baker.
“By 2046, the F-35 programme is projected to generate £45.2 billion in economic value for the UK,” the site says.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
