Contribution
I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s expertise in this field, being the decorated RAF pilot that he is. However, I also take that as Government confirmation that the OCU instructors will potentially form the backbone of our NATO dual-capable nuclear readiness force. Can the Minister confirm that when he sums up?
I know this is a trick question, as the Minister probably does not know what the nuclear readiness plan is, and I do not think the RAF knows either, given there is currently no timeline for gaining nuclear certification. At this point, it is worth noting that, in February, the US Marine Corps—by far the biggest user of the F-35B—changed its programme of record to more than double its order of the carrier variant, F-35C, while reducing its F-35B order by the same amount. Our carriers are not equipped with cats and traps, so the F-35C variant is a non-starter, but we should note the direction of travel of the US Marine Corps, given the combined arms nature of its brand of expeditionary warfare.
The Government have stated that the introduction of the F-35A variant will support the stand-up of a third frontline F-35B squadron, but the F-35A variants will not enter service until the 2030s—we have not even ordered them yet—and that is quite aside from the certification of nuclear capability. When will we achieve initial, and then full, operating capability for the F-35A with nuclear certification?
Crucially, our F-35s are not capable of conducting missions alone. It is not often discussed, although we have already mentioned it here, but the F-35 cannot yet carry the Meteor missile, MBDA’s beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. The Government have previously confirmed to me that the current estimated timeline for the Meteor’s in-service capability is the early 2030s. Our top-of-the-range jet fighter currently has no stand-off air-to-air missile capability. It is effectively unarmed in the face of a near-peer aerial adversary against which we cannot expect to have day one air superiority.
In July, the previous Minister for Defence Procurement, the right hon. Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle), told me:
“Block 4 modernisation will include the integration of UK-unique weapons and upgrades to air-to-surface and air-to-air weaponry.”
That would appear to be an aspiration, not a guarantee. Options for future Meteor development are still under consideration by the Meteor partner nations of France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Sweden, and the aim is to have reached consensus by the end of the year. Can the Minister provide an update on the progress made at the recent working-level discussions in September and October?
This issue was also recently identified by the Public Accounts Committee in its excoriating report, “The UK’s F-35 stealth fighter capability”, which highlighted:
“The Joint Programme Office…has invited the UK…to include a UK weapon in its so-called digital accelerator which it hopes will speed up delivery. In the meantime, the Department told us that as part of its Defence Investment Plan it is considering buying other weapons that are already available and integrated.”
In his response, can the Minister outline what off-the-shelf weapons the Government are currently considering buying as an interim solution to this problem? How do they intend to integrate an interim stopgap weapon?
At present, the solution is actually Typhoon. Yes, in order to use our very expensive, top-of-the-range, invisible-to-radar, fifth-generation F-35s, we have to fly them alongside our not-very-invisible-to-radar, fourth-generation Typhoons, because only they can carry the payload to defend them in air-to-air combat. I am not sure this is exactly what was intended by the hybrid airwing outlined in the strategic defence review.
That is before we point out that an independent carrier strike group is irrelevant if we need a land-based plane to support our carrier-based capability, and that for the F-35B to be in range of a target, the carrier would have to be in range of hostile ballistic missiles that we cannot feasibly protect them against. The future air dominance system, which will be its primary air defence shield, comes in the form of the Type 83 destroyer, for which the final business case is not due to be submitted to the Treasury until 2028—the 2035 initial operating capability for Type 83 already looks ambitious. I digress, and discussions on the limitations of designing our military strategy around our capability, rather than the other way around, are for another day.
The F-35’s out-of-service date is 2069, by which point some of our 138 airframes will be over 50 years old—older than any combat jet the RAF has ever had in service. What will be the final fatigue index of those airframes by then? Given the rapid development of uncrewed platforms, are we really going to rely on an ageing crewed jet as the backbone of our combat air capability in 2069?
Having covered a fair amount of ground, I close by reiterating that the recent Typhoon deal with Turkey is a good thing, but I fear there are an awful lot of unanswered capability questions regarding our air power. While the answers to all these questions are for the next month, when they will be published in the defence investment plan, the Minister knows well that I will circle back on every single one of those points—he probably suspects I have a tracker monitoring their status.
With that in mind, we need a clear and concise air power strategy, because talk of autonomous collaborative platforms and hybrid air wings is premature. It should be noted that the Chief of Defence Staff, in his previous role as Chief of the Air Staff, stated this summer that the RAF has
“no major equipment programmes planned for the next 15 years. We have what we have for the near and medium term.”
The question is not when the defence investment plan will be published, but whether it will have anything in it when it is.