Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not think that the House has access to the box in question, but we are immensely grateful to the Minister.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

In view of the important role that SMEs play in some of our bigger programmes, and their need to be confident in the process and to have security of outcome, will the Minister give the House some clarity on the intention for the F-35 programme? In particular, given rumoured reductions in orders from the USA, Australia and Canada, does he expect the price that the MOD pays for each F-35 to rise, and does he have a view on the exact point at which they become unaffordable for the UK?

[Peter Luff]

First, I apologise unreservedly to you for my earlier answer, Mr Speaker, but you have encouraged me to be pithy in the past, and it would have been quite a long answer to give the details in full.

Addressing the concern of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), the honest answer is that we do not know. The Americans are not reducing the total numbers for the purchase of the joint strike fighter, but they have changed the profile of those purchases. Other partner nations have indicated that they will reduce their offtake. That is likely to have implications for JSF prices, particularly those acquired in the early stages of the process, which is when this country intends to acquires its JSFs. We are watching those implications carefully, and I am happy to talk to the hon. Lady separately about the implications for the UK.