Critics attack Government U-turn on fighter jets

10:15AM BST 10 May 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9256581/Critics-attack-Government-U-turn-on-fighter-jets.html

As disclosed by The Daily Telegraph earlier this week, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, will tell MPs that the Government will now purchase the jump-jet model of the plane instead.

It reverses one of the central decisions in the Coalition’s controversial defence review.

The Prime Minister’s National Security Council approved Mr Hammond’s plan, which will be announced to the House of Commons.

Mr Hammond will claim the decision will save hundreds of millions of pounds and help the Armed Forces. But he will face accusations of a climb-down driven by financial miscalculation.

The decision to buy the conventional take-off “C-variant” of the F-35 was at the heart of the Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010.

Deploying the aircraft would require modifications to the new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers to install catapults and landing gear.

But critics attacked the decision as short-sighted.

Lewis Page, who served as an officer in the Royal Navy from 1993 to 2004 and is now an author, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the Government was being “completely foolish” not putting catapults on new aircraft carriers.

An analysis by Commander Nigel Ward, decorated for flying Harrier jump jets during the Falklands war, claimed the F-35B cost an extra £5 billion for a fleet of 60 aircraft.

He said: "This Government wishes to obliterate the black hole in defence spending through short-term cuts that will in themselves lead to markedly greater and arguably unnecessary expenditure in the future.

"It makes a laughing stock of so-called strategic planning."

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said the Government's "chaotic" handling of its carrier policy totally undermined its credibility on defence.

"This is a personal humiliation for David Cameron who will to return to Labour's policy, which he previously condemned," he said.

"This is a strategically vital element of the equipment programme on which our security and thousands of jobs depend and yet ministers have treated it with hubristic incompetence, wasting hundreds of millions at a time of painful defence cuts.

"We need a plan to restore Britain's power and prestige at sea, which was so damaged by the discredited defence review, and there are crucial questions on cost and capability ministers must answer."

The Ministry of Defence originally estimated the cost of that work at around £400 million, but internal MoD projections now put the figure at closer to £2 billion.

Mr Hammond told The Daily Telegraph this week that, since the defence review, “the facts have changed” on the choice of planes for the new carriers.

Attempting to balance the defence budget after years of overspending, Mr Hammond told Cabinet ministers that the rising cost should lead to the catapult plan being abandoned.

The Daily Telegraph earlier this month disclosed a secret Ministry of Defence paper showing military planners considered the jump-jet to be less useful and powerful than the conventional variant.

Despite the embarrassment of overturning the decision, ministers will argue that the change could bring some military benefits to the UK. In particular, buying the jump-jet could mean the next generation of carriers is ready to sail

The decision to install catapults on the new carriers was expected to delay the arrival of the new vessels until at least 2020.

Delays in completing the conventional variant plane could have pushed that date back to 2023 or even later, leaving the UK without a working aircraft carrier for at least a decade.

By contrast, the development of the jump-jet fighter is proceeding more smoothly than expected, meaning the aircraft could be ready to fly from the new carriers as early as 2018.

Adopting the jump-jet could also allow the Navy to have two operational carriers. Under the review, one of the new carriers is to be mothballed to save money.