Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 7 April 2025 to Question 43178 on Defence: Procurement, how much has been spent on the Future Combat Air System/Global Combat Air Programme; and when the business case was first submitted.

Since its inception, the UK has invested over £2 billion already in Future Combat Air System/Global Combat Air Programme (FCAS/GCAP) and the associated Team Tempest research and development programme. GCAP is the trilateral acquisition programme developing the core platform, whilst FCAS comprises of highly integrated and aligned programmes and capabilities, a wider ‘system of systems’ with the crewed aircraft at its heart.

The FCAS Outline Business Case 1 (OBC1) was submitted in March 2021. Furthermore, the FCAS Strategic Outline Case (SOC) was first submitted in December 2018.