Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many service-critical deficiency reports have been recorded to date on the F35B; and if he will make a statement.

There are currently around 19 important deficiency reports that remain open out of 2,600 deficiency reports raised for all three variants of the F-35 to date, throughout the life of the programme. All have acceptable plans for resolution or mitigation to allow their closure prior to the UK initial operating capability. The F-35 is still in the development test phase of the programme; the aim of the development test is to find any deficiencies so that they can be rectified.