Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether there were any stipulations regarding financial penalties if all 48 F - 35 fighter jets were not supplied by December 2025 in the original contract with Lockheed Martin.

The F-35 Joint Program Office orders aircraft for the F-35 Partner Nations through annual production contracts. The seven F-35B aircraft in production contract Lot 17 should have been delivered by the end of 2025. The Department anticipates four of those aircraft will slip into 2026 and be delivered by April 2026 (a three to four month delay from the original contract). There is not a financial remedy for the delivery of Lot 17 aircraft.