Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to improve the availability of Royal Air Force combat aircraft.

The RAF has continued to invest in the capability and availability of our Next Generation Lightning and Typhoon Combat Aircraft to meet operational tasking.

The UK has invested in the support of the Lightning fleet with a National Support Solution contract and additionally has invested approximately £142 million in the development of state of the art infrastructure to support the Lightning Force throughout its service life. This is in addition to the upgrade of other operating facilities to accommodate the new Lightning Force. These new facilities and the National Support Solution are now fully operational and supporting the growth of the UK Lightning Force.

The Typhoon Total Availability eNterprise (TyTAN), a ten-year £2.1 billion support agreement for Typhoon between the MOD and BAE Systems established in 2016, is driving real efficiency improvements by focusing all parties on flying hour output. To date the TyTAN agreement has already allowed for over £500 million of Typhoon Support savings to be re-invested into capability upgrades for the aircraft and help to sustain high value jobs across the industry.