Cost fears cause MoD rethink on fighter jets

Ministers are considering another U-turn in the long-running debate over which model of the F35 Joint Strike Fighter the UK should buy, threatening further disruption to a project which has been dogged by indecision and cost escalation.

The defence ministry will decide as early as the end of this month whether to switch back to the F35-B, which needs only a short runway to take off and can land vertically, 18 months after ditching the model in favour of a “more capable, less expensive” alternative.

The government changed its order to the C-variant of the fighter jet, which needs a catapult to take off from aircraft carriers and a wire trap to land, in its 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. At the time, it argued the model was 25 per cent cheaper than the alternative.

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