British investment in warplane scheme struggles to break even

Britain’s military is struggling to recover its multi-million pound investment in an American-led stealth jet, Declassified has found.

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) ploughed $200 million into the F-35 warplane programme in the late 1990s.

Officials planned to recover the investment through “foreign military sales” – essentially exports to allied nations including Israel and now Saudi Arabia.

But a quarter century later, only $94m has been recouped – less than half the original investment – and far short of the $2 billion (£1.7bn) total investment made in later years.

It provides more context to claims by ministers that the F-35 is of major benefit to Britain’s economy.

Ministers have said that “around £35-billion will be contributed to the UK economy through the F-35 programme”, however this value has gone to British arms companies rather than returning the taxpayers’ initial investment.

The $94m figure also provides evidence for the first time that the MoD receives income from F-35 sales to repressive regimes.

‘Cushy deal’

There have been 579 F-35 sold to foreign customers, with 75 going to Israel (25 of which were agreed during the Gaza genocide).

The figures would suggest that Britain’s MoD earned $12m from the sales to Israel, if each customer paid the same price for its planes.

The MoD, when asked, did not provide a more accurate breakdown.

A spokesperson said: “Partner Nations within the F-35 programme who contribute to F-35 development can recoup elements of those costs from foreign sales of the F-35.”

Campaign Against Arms Trade told Declassified this was indicative of the “enormously cushy deal the arms industry gets from this sort of major procurement in both the US and the UK.

“They get all the Research & Development paid for up-front…the government helps them export it, which makes them even more profit, and in return they pay back a measly amount of the development costs through the export levy.”

Britain’s National Audit Office (NAO) found in July that the F-35 “programme’s whole-life costs are considerably higher than the MoD has publicly reported.”

It recommended that “to enable full accountability, the MoD should calculate…costs to date, including all sunk costs”.

Civilian casualties

More foreign military sales are on the horizon after US president Donald Trump signed a deal last month with Saudi Arabia allowing it to buy an unspecified number of F-35s.

Saudi Arabia and Israel have been accused of using fighter jets to kill civilians in Gaza and Yemen.

Over the past two years, MPs and campaigners have demanded that the UK stop exporting F-35 parts that could end up in Israeli jets being used in its war on Gaza.

Israel used F-35s to drop 2,000 pound bombs on the enclave and also to keep as many aircraft as possible available to maintain a high volume of strikes.

In September 2024, Britain’s newly elected Labour government suspended licences for the direct export of F-35 parts to Israel, but allowed exports to a global spare parts pool to continue.

The government has argued that it would be impossible to halt the supply of UK-made components specifically for Israel without endangering the entire global fleet of F-35s.

That’s because the F-35 programme claims not to track and trace parts sent to the global pool, making it impossible to know which components could end up in Israeli aircraft.

The scheme is managed by the Joint Program Office (JPO) in Washington, where “there are currently 38 MoD staff embedded”, according to the NAO.

This number is “more than any other partner nation”, but the MoD declined to tell parliament whether the embedded British staff could track parts.