Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, has said a report on the F-35 programme is under handling restrictions that stop him detailing its issues, and that no UK plans have changed because of it, according to an answer given in Parliament.
Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, asked what specific issues the report raises, following an answer of 29 October.
Pollard said: “The report is subject to handling restrictions, and the Department is therefore unable to provide details of the specific issues it raises. As stated in the answer of 29 October 2026 to Question 37121, the report is considered alongside other sources of information to inform the Department’s approach to the F-35 programme. No specific changes to UK policy, plans or assumptions have been made because of the report.”
In September, Pollard told Obese-Jecty that the department had not had sight of the 2026 edition of the US Government Accountability Office’s annual F-35 review, which the Pentagon marked as Controlled Unclassified Information with no current plan to release it publicly, the first time in more than two decades the review has been withheld.
The 2025 edition found that Lockheed Martin delivered 110 aircraft in 2024, all late by an average of 238 days, and that Block 4 modernisation costs had grown by more than $6 billion. Pollard said then that talks with the F-35 Joint Program Office on the delivery schedule for Britain’s next batch were ongoing, with deliveries expected from the early 2030s.
In the current climate, I’m beginning to think the UK Government should restrict critical information on the state and disposition of the Country’s military assets.