Unite the union has called on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to choose Typhoon jets when decisions are made on new fast-jet procurement.
Unite understands a decision is imminent from government on the purchasing of new aircraft for the RAF with a choice between the British-made Typhoon and the American-made F-35(A).
Unite is calling on the government to invest in a new tranche of Typhoon fighter jets to ensure the UK maintains its industrial skills base ready for the 6th generation Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP).
Today’s call also comes shortly after a report last week from the defence select committee that highlighted the importance of Britain’s industrial capability and skills base for Tempest/GCAP to be a success.
With full-scale production of Tempest not expected to begin until the 2030s, retaining final assembly capability and the existing Typhoon BAE Systems workforce of 6,500 will be a significant challenge and will be made more difficult by the dwindling of the UK Typhoon production line, the union claim.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The UK possess some of the finest engineers and technicians of fast jets anywhere in the world. With a decision on fast-jet procurement imminent, the government needs to take decisive action to retain these workers and ensure that we are in a position to get more skilled jobs from Tempest/ GCAP.
“We have been saying for some time that The MoD needs to place a further order for Typhoon aircraft, which will fulfil a military requirement, maintain industrial capacity, and preserve jobs and skills.
Labour must now step up to the plate and make the clear unequivocal investment decisions that workers and their employers desperately need.”
The union argeus that a UK order of 24 F35’s would only secure 2-3 months of work in Britain for 2,000 people whereas 24 Typhoons would secure 26,000 jobs for 2 years for workers in BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Leonardo and the UK supply chain.
Unite defence and aerospace national officer Rhys McCarthy said: “These are highly skilled and well-paid jobs in areas of the UK where this sort of work is hard to come by. In an increasingly unstable world it would be reckless not to ensure that our own domestic defence industry is properly supported and capable of meeting the security challenges we face.
Rhys McCarthy added: “The government has been clear that the British economy needs growth and that our defence industry is crucial to this. Selling the Typhoon overseas can contribute to our GDP but we cannot expect foreign governments to buy our fast jets if our own government won’t. It’s clear that they need to make a decision to ‘make and buy British”.
Come on government, you know it makes sense. Typhoon will be around for a long time so having some of the latest versions can only be a good thing!
Doesn’t matter if this move is right or wrong to me – I just need someone to explain why the expert in this area should be a union. Should it not be the interests of the country we are considering here.
The Union represents the people making the aircraft, they are entitled to try and influence government the same as any other organisation of group of people with a vested interest in government decisions.
It’s the governments job to describe what’s best for the country but that is immensely subjective.
BAE would also love to lobby hard but they can’t as they will worry about pissing off LM.
F-35A? I thought we had the debate on F-35A and decided it is effectively a 3rd type with all the costs that implies.
F-35A must be a wrong surely?
It’s like the pasty tax, some civil servant comes up with an idea and try’s to push it on every new government, in this instance it is saving a few quid upfront and buy the F35A.
Will labour be daft enough to fall for it is the big question.
Ditto…
I didn’t know F35-A was even a possibility, surely it’s more of a choice between more Typhoons now and fewer Tempests later? Seems like an easy decision to make though as we need to retain those jobs and we need to replace tranche 1.
Is there any fresh news on the possible Turkish or Saudi orders? If either or both orders came off then would we have the capacity for our own domestic order as I thought they were UK/Spanish lead orders and not German or Italian and Spain will be busy with their own extra orders? Not very many I know but we do have another order of 12 for Qatar to keep things ticking on for now.
I think it is a matter of where money is spent on protecting whose jobs.
F35B about £120mil, 15% spent here so real cost £114mil. Very good plane that the RN and RAF want more of. Mainly US jobs.
F35A about £80mil, 15% spent here so real cost £76mil. In many ways even better plane although also with limitations and RAF only. Extra support line needed. Mainly US jobs.
Typhoon T4 about £95mil, all spent here so real cost £63mil. In some ways as good or better that either of above, but also in many very important ways inferior. All British jobs.
I believe the RN wants extra money spent on F35Bs, the RAF the same although they could live with F35As. The Union wants Typhoons for UK jobs.
It is a trade off. For the same money spent over the next 10yrs you get more now with the F35 but restarting British aircraft production for the Tempest will cost far more. Do we want to protect British jobs and skills or humour Trump? Thinking of how much time and cost has been added to ship building costs by stop-start production I would go with Typhoon and have the skill base there for Tempest. Saying Foxtrot Oscar to Trump is pure bonus.
Either a mistake or the carrier capable force being robbed of the additional 24 F35b planned. Can’t see the requirement for F35As in a NATO first led review.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the order if the order of F35Bs is at risk, would hope though that some sense prevails and it ends up a split Typhoon/F35b order
Like you say I think an order of 24 jets split between Typhoon and F35b would be the best way forward. Besides not all the tranche 1 Typhoons being retired are sill operational although they are on the MOD inventory
The requirements are for 27 F35B, 24 Typhoons would be welcome, but without extra funding, the F35B has it.
Defence must not be a job creation scheme.
Defence must be a job creation exercise..the nation without a defence industry will loss the war that matters ( the war for survival)…every single existential peer war in modern history is essentially won by 4 things:
1) industrial output ( the war machines you can build and access to resources and power )
2) population size ( the number of young men you can send off to die)
3)economic output ( the materials you can afford to build and men you can pay)
4) Political will ( the willingness to send all your men to die and spend all our economic output)
Standing forces essentially don’t win wars..because to put it bluntly they are destroyed and remade..it’s how quickly and how much you can remake that will determine if you win or loss a war. The job of a standing force it to first deter a war from happening by showing how much the will hurt the enemy and then to die giving a nation time to build and actual wartime force.
Govt trying hard to get the Typhoon order from Turkey. Then they can order F-35B without upsetting BAE or the unions.
I think it’s a Typo but it really shouldn’t be a “one or the other” choice as we not only need a purchase of more of both but not ordering either one will cause problems.
If we don’t order more Typhoons then we risk losing the skill sets required for GCAP and given the numbers in service vs tasking we are just asking for trouble down the line.
If we don’t buy the next Tranche if F35B then how do we justify being the only Tier 1 build partner and making £billions out of producing parts of jets we then don’t buy. Try telling Trump that one and get away with remaining a trusted partner. Besides which we actually really need those Aircraft !
IMHO A is bad, but B could be devastating.
Which is a decision probably taken years ago when they put the present Equipment Spending Plan together, the last announcement I read was the funding for the Tranche 2 buy of 48 F35B is allocated and should be ordered later this year.
And on that note there was zero £££ in the plan for any extra Typhoons so ordering more is either going to be at the expense of a cut elsewhere or extra funding has to be provided.
So 🤞🏻 the SDR contains a meaningful overall increase in Defence spending otherwise “computer says no” ☹️
I read elsewhere the SDR authors told HMG their recommendations can only be funded on 2.75% GDP to which they were told to go back and rewrite for 2.5%. The upcoming SDR that’s going to be published will be a joke as HMG has absolutely no intention of increasing defence spending. Rumours are also circulating that any uplift to even just 2.5% won’t happen in this parliament. Same old crap from HMG – Tory, Labour, it doesn’t matter – they both are to blame.
Well said David
I will happily argue for an F35A purchase and have done so before, but I was not aware of any government interest in doing so.
Sounds like union scaremongering to me.
We absolutely do require additional Typhoons (fully upgraded with new radar and performance pack); but in addition to F35B’s, not as substitutes.
In the end the typhoon fleet was designed to stand at 160 with around 130 being single seat versions, this was for very good reasons…we often forget that fast jets are consumable items and if you don’t have a decent sustainment fleet you will fatigue your airframes and run out of airframe hours.
At present we have will have 96 single seat tranche 2 and 3s and 5 front line squadrons IX bomber squadron, Falklands flight, joint squadron, OCU, and test and evaluation squadron..normally ( if you look back ) most squadrons would have had 12 single seat and one or 2 duel seat, apart from the OCU which had around 12 single and 8 dual seat. So numbers wise the squadrons will need the entire 96 single seat airframes..with zero in the sustainment fleet..traditionally the RAF would have around 30% of airframes in the sustainment fleet..so around 30 Airframes for surprise surprise around 130 single seat aircraft.
This means without another order the RAF don’t actually have the correct number of typhoons to maintain the squadrons it has and will have to probably drop one maybe even two if it does not get 20-30 more typhoons.
Accept the sustainment fleet has been made up of T1 jets, which haven’t been in service for years. Many have already been stripped for spares.
It’s not often that I agree with the unions but on this, they’re 100% correct.
Forget about the debate on whether they f35 A/B because it amounts to the same thing.
Keep your eyes on the prize, which is GCAP/Tempest.
If I was a betting man. I’ll say they will order 27 F35B’s. Commit to spending £2.35bn upgrading T2/3 Typhoon. And commit more money to Tempest. I’ll eat my hat if they find the money to also purchase 24 new Typhoons. I’d very much like that to happen. But I just can’t see it with the budget pressures the MOD faces.
No plan to buy F 35A and rightly so. It has all of the current weapon integration limitations of F35B and is no use to the navy. There is no point in ordering more of either version unless and until block 4 allows us to use UK weapons. The current capability of the F35B is very limited which is why we seem to be reluctant to use it.
We are using the Typhoon quite hard in both air policing and strike roles. Buying 25/30 more would ensure we keep a (barely) adequate fleet to last until Tempest deliveries begin.
I presume the “F-35A” designation is typo/error. The government is in a difficult place, the assumption since at least 2020 was that a large Saudi order for at leas 48 more Typhoon’s would keep the Warton final assembly and checkout line humming until the late 2020’s. For various reasons (but mainly German objections when contract signature was imminent) that now seems unlikely, and France and Turkey have instead been invited to make proposals. There is probably no choice but a UK order for 24 Typhoon Tranche 4’s to fill the gap. But 47 F-35B’s (effectively 44 as the oldest 3 are test/training aircraft so unrepresentative of operational TR2/TR3 standards that they will surely soon be retired) is not simply enough to maintain two frontline squadrons of 12 aircraft each. Experience suggests (regardless of aircraft manufacturers eternal promises of lower maintenance requirements) that 60 airframes are required, implying 13 more aircraft are needed – probably ordered as a trickle of 2-3 a year. The Typhoon is slightly cheaper than the Lightening F-35B, but the MOD is still probably looking at spending an extra £1.5B over 5 years on fast jets than is allowed for in the current equipment plan. For comparison, that would be enough for three badly needed Batch 2 Type 31 frigates, whilst the last round of defence cuts in December “saved” just £500M over 10 years.
Yes you noted that 44 F35Bs is not really enough to maintain 2 front line squadrons..there will be 96 single seat typhoons maintaining 5 front line squadrons, Falklands flight, joint squadron and IX bomber squadron…in the end with 96 single seat typhoons the RAF will probably drop to 4 squadrons total + OCU.
I really despise the idea that the defence budget should be allocated towards preserving civvie jobs. It’s for buying kit and paying people to defend the country and our interests overseas, if necessary. I want the best kit operated by the best people in uniform.
More Typhoons that would be great ,but will starmer do the UK defence workers justice .He’s kicked the pensioners and the farmer’s in the teeth Labour don’t seem to do our own people any favours .Has for F35A never thought that was on the list ?
And which union rep said ordering more F35’s only amounts to 2-3 months work. That is just a ridiculous statement. Every single F35 ordered, globally, 15-20% is made in the UK. F35 will bring in far more revenue over many more decades than Typhoon. And 5th gen F35 manufacturing has more benefits to Tempest. I’d love more Typhoons in RAF service. But the RAF would rather have more F35’s.
Typhoon is a phenomenal jet but I’m confused why we don’t also build our F35B jets given that we are a Tier 1 partner. If Italy can build them then surely we can, which would more than enhance the skills for Tempest.
The Typhoon order seems increasingly necessary and if true cost is £65m per airframe, and can be delivered quickly because the production line is free, then that probably adresses short term need to increase mass to bolster conventional dettereant – any new f35b order will have to wait its turn in the f35 order book. We still need to plaće order for at least 34 more f35B but beyond that I still think cost benefits of a Split f35B /A order needs considering – £20m less capital per unit, £1.5m per unit lower annual costs. Japan, Singapore and Italy – possibly South Korea – all manage a mixed fleet. Given we are talking f35A orders beyond 2030 at earliest its surely worth considering?