To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of United States Department of Defense Congressional testimony on 2 February 2010 on the relative costs per flight hour of the US Marine Corps and US Navy's Joint Strike Fighters in the future and the service's current F/A-18 Hornets and AV-8B Harriers.

We continue to work very closely with the US Department of Defense to assess through-life cost estimates for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The support costs for the carrier variant are anticipated to be lower than those predicted for the short take off and vertical landing variant due to its less complex construction. Given the best value principles set out in the production sustainment and follow-on development memorandum of understanding and the economies of scale derived from a common support solution for the 3,000 plus aircraft JSF partners intend to purchase, we remain confident that through-life costs remain affordable, despite the significant leap in capability provided by JSF.