The claim
“If we look at… what will be saved by deleting either (the Tornado fighter jet or the Harrier fast jet), we are saving more by deleting Harrier than we would the other way round.”
Nick Harvey MP, Radio 4, 9th November 2010

Cathy Newman checks it out
As the Ark Royal makes its final voyage today, FactCheck decided to look at the government’s decision to dump the aircraft carrier’s fleet of Harrier fast jets. The defence minister Nick Harvey has claimed more money can be saved by ditching the Harriers than the Tornados, which the government has pledged to keep. But is he on a flight of fancy? Over to the team.

The analysis
The economics of defending the realm are complicated, but bear with us.

First, let’s look  at the 135 strong fleet of Tornados. The government has never said how much it costs to maintain the fleet.  But a combination of parliamentary answers and leaked documents allow us to come up with a rough estimate.

FactCheck has unearthed figures released to parliament showing that logistical support alone will cost £4.8bn, between 2011 and 2025. Over the summer, MOD documents unearthed by The Times suggested in total the bill for Tornado was closer to £7.5 billion. Add to that a planned engine upgrade costing £1.4bn – and it’s not unreasonable to estimate that decommissioning the fleet could have saved £8.9 billion.

So, how does that compare with the price tag for the 79 Harrier aircraft? The MOD said that maintaining the fleet until 2018 would cost £900 million, and those are the savings they have now made.

The MoD disputes the Tornado figures published by the Times, but even logistical support alone – confirmed by a defence minister in the Lords – amounts to £4.8bn. So more than five times as much as the Harriers.

So it looks like Nick Harvey got his facts wrong. The government could have saved somewhere between £4.8bn and £9 billion by ditching the Tornadoes. Instead they cut costs by just under £1 billion.

But those numbers don’t tell the whole story. The MOD say that saving money was only one part of the Defence Review – just as important was planning for the future.

The Tornado fleet is 135 aircraft – getting on for twice as large as the Harrier capability. It’s always going to cost more to maintain more aircraft, but clearly the Tornado fleet provides more capacity too.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson told FactCheck: “The decision to retire our Harriers shows the very difficult choices we had to make to focus resources where they are most needed – in support of current operations.  The decision to retain the more capable Tornado and remove Harrier from service allows continuous fast jet support to forces in Afghanistan and the ability to support concurrent operations. This would not be possible if Harrier was retained and Tornado retired.”

But the Opposition say that the government have moved the goal posts – what was once about savings is now about strategy. Jim Murphy MP, the Shadow Defence Secretary, told FactCheck: “Contradictory statements from Ministers have confused an already concerning situation. I urge the Government to urgently publish their figures and rethink the cancellation of the Harrier fleet.”

Cathy Newman’s Verdict
Had Nick Harvey argued that the Tornados were superior to the Harriers, and therefore more expensive, then he would have been on solid ground. As it is, his claim that ditching the Harriers would save more money is clearly false.