This is the House of Commons Defence Committee’s final evidence session as part of our inquiry into AUKUS. I am very pleased to welcome the Minister of State for defence readiness, Luke Pollard MP, who is the Minister for defence industry as well. It is also a pleasure to welcome Air Marshal Tim Jones, the deputy chief of defence staff for force development. It is wonderful to again meet with Vice Admiral Sir Chris Gardner, the chief executive officer for the Submarine Delivery Agency, whom we recently met during our visit to Australia. A very warm welcome to your good selves, gents. I would ask you to try to keep your responses as brief and as concise as possible within the next couple of hours. There is a lot of ground to cover, as you will quickly begin to appreciate. Minister, before we delve into AUKUS, I want to come first to the Ajax vehicle, because this is the first time that we have had a Minister in front of us. There were no urgent questions granted or statements on the Ajax vehicle, hence why I wanted to start today’s session on it, so I beg your indulgence there. This is something where, as you will be aware, the Defence Committee in previous parliamentary Sessions has complained ad nauseaum about the perennial procurement problems with regard to this particular project. What an utter shambles that this multi-billion-pound project has once again come to a grinding halt. Personally, are you ashamed at how things have turned out with regard to the Ajax vehicle?

My initial concern is for the soldiers who have been involved with the latest concern on 22 November as part of the Titan Storm exercise. I gave an update in the written ministerial statement that I am sure the Committee has seen, but, just so that colleagues are aware, around 30 soldiers reported noise and vibration exposure on that exercise. The exercise was stopped within 30 minutes of the first report. That is consistent with the approach that the Army sets out for its safety standards. I called the Chief of the General Staff in to see me immediately after that and directed a pause on all Ajax activity while we wait for the reports back from the British Army’s investigation into what happened. There is a second investigation by the Defence Accident Investigation Branch, but that normally takes a longer period. I want to see the results of that preliminary investigation before I make a judgment as to what may have happened here, because it is important that I get the evidence first. I am very concerned about our safety and I have always made it clear that the safety of our people is our top priority. That is why we paused operations.

Let us go on to the written ministerial statement that was tabled in the House. Can you advise us who the senior officials were who advised you in writing that there were no problems with the project?

We took the unprecedented step, because of the concerns around the Ajax programme in the past, of asking for written confirmation before IOC was declared.

Which senior defence officials in particular?

I asked for written confirmation. I have received written confirmation from the Chief of the General Staff and the national armaments director who was in place at the time. That note to me set out very clearly, “The objectively gathered evidence shows Ajax is demonstrably safe to operate”. Based on that evidence, I felt it was appropriate to then move to the next stage, which is IOC, which would be where there is a small number of units able to be deployed and tested, and that is how they were used in this exercise.

You have written assurances from both of those senior officials. The Committee has not been privy to that information. Can we please get published versions of those letters, please?

I will undertake the usual scrubbing to make sure it is appropriate, but I am happy to share that with the Committee.

Also, you are awaiting the preliminary findings, but are you confident that you were told the truth, or were you misled?

Until I see the findings of the preliminary report into what happened, I do not want to make a judgment as to the process that led up to it, because I want to see what happened in the first instance. It is very clear in the direction that we have given within the Department that safety is our top priority. We would not be deploying and authorising the use of platforms that we do not believe to be safe.

Minister, does the duty of candour not apply to the Ministry of Defence?

I expect everyone in the MoD, be they in uniform or in civilian roles, to be providing good, accurate and timely advice. I expect that on the Ajax programme, just as much as I expect it on anything to do with AUKUS that we will discuss shortly. Once we have seen what the preliminary results are into what happened on Exercise Titan Storm, we will be able to be able to take a judgment as to what follows next. From my point of view, I want to be reassured as a Minister that the advice that I am receiving is accurate and timely. As such, we will be taking steps within the ministerial team to commission a review to look at that advice, taking advice from outside experts as well as military personnel, to get to a greater level of reassurance.

I also understand that there may have been a report commissioned on it. Can we, as a Committee, be supplied with the report commissioned about the ongoing issues with regard to the Ajax vehicle, please?

There will be three investigations into it. The Defence Accident Investigation Branch will publish in the usual way, but I will set expectations that that will probably take some time because it will want to be thorough, and we would expect it to be thorough. The British Army’s investigation is the preliminary findings that I am hoping to receive very shortly. I will have a look at those when they come through. I am aware that there are certain elements of commercial confidence that we will need to have in those, but I will make what we can available to the Committee. With the review that I am commissioning in terms of the reassurance that Ministers can have, I will be making sure that there is a good level of transparency, including with your Committee, to make sure that we can all have confidence in the advice that is given to Ministers around important programmes such as this.

Minister, to be clear on what you just said to the Chair, you are not at this stage saying that you were badly advised.

I want to understand what happened first.

You are on record saying that the problems are solved.

Indeed, and I based that on the advice that I was provided with, including the statement that I read out from the note of the Chief of the General Staff.

Someone told you something that was inaccurate then, because you would not have said that unless you were fairly confident that you were being given advice that you thought would stand up to public scrutiny.

Absolutely, yes. I know I am going back to this, but we do not yet know the cause of what happened to those vehicles that has created the problems that our soldiers have experienced. I want to get on top of what the actual problem was. Was it a maintenance issue? Was it a design problem? Was it an issue with the platform itself? Understanding what happened is the first necessary step.

Clearly somebody did not understand what happened, because they advised you that everything was okay.

I want to see what the results are, but I share the general concern I think you are raising. I want to make sure that all advice given to Ministers, myself included, is timely and accurate.

If you cannot have confidence in the advice given to you, that raises a problem about relationships within the Department, does it not?

I want to make sure that we have an understanding first.

What about the 6,000 in-service SV trucks and the issue around spare parts? What is going on with that?

As part of usual safety activities, the military will issue safety notices on a regular basis that look at when a fault has been identified and instruct what the requisite repair is. In relation to the MAN vehicles—that is the trucks in plain English—a fault was identified, a rectification order was issued and the process has kicked in to rectify those vehicles. In that case that means taking them off use and delivering that upgrade. It should be said that, in relation to the MAN vehicles, that is a fairly standard practice when an issue has been identified, to identify the problem and resolve it.

How long was it between when the problem was identified and Ministers being informed?

As a standard practice, it is not usual that Ministers would necessarily be informed of every single safety notice.

The 6,000 in-service trucks are not usable. It is a bit of an issue.

Absolutely, yes. We are looking at a new process to make sure that the trucks can be used, and that safety notice is being implemented as we speak.

This did not just happen overnight. It must have been a gradual breakdown. Again, it raises the question about trust within the Department. If Ministers are not being informed on a timely basis about problems when they have arisen, there is a concern, isn’t there?

It is a concern if it is a fundamental problem that relates to something stepping outside of the usual process. In relation to the MAN trucks—it is important to say that that is different and distinct from Ajax—a problem was identified and the system worked as it was appropriate and as it was supposed to do, identified the problem, created the solution and issued the instructions to the deployed forces to rectify that.

It is a good job that you do not have to move thousands of personnel in a matter of days due to any emergency at the moment, isn’t it?

We maintain forces that have a degree of readiness.

They are clearly not ready because you cannot transport them.

Safety notices are a very common occurrence in defence due to the large number of platforms that we have and what we do with those platforms. Issuing a safety notice for a problem to rectify is pretty standard fare. I would not expect every single one of those small issues to be notified to Ministers. As a prudent response to this, I have asked us to re-scrub that process to make sure that, where there is an element of concern or a timeliness issue, that can be flagged to Ministers.

Is there anything else that we should be made aware of on any platforms or equipment where there are current problems in terms of their ability to be used?

On a standard basis, there are safety notices.

Apart from these two, we are not aware of any major equipment problems where they are having difficulties and therefore need to be pulled out of line.

It is pretty standard fare right across our military platforms for there to be safety notices issued and rectification work taking place.

There are none that you are aware of that fit the scale of these two at the moment.

I do not believe so, but I am happy to scrub all those. As far as I see it, I want the system to work properly.

We all do.

In the MAN truck case, this is a system working properly. An issue was identified, a rectification was instructed and that is taking place. That system is working as it should.

There are none that you are aware of. You have made that clear.

It is good to hear that there are not any issues with other projects. If there are, please write to us with a clarification. As far as we are concerned, there are not any other issues apart from Ajax and those SV vehicles.

That is not quite what I said. As a normal business-as-usual activity across defence, with the platforms that we have, the age of some of them and the usage for them, updates are required on a regular basis. Issuing safety notices is a pretty common occurrence. The system has to work to be able to identify problems and issue them as normal. That is pretty standard across all three of our main services. That looks at what the issues are and how they can be rectified. That is built into the usual maintenance cycles of those activities. I do not want to leave the Committee under the impression that there are no other issues with any vehicle at all. I want to be clear that it is pretty normal, and should be normal, that when a problem has been identified a system kicks in to rectify it and issue the correct instructions to the services that are using that equipment in order to do that. That is pretty normal and standard. However, given the interest that the Committee has in this, I could perhaps summarise that process for Committee members, giving an idea of some of the quantum of the safety notices and examples of those, to give you confidence in the usual business-as-normal activities where we go around issuing upgrade instructions and safety upgrades and rectifying defects that have been identified.

A written note would be very beneficial on that.

That is the equipment. On the initial reportees—I think it is believed to be about 30 personnel—are they okay? Are there any injuries or anything?

In relation to the 30 personnel, none of them required hospitalisation. We are keeping an eye on all of those forces, as you would expect, using the usual medical procedures. Many of them have returned to their normal duties. Normal practice, as we are following here, is that, when there has been exposure to noise and vibration, the medical procedures, care and observation follow from that to understand how they are, what activities they can do, whether they can return to full service and what care they require. That is ongoing at the moment.

Thanks for clarifying.

Let us move on to the key issue of the day for our inquiry into AUKUS. I want to start off with the geopolitical considerations. The four years since the AUKUS agreement was announced back in 2021 have seen a further deterioration in the global security situation and a shift in US defence priorities with the new Trump Administration. In your view, Minister, have these geopolitical changes strengthened or weakened the case for AUKUS? What impact may they have on the ability to deliver AUKUS?

As we set out in the strategic defence review, the importance of AUKUS has only increased in recent years. Although the technology and focus of our American and Australian partners is necessarily on the Indo-Pacific, in pillar 1 terms the SSN-AUKUS will provide support for us in the Euro-Atlantic area, as well as confidence that our partners can have in the technologies and the platforms that they will be using in the Indo-Pacific. It is probably also worth stressing that, although as a shorthand we often say that Russia is a Euro-Atlantic threat, it is also an Indo-Pacific power. In terms of the consistency of the SDR, it sets out very clearly our incredibly strong support for the AUKUS programme. It was right as a new Government for us to review that, because we had some concerns in opposition around the leadership and the structures of that. The Lovegrove review—I believe that the Committee has heard from him—demonstrates areas for improvement. We have put those in place. We feel that AUKUS is in a good place at the moment. It is an important but challenging programme because we are building the most technically advanced piece of machinery on the planet in pillar 1 and investing in novel and innovative technologies in pillar 2. It is one that I feel is continuing to show its relevance and importance, and that was underlined by its presence and prominence in the SDR.

We all know that AUKUS is framed around the imperative of projecting deterrence against an increasingly aggressive and assertive China, especially within the south China sea, towards its neighbours and partners. What does the UK’s involvement in AUKUS say about the Government’s perception of China as a global actor?

It is first worth stating that the AUKUS programme is a defensive programme, not an offensive one. It was designed not against one particular nation, but to increase the capabilities of the three partner nations involved with the programme. That is why it remains relevant to all three partners, given the increasing era of threat that we are living in. In relation to where China sits, you will have heard the Prime Minister last night be very clear about the necessity to recognise that, with the economic power and influence that China has, we need to co-operate where necessary there. We also need to be clear-eyed about the threats that China can pose in terms of cyber-activities and activities that may threaten or seek to influence politics and democracy, especially in the UK and elsewhere. We need to be wide-eyed about those challenges at the same time. Given the threats that we are now facing as not just a NATO alliance, but with our friends further afield, including Australia, the importance of making sure that AUKUS delivers is even more prominent than it was when the original initiative was launched all those years ago.

Let us move on from geopolitics to governance and leadership issues.

We had the news earlier this week from Australia that it is conducting its own overhaul of defence, not long after the UK is under way with defence reform here. It put out a press release saying that it will have a new national armaments director, using the same language as we have here, who will report directly to its Defence Minister, which is equivalent to the Secretary of State. It also, in the same reporting, although not attributed to a Minister, added that there may be a new head of the Australian Submarine Agency. It has not been announced yet, but that was part of the same press release, it would seem. It is shaking up who is in charge, so to speak, of submarines and AUKUS in Australia. Who do you see as in charge of AUKUS more generally, as a concept, between the three countries? Who is driving it forward? Who is responsible?

The model that the Australians use will be a decision for them to take, but certainly a number of international partners are looking very closely at our defence reform, including the creation of the NAD. When it comes to how AUKUS works across the three partners, the three systems are different. We have found that, especially in terms of the UK creation of the AUKUS special representative, that is a model that our partners see value in, and we see value in. The systems, in terms of where the Australian and American political and military systems are, are different to ours. Making sure that our systems can properly interact with each other and share data and information, as well as have the political, military and official-level conversations, is part of some of the early investment work that has been put into AUKUS to make sure it works. In a UK context, since we came to office we have made a number of changes to the way that AUKUS is delivered. Increasing the prominence of the ministerial role from the equivalent of my role in the last Government to the Secretary of State for Defence and working much more closely with the special representative and Downing Street has made a real difference in terms of the prominence that AUKUS is given within our system. There is merit in doing so.

I guess that what I am driving at is that we have just discussed the abject failure of the Ajax programme thus far in the UK. You were quoted in the Financial Times as saying that you were advised by everyone, from the top brass down to the people working on the platform themselves, that it was safe on 5 November. Three weeks later, it turns out it that is not safe and you have retracted it. In my opinion, you were badly let down. You have been careful in this session not to say too much critically of people who work underneath you. With this AUKUS programme, if, in 10 years’ time, things are not working, things are not on time and there are massive overspends—and we have seen the problems with the Hunter class in Australia—the public here, in Australia and in the US are going to say, “Who is accountable for this?” When I say, “Who is in charge?” I am driving at who is accountable. If there are problems down the line, who do the public and the various defence committees, be it in Australia or in Congress in America, look at?

I would make a very clear distinction between problems with Ajax and the AUKUS programme, which are completely different. AUKUS is a successful programme that is difficult and challenging to implement, but we have put in place the systems and leadership to make sure that it can be delivered. This is perhaps a good opportunity for Chris to come in to describe some of that leadership role and how we deliver those programmes. I feel pretty confident that, because of the centrality of AUKUS to the strategic defence review, through to the defensive posture that we have as a nation, through our investment not just in Barrow but on the Clyde, in Derby and in Plymouth as well, we have a revised and rebooted AUKUS offer and a clear AUKUS delivery plan. It is for the Government of the day to be held accountable for the delivery of that. I think that people looking at the programme can see a substantial change and increase in focus on that over the last year or so. There is still more to do and we should not underestimate this: delivering a first-in-class submarine with international partners is a substantial challenge.

I look forward to hearing from Sir Chris, but what you said is interesting. It is the Government of the day who are held accountable, but, in 10 years’ time, the Government of the day here and anywhere else will be being, as you say, held accountable for stuff that either is or is not happening now. That is the way of the world, I guess.

First and foremost, AUKUS is a strategic imperative across three nations. There are three independent national programmes that are being delivered here independently by each of those nations. Clearly, the UK has a critical role in helping the Australians to deliver on the optimal pathway, going forward, that they have committed to. Our responsibility lies also in making sure, collectively, as part of the defence nuclear enterprise, that I, the Chief of Defence Nuclear and the First Sea Lord are fundamentally delivering on the UK component of that, on behalf of Ministers and the Government. In terms of the UK set-up, there are the Cabinet-level ministerial AUKUS meetings, some of which are chaired by the Prime Minister. There is an officials’ meeting, which is chaired by the deputy national security adviser. When it comes to the optimal pathway itself, we have the AUKUS SSN executive group, which brings together the three nations, headed up, in my case, by my boss, the Chief of Defence Nuclear, Maddy McTernan. There is a whole raft of governance that sits underneath that.

Minister, could I double-check? In reply to the point Fred Thomas made, you said that AUKUS is not like Ajax and that it is a successful programme, but it has not been delivered yet, has it? I am not sure how you can say that it is successful, because we do not have the end product yet, do we?

Elements of it are proceeding at pace, but we have also seen elements of pillar 2—which does not often get the attention that pillar 1 does—projects being built.

Nothing has been delivered yet.

We have not yet got to the final outcome.

I am just trying to make that point. We have not delivered the product yet.

No. There are no AUKUS submarines that we have not yet revealed—

Ajax is supposed to be a final product.

Indeed, yes. To underline this, the two projects are in very different stages. They have very different levels of complexity and particular concern about elements of it.

I understand that.

It is unhelpful to confuse two of those together.

I wanted to be clear what you were saying; that was all. Could you give us a brief overview of the existing trilateral governance arrangements for both pillars? What can be done to strengthen the way the AUKUS partners can work together across country leaders down to officials? Could you give us a brief overview of that?

Chris is probably best placed to give detail of some of those governance arrangements. We are certainly seeing an approach that differs in the last year and a bit to the previous approach we inherited, with a much greater drumbeat of activity between those partner nations—between ourselves, the US and Australia. The signing of the Geelong treaty recently by the Secretary of State with his Australian counterpart is a good example of how we are now seeking to operationalise some of those commitments that have been made to reinforce not just the governance arrangements, but the delivery arrangements of elements of those programmes, especially as we are getting into the early stages of making sure that we can deliver. Predominantly, I am talking about the submarine, rather than pillar 2 projects. It is about making sure that we can deliver what we are signed up to deliver, as the United Kingdom, in terms of design, reactors, and skills and expertise, but also advising our Australian friends in particular about where they need to be placing their investment, as a new nation entering the deployment of nuclear submarines. It is not just in terms of advice that we can provide on the build arrangements. One point that is really critical to how you operate a submarine fleet such as this are the maintenance, overhaul and upgrade arrangements, which is the less sexy but incredibly important part of maintaining a fleet. The ability for us to share that expertise is something that we are investing in heavily now, because we know that that will make a really big difference to the programme where investment is made early in that respect. In terms of governance, I will turn to Chris.

As I have already set out, we have really strong trilateral arrangements in place, fundamentally driven through the SSN-AUKUS executive group, which is headed up by the Chief of Defence Nuclear for the UK and her opposite numbers in the US and Australia. There is regular Government-to-Government interaction. In fact, there is going to be a defence ministerial meeting next week. I think that I can say that. There is a raft of governance that sits underneath that, which again brings the three nations together routinely to ensure that we are driving our respective national programmes forward collectively to deliver on AUKUS pillar 1. Tim can talk to AUKUS pillar 2. The key point there is supporting the Australians through the optimal pathway to get themselves match fit and ready to own, operate and, ultimately, build nuclear submarines going forward. Phase 1 is getting them ready to support and sustain nuclear submarines through SRF‑West. I know that you were out there recently. In phase 2, we will see the Australians take ownership and operate Virginia-class submarines. Ultimately, in phase 3, they will build SSN-AUKUS to the common design that we are building in the UK to own and operate those submarines going forward.

Are we clear, in the three Governments, about who has responsibility for what?

I certainly believe so. I think that the US would say that it has absolute clarity over who is driving AUKUS pillar 1 in its country, and I think that the Australians would say the same. They have Greg Moriarty, who is driving it from a Government officials point of view, and the Australian Submarine Agency that is responsible for delivering on its part going forward.

Is the level of resource dedicated to AUKUS at the high commission in Australia and the British embassy in Washington sufficient?

It is delivering what it needs to do now. I would suggest that we will continue to need to grow our footprint in Australia going forward. We continue to do that. We have people embedded in the Australian Submarine Agency. We have people based out at HMAS Stirling in Perth, where we are currently supporting the rotational forces going forward. I also have Australians working in my own agency in the UK. Overall, I have a significant team of people. Equally, I have people in the US as well.

Are you saying that it is sufficient for now but needs to grow?

As the programme grows and moves through the various phases, we will continue to need to adjust the overall scale of effort to ensure that we can deliver the programme in the UK and, ultimately, support the Australians going forward.

On pillar 2, there is likewise governance that has been in place for some time. There is an advanced capabilities executive group that I sit on. In fact, I have not sat on it yet because I have been in this role for about two months so far. Beneath that, across the six areas of pillar 2, there are project work streams. Each of those has working groups that meet periodically. It is fair to say that all the AUKUS partners see room for putting that on a firmer footing, putting some more firm deliverables around it and setting targets and properly measuring those. That has been happening, but there is room to improve it. Across the project leads, there is constant communication. I was talking to our Royal Navy lead on the underwater elements of pillar 2 and I said, “Bring to life for me how often you speak to your counterparts.” He said, “All the time. I have a face-to-face with them three or four times a year. I have a video teleconference with them every six to eight weeks and we are in email communication all the time.” That partly explains why there has been such good progress on the underwater side of pillar 2. There is constant engagement, even outside the governance. Notwithstanding that, in pillar 2, there is probably room for that governance to improve. Sitting to the side of that, in terms of feeding the ideas into pillar 2, there is an international joint requirements oversight committee and the joint capability concepts board. I co-chair the latter with my Australian and US counterparts. We last met just a few weeks ago. Even during the US shutdown, the US sent over two senior representatives to London to attend that meeting, which signalled its keenness to keep the contact going and to keep those conversations going. There is definitely room for improvement on the governance on pillar 2. I think that we would all agree on that, but we do not let the governance get in the way of the conversations.

Who did your job before you?

It was General Rob Magowan.

You took over his responsibilities, basically. That is what I am saying.

I did, yes.

We found when we were visiting Australia that there would be more resources needed in Australia from our own side as it develops. The one good thing that came out, both in Australia and a little bit in Washington, was the appointment of Stephen Lovegrove as the special representative to the Prime Minister and, in his absence, the Defence Secretary for AUKUS. What impact has the appointment of Sir Stephen Lovegrove as the Prime Minister’s special rep on AUKUS had both within Whitehall and across the trilateral?

We are very happy with Stephen’s role, in terms of having a very clear individual able to bring people together to ask questions and span the different Departments across central Government that need to be involved in those decisions. It is sometimes tempting to believe that AUKUS is only an MoD challenge where, in fact, there is a necessity for it to have input from Foreign Office and Cabinet Office colleagues and others besides. When you get into the delivery of the platforms, the necessity to build out additional housing in Barrow, for instance, and Plymouth and the skills that are required, that is a much larger activity. Having him as a central point is something that our Australian and American allies have absolutely and correctly identified as something that has made a real difference in the UK system. It is for them to decide what works best for theirs, but it is a real advantage. We feel the difference in terms of the grip, but also the ability to have conversations outwith normal interdepartmental business that you would expect Departments to be undertaking.

We asked Sir Stephen whether it was a problem that he is not given any executive powers. However, he said that the officials who he has had to deal with are being responsive and he has not found a problem so far. Going forward, do you see it as a problem that his appointment is due to end early next year? He recommends that the appointment should be extended—not necessarily himself, because it was a difficult question for him to answer when he is actually doing that role now himself. Do you have any plans to extend that role so that that governance can continue to provide that stability across AUKUS within our own country?

That decision would be one for the Prime Minister, so it is probably not best for me to second-guess that. However, I can say that the value we get from that role is very clear. There is a real advantage, in terms of the co-ordination across the UK system, in having that role in place. Sir Stephen has done a really good job in terms of reviewing AUKUS and making good, actionable recommendations to Government that we have taken on board to improve both the grip and the delivery of AUKUS. There is a real advantage in that role taking place. Who that would be would be a matter for the big boss.

We have noted that, since the new formation of the Trump Administration, and in Australia, the three leaders of those countries—the President and Prime Ministers—have not met with reference to AUKUS in person. Sir Stephen was saying that that should happen as soon as possible to reinforce the AUKUS programme. What are your views on that?

Global leaders of the western alliance meet on a fairly regular basis. Whether they are meeting individually on AUKUS or not is perhaps a different matter. If you have seen some of the statements from President Trump saying, “Go full steam ahead on AUKUS,” after his meeting with the Australian Prime Minister and the conversations that our Prime Minister has had with his Australian and US equivalents, it is very clear that we have a good level of communication. I do not believe that there is a deficit that needs to be corrected there. However, as I mentioned earlier, the drumbeat of ministerial engagement has increased quite substantially over the past year. That is to deliver the political agreements on next steps in terms of pillar 1 and potentially exploring where pillar 2 should be. It is also how we mobilise the agreements that have been made. In many cases, the repeated engagement that the UK has with Australia in respect of this is absolutely clear. That is growing in intensity and depth. That is a good thing. As the US conducts its own review—the Bridge Colby review—looking at where it is on AUKUS, the President has helpfully been very clear: it is full steam ahead on pillar 1. That answers part of that question, potentially. The US perspective on pillar 2 is also important and we wait to see what is in that review. We have, as a nation, with the Australians, fed in to that review to inform it on our positions.

Particularly on the governance side, we, as a Committee, have been told by Sir Stephen that you have received his report on AUKUS and that there should be a public version of that report. We have been promised last month—I think that that was the original day it was going to be—that there would be a public version of that report. Could you let us know, as a Committee, when you are going to put that public report out to aid with transparency?

Having read the report and listened to what Sir Stephen said to the Committee, you have all the headlines. I do not think you should be in doubt about whether there is stuff that he did not tell you that would be of interest. It would be a matter for the Prime Minister as to when that report would be published, but I am happy taking that action away because there is real merit. We have nothing to hide on AUKUS. In fact, we have a good story to tell. If there is a way of providing a version—redacted for the obvious reasons—that the Committee can look at, I am happy pushing that back into the system to see whether—

That would be good because we are on about us not doing enough as a nation to bring civil society along with us on our defence. The more we can be open and transparent with our public, the more we can bring them along to explain why investment in defence is very necessary. That would be really good, Minister, if you could do that.

Minister, you mentioned President Trump saying that it is full steam ahead and that that is good news for pillar 1. There is a Colby review that is still under way and has not yet concluded. Say if that did not quite deliver what you are expecting it to deliver, what could be the fallout of that? We know that Mr Colby himself has been known to be not quite as positive about AUKUS in the past.

It is pretty standard fare for a new Government inheriting a programme as complex and big as AUKUS to undertake a review. We did when we took office last year and it was usual for the Americans, in a similar change of Government for them, to undertake a review. The President’s very clear instructions about it being full steam ahead when he met with the Australian Prime Minister are a very clear signal in terms of this, but we await the publication of the final review. There are opportunities perhaps in that review to look at pillar 1 and how that can be delivered, bearing in mind the US equities in AUKUS about provision of Virginia-class submarines.

You are not worried about the fallout from the Colby review at all, if there is any.

We await the publication of it. I have not seen what is in it, so I cannot comment on it. I know that the conversations we have with our American friends around AUKUS remain very positive. There is a very clear strategic case as to why AUKUS, both pillar 1 and pillar 2, provides operational strategic advantage to the United States and her allies. It is something that we have been very clear on in terms of our strong support. Indeed, the Prime Minister has been very clear with President Trump and had good conversations around AUKUS.

Minister, it is always a rule in Parliament that, when people talk about being very clear, they are slightly fibbing. Here, Vice Admiral Gardner has said that in the USA there is “absolute clarity” as to who is doing AUKUS. There is not absolute clarity, is there? We know that Bridge Colby had severe concerns, irrespective of the White House, registered those, was pushed back and is now going to do a new report. There is not absolute clarity. I think that you need to tell us a bit more what you are expecting from the Colby review and why it is not going to deflect our plans.

If Chris needs to clarify his words, I think that he is happy to. I think that he was referring to who is in the leadership positions on delivering the programme. We are very clear on who is in the leadership positions in delivering the programme in both Australia and the USA. In relation to the Bridge Colby report, we have fed our views into that and provided evidence to make sure it can be informed from a UK perspective. Our Australian friends are making similar types of efforts with their American friends. The position of the President—full steam ahead—is very helpful in this respect in providing that level of clarity from the very top of the US system. It is entirely reasonable, given the change in defensive posture and policy that the US has undertaken, for it to conduct a review and look afresh at it again. That is entirely reasonable for it to do. We see the strategic advantage of AUKUS. The conversations we have had with the US remain positive on it. From our point of view, it is hard to comment until I see it, but the conversations at political, official and military levels around AUKUS remain strong.

Let us go on to issues around streamlining co-operation.

Thank you and welcome. Over the course of our inquiry, we have heard widespread support for an AUKUS visa that would allow easy transition for the workforce across all three of the trilateral countries. Has any work been undertaken on this? Is any current work being undertaken? If so, what kinds of models would you be looking at?

I will bring Chris in in terms of some of the arrangements regarding the practical implications. As we see it currently, the immigration and visa system that we have, in particular with Australia, works. For the numbers that we are looking at, it is a system that works. I am aware that the Committee has heard a number of people suggest that an AUKUS visa may be useful. It is probably worth stating that, as we currently see it today, for the tasks that we are being asked to perform as defence today, the current system works. It is also clear that, as we get further into the delivery process of pillar 1 in particular, the skills needs will change. A key part of the AUKUS programme, though, is investing in both UK skills and Australian skills. There will be a need to transfer expertise between those nations. It is the reason why we have so many Australians in various UK nuclear sites at the moment, learning from our experiences. It is why we have Brits in Australia, advising and indeed learning from the way the Australians are approaching some of the activities as well. We do not see an immediate need for it, but I am aware that, as this ramps up, the argument for skills will be there. This is where we have to deliver on what the nuclear skills taskforce is setting out, so the additional 40,000 nuclear skills that are required by the end of the decade. That means us investing more in skills. That is why, if you were to boil the defence industrial strategy down to one word, it would be skills. That includes challenging the big primes, but also, for the first time, Ddefence investing in skills, with the defence universities alliance, the defence growth deals and a whole host of other initiatives to make sure that we are growing our skills base. Ultimately, to make this a successful operation, when we transfer expertise between the nations, that needs to work. The current system is adequate for that need. It works, but it will not work if we believe that just transferring skills between one nation and another is going to solve the skills needs. We need to grow our own. In particular, in the UK context, where we are expanding military nuclear, but also civil nuclear, we need to promote it as a really fantastic area to work in, where you will get a good, well-paid job for the rest of your career. There is huge opportunity here, but that needs to be seen side by side with the debate around visas. The current system works, but we know we need more skills to deliver the entire project.

You think that the current system works now. What would put that at risk of not working in the future? Is that just a case where we have not trained enough staff in all three nations, or is it something different where we may need to move staff around to be transferring those skills? Is an AUKUS visa something that you would foresee in the future?

At present, the Government’s position is that we do not yet see a need for an AUKUS visa. Given the amount of evidence the Committee has heard, I suspect the Committee may perhaps say something otherwise when it publishes the report. As we currently see it, we do not see an immediate need for one. It is true that, to deliver the optimal pathway for our Australian friends and for the growth that we need in Barrow, Derby and Plymouth, and indeed on the Clyde as an operating base, we need to build a much greater portfolio of skills. That includes both nuclear skills and skills for nuclear as two distinct different skillsets. We have a plan to do that. We are making progress against that, but there is a lot more to do. We will keep whether we need to transfer people under review, if there are barriers or a backlog that prevents the smooth transfer. We are not seeing that at the moment. Improvements have been made, for instance the ITAR sharing agreement. There is one part about sharing people, but sharing data and technology is also really important. ITAR has been a hugely successful improvement in AUKUS. Although it is sometimes tempting to just look at where the problems or challenges may lie, it is also worth noting that, where we have seen a challenge in terms of sharing ITAR-restricted technologies, that has now been overcome by our nations working together. That creates not only industrial opportunities for each nation, but a real opportunity to deliver those elements of the AUKUS programme that rely on tech transfer. We have shown that we can do it where there is a need. If there is a need in terms of visas more broadly, that is something we will keep under review, but we do not see an immediate requirement for one today.

On the back of an AUKUS visa, should it ever emerge, do you have any concerns over the risk of our own skilled staff relocating elsewhere? Is that something that would be within a model that you would be looking at?

I will let Chris come in in terms of the experience of what we are seeing today and where our people are. We have to recognise that the AUKUS programme cannot be delivered unless every nation involved with it invests in skills. We have to grow our workforce. There is a strategic disadvantage of having a system that embeds a brain drain from the UK to Australia.

We will be coming on to these issues about the brain drain and so on later, so please keep those comments for later.

The Minister set out the sorts of challenges we are facing. The key point to land is that we need all three nations to build the capability, capacity and resilience in their industrial bases, including the skills, to deliver their national programmes and collectively to deliver the combined endeavour that is AUKUS going forward. You said that we are coming back to skills transfer. We do not have a significant issue at the moment. The key point for me is about helping the Australians build their indigenous capability and capacity going forward, because that is absolutely vital. The Australians themselves absolutely recognise the need for the UK programme to remain ahead of the Australian programme. They know that a significant brain drain in their direction would threaten their own programme as well as undermine the UK programme going forward. It is about how we collectively work together to make sure that both nations have what they need.

The issue around visas is not really to do with individuals. It is about families. This is something that has not been taken into consideration. What are the Government thinking of doing with regard to helping families? An individual can often only go with their family. Can you enlighten us around that, please?

That is an entirely fair challenge. When we talk about visas and transfer, we normally talk about the skilled individual with the expertise. When we are deploying or transferring individuals for short periods, it is normal that they would travel on their own. If we are asking people to go to Australia for a longer period or for Australians to come to the UK for a longer period, it is also normal that people bring their families. That is why, when we are having this debate around making a system that works, currently we are not seeing an issue with this. If we are to have longer-term placements and an increase in numbers, we need to recognise that people involved with AUKUS are still people and come with families. That needs to be reflected broadly. I do not think that it would be unhelpful to talk about the importance of ensuring that the workforce in all three nations can live good, productive lives, because that is a key part of saying that a job in nuclear is a good job. You get time with your family and can bring your family. That will need to be factored into the long-term view at the moment. As it currently stands, for folks who want to be able to bring their families, there are routes available to them, but we will keep that under review. Mention of families and good family life is a real strength of a job in defence. I do not have any problem with the Committee keeping a focus on our people in that respect.

I am glad to hear that. Let us now move on to the strategic narrative.

Can I first put on record my congratulations to the Minister for his announcement yesterday lifting the ban on the remaining roles of people who can serve in our armed forces? His leadership has been extraordinary on this. I was delighted to see his work with THT and I know that other members of this Committee have supported that campaign. Thank you for getting that job done, Minister. Coming on to the strategic narrative, we are very interested in this on this Committee. When you have your best comms brains around the table on AUKUS and you are mapping out what the messages are and who you are trying to reach, who are the intended audiences and what are the key messages you are trying to land?

That is a good question. I suspect that someone is going to be FOI-ing an AUKUS comms plan while we speak. On a broad level, AUKUS has a number of different audiences. One is in terms of our own industrial base, to encourage investments to be able to deliver those programmes. One is for our people to realise there are good opportunities in terms of nuclear skills. One is our broader population to communicate the importance of the nuclear enterprise to our national security. Although that is reinforced by the primacy of the nuclear deterrent and the Dreadnought submarines that we are building in Barrow after the Vanguards, we need to make sure that that whole-of-society message also works for them. There is important messaging around AUKUS as well as a deterrent message to those countries that wish us and our allies harm. We know that, as a country with a NATO-first defence policy, we are focusing our forces and resources on our own backyard, but our support for the Indo-Pacific is indivisible from the Euro-Atlantic. We can see that from North Korean troops fighting with Russia against Ukrainian soldiers. We need to make sure that we are continuing to support our allies. AUKUS is a significant position that the UK has in support of those broader Indo-Pacific peace and security activities that we are undertaking. I would like to do more on AUKUS messaging, because there is something around the whole-of-society approach. If you look at the strategic defence review, perhaps one of the most important bits for delivering the other parts of the review is the whole-of-society chapter. I know that Lord Robertson, the lead reviewer, is still gripped by the importance of this. It’s also the bit that sometimes feels like catching fog. If you look at the news media, you will see the increasing threats that we are facing. You will see the increase in defence spending and the improvements and new technologies that we are bringing online—for instance, the directed-energy weapon that I signed off for the latest phase only a few weeks ago. There is a bigger debate that needs to take place, but it is a different debate in the UK than the one that our friends in Australia need to have. That is largely because the UK debate around AUKUS is, in some cases, geographically located in Plymouth, Barrow, Scotland and the Clyde and Derby in terms of where those immediate top-tier prime nuclear jobs are, but we need to make the broader case that SSN-AUKUS underpins our national security. It is an important part of our armoury to do so. If you compare it to our Australian friends, who are building a nuclear industry for the very first time here, in terms of both their build operation and their operation of a conventionally armed but nuclear-powered submarine fleet, it is a much bigger challenge and a departure from their previous stance on nuclear technology, for instance. The comms challenges there are different. The debate that we are seeing in Australia is a healthy one that really helps to put the arguments out there. As someone who is a defence nerd and happens to be a Defence Minister, I would like to see a bigger debate around the importance of defence spending and the importance of spending it well, but also how that defence spending matches the threats that we are facing, why investing in the latest technologies is a key part of deterrence and the importance of deterrence. Should the instruction come from the Prime Minister for us to use those capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies, why and how would we do that? There is a bigger space here. In the first instance, there is more that we want to do in informing parliamentarians around this. The MoD has regular briefings for MPs. I know that a number of the MPs here attend them regularly. We will be hosting one on AUKUS in the new year to try to get more parliamentarians aware of the importance of the programme. Especially as a Plymouth MP, looking at another Plymouth MP and a Barrow MP, AUKUS is very clear in our communities perhaps, but the supply chain that goes into the submarine business reaches right across the country into many other constituencies. We need to make it clear that defence is an engine for growth in those communities, as well as ones that might be further from the sea and not necessarily think of themselves as a submarine community.

Your assessment is that your comms plan is not where it needs to be.

As a Government, we are increasing our communications on defence. Defence has been in the news more in the last year for announcements than it has been for many years. That partly reflects the threats that we are facing, but it also reflects a Government with more to say on defence, in terms of how we are reforming Ddefence, rearming and retiring old platforms and bringing new ones on. When it comes to AUKUS in particular, I would be very happy for us to be challenged on doing more to tell that story, because there is a good story to tell. Importantly, when it goes back to it, telling that story helps young people think of a career in engineering or science and technology. They will be able to say, “I could be involved in building what would be the most advanced piece of machinery on the planet.” That is something we can have enormous pride in as a nation for those businesses involved, the people who are involved in uniform and the civilians who work in the Submarine Delivery Agency and across the MoD enterprise. Exposing some of that is a good thing. We are clearly not going to put the secret squirrel bits of an SSN-AUKUS in a press release, but talking about the opportunity, skills and economic contribution is something that I would like defence to be doing more of. I would like defence companies, as an extension, to also feel more empowered to tell a story about their economic contribution and the opportunities that are available in the communities they operate in.

Our assessment is that this comms plan is not where it needs to be at the moment. It is very difficult to get any sense of constituencies, as you have said, beyond key constituencies that have been mentioned. My own constituency will be playing its part in AUKUS, yet I have no clue how. That is fundamentally not good enough. Ultimately, our MPs are our best storytellers when it comes to being able to communicate with local people about our contribution. If we do not even have the basic information to be able to tell that story, that is pretty damning for the Government’s communication strategy. I would really like that to be addressed. The previous Government had the photo of the then Prime Minister with Prime Minister Albanese and President Biden in San Diego. A picture tells a thousand words. Are this Government missing a trick? Where is this Government’s version of that photo?

If I were to look at the photo of the Defence Secretary, the Foreign Secretary and their Australian equivalents, including the Prime Minister, on their recent trip to Australia, where the Carrier Strike Group was docked in Darwin as part of its global deployments, I would see a different but similar image showing the UK standing proud on the international stage with our allies. The frequency of defence ministerial engagement around AUKUS has absolutely picked up. There are a lot of these opportunities, but I take the challenge in terms of how we tell that story. One of the dangers of having more frequent meetings is that having the meeting becomes less prominent because there are more of them to report. I want us to be able to talk about the progress that we are making and go back to core principles. Why is AUKUS important? Why are we co-operating with our Australian and American allies on submarine technologies? Why do we benefit from that? We have set out some of those arguments. We need to continue to set those out. Where it comes to pillar 2, there is the possibility of looking at the wider arguments that are not just between those three nations. As we seek to invest more in novel technologies, which the Government have been very clear on both in the SDR and in the defence investment plan in due course, pillar 2 has a potential to contribute quite significantly to some of those novel technologies with our Australian and American friends and perhaps with others as well.

I want to come in on the supply chain. Since we re-established the AUKUS all-party parliamentary group, which I chair, I have been asking for this information. We had an amazing reception where everybody involved in this came along. You came. It is difficult to have communications with MPs to tell them how important it is to them and their constituents. We know that around 80% will have somebody in the supply chain. Yet each time we ask for this information, we get nods and we are told, “Yes, we should definitely do this,” but it disappears into the ether. I am assuming that the block is with the MoD because it is concerned about who has the information. We are now relying on the old information that we had from Dreadnought to deliver this. It is not acceptable that we are at the stage where we are trying to get this information out to raise awareness of AUKUS and to raise the importance of it even with colleagues in Parliament, and yet we are being blocked from doing that. We would really appreciate it if somebody could unblock that information. We are Members of Parliament. We are aware that some things need security. We can be given that information without it becoming a risk. Any support that you can give on that would be very useful.

At the risk of nodding and saying yes, I will say yes. Let me take the challenge in two parts. If we provide to the Committee our assessment of the key suppliers and the ones that we can put in the public domain, we will write to the Committee with that information. Secondly—you have correctly identified one of my frustrations with defence—because historically defence did not want to tell its story, because there was partially no public appetite for it and there was an element of, “Keep your head down; be secret,” defence is not as good as I would like it to be yet, although it is making progress, at constituency‑level data and truly tracking the supply chain across elements. That is something that we are making progress on within defence, but we need to do a lot more on it. I want it to be a default. I do not want people giving out the secret elements of what they do in the media, but I do want defence, our forces and our supply chain to be much bolder and prouder about saying what they do, because that creates more opportunities; it helps the public understand why we are spending more money on defence. Why is there £5 billion extra in the defence budget and not in another budget across Government? Why are we spending more? The ability for us to tell that story on a local level, with constituency-level data, is something that I want to get at more. In addition to looking at the large suppliers for the Committee, which would be helpful, I will take that as enthusiasm to keep up the constituency-level data. Perhaps I will task the Department to look at what level of granularity we currently hold on supply chain for AUKUS and write to you about that.

That is brilliant. Let us now delve further into pillar 1 issues.

First, it is one year away because it is a 2026 rotation that we are aiming for. Secondly, I would answer that in two parts. First, I cannot comment on submarine availability, although the Committee will no doubt be able to see lots of that online.

I entirely understand. I am not allowed to comment on submarine availability, but I entirely understand the concern you are raising. Secondly, why contribute to the rotational forces in Australia? It is directly because the optimal path for delivery of AUKUS sees the Australians gaining benefits from having the ability to understand how they dock, service, maintain and operate a nuclear submarine. The agreement that we have with our Australian and American friends is that there will be rotations between a UK Astute boat and the Virginia-class American submarine operating out of Western Australia. That will build the knowledge that the Australians will need to be able to operate those boats. In particular for the UK context, this is about understanding how they would operate a UK-designed and operated boat. Effectively, the SSN‑AUKUS will be a similar boat in terms of some of the design principles and operating style that you would see with an Astute-class submarine. That is why there is a strategic advantage and importance to continuing to provide an Astute boat, in rotation with our American friends, to build capacity in the Australian system to deliver this. It also creates advantage in terms of the training opportunities that we can then bring back to the Euro-Atlantic area as well.

Yes, it is realistic.

No, it is entirely realistic for us to do so. It is in the planning assumption for the Royal Navy that we will participate in the rotational forces. It is key to the delivery of the AUKUS programme that we do so. There is advantage for us, but we are maintaining our ability to deliver the tasks that are asked of our submarine fleet at the moment. One of the reasons in the SDR that we set out our ambition to have up to 12 SSN-AUKUS submarines is because we see there being an increasing role for the hunter-killer class of submarines. That is why we have set out the importance of procuring more of them. That is obviously conditional on the improvement in output that we want to see at both Barrow and Raynesway.

The defence review set out the ambition quite clearly: up to 12 submarines. To deliver those 12, a number of things have to be true. We have to improve the speed of production in Barrow. A new submarine needs to be emerging every 18 months. That can only happen if we get the skills situation right, and we can only get the skills situation right in Barrow if we build enough houses and deal with education, transport and some other challenges. That is what Team Barrow is designed to deliver. We also need to maintain our current fleet. That is where a Team Plymouth approach, which the Government have backed, also sits. It also means recognising the importance of investing in the nuclear reactor work. That is why we have signed the £9 billion Unity contract with Rolls-Royce. We are getting ahead of some of those bits because, broadly, there is a need for more submarines. That is why we set that out clearly. To deliver that run rate of production from Barrow, it is not just Barrow that has to see investment; it is the entire supply chain. Although we have a Team Barrow that looks specifically at the skills and obstacles to overcome in Barrow, it needs to be part of a broader endeavour.

I have a couple of preliminary questions, if I may, Minister. When can we expect the defence investment plan?

The defence investment plan is being worked on currently. We are still projected to publish it shortly. We are reaching the final stages of that work at the moment.

You are kidding. Late 2025 is the commitment. It is 2 December. When can we see it? Are you going to run it so late that we cannot have any parliamentary scrutiny before Christmas?

When the DIP is published, I would expect considerable parliamentary scrutiny.

You are going to get it, but I just want to be sure it is going to be before Christmas. That is all.

We want it and we welcome it because it speaks to the wider point about telling the story about defence. The Secretary of State has set out his ambition to publish it. We are working on it at pace. In fact, two of the three of us, if we were not in front of your Committee, would be in meetings about the DIP trying to advance it.

I am glad to hear that. I have another question. There was a piece in the FT about how the Army is now about to invest significantly in German and American drones. What about supporting British drone businesses? We have several very high-quality ones that are ready for scaling.

About a fortnight ago, Defence Ministers opened two drone factories in the UK, one in Plymouth with Helsing and another one in Swindon on the back of having opened a drone factory in Swindon only a few months previously. The SDR set out very clearly that we want to see more investment in autonomy and allocated a much larger, considerable budget to do so. The defence investment plan sets out how we want to do that, but there will be some technologies in the defence investment plan that we will be procuring with our friends and allies. That is a key part of keeping R&D costs down, sharing loads and building flow into our system and capability. The Trinity House agreement that we signed with our German friends provides a number of lighthouse projects, which we are working deliberately with our German friends to progress. The Lancaster House treaties with France and the intention for an agreement with Norway around frigates, for instance, also provide opportunities to work with our allies. From your starting point, we are investing more in UK drone manufacturing, both high-end special capabilities and the ability to have mass, which is a different part of the drone and autonomy spectrum. We have made considerable progress in terms of drones in the maritime space. I would expect the First Sea Lord to say more about that in due course.

It sounds like the Germans have a policy, which is to take three businesses, choose two of them and then make them into the Mercedes-Benz and the BMW of drones over time. We do not have a policy for creating internal, resilient and serious-scale capacity in drones through UK companies. Is that right?

No, I do not agree with that assessment.

We can expect a lot of investment in UK drones businesses from the UK Government and from primes supported by the Government.

We are already seeing large amounts of investment in the drone autonomy sector from UK businesses and from foreign direct investment into the UK. There are a number of locations where we are seeing a real investment focus on that. As a Plymouth MP, I would say that there is lots of marine autonomy in Plymouth. We are also seeing investment in air autonomy around certain locations that have real expertise in doing that. At the moment, we have a system where we have both UK and international firms looking to set up and having already set up in the UK. That is a good marketplace to see the expansion of drone technology that we want to see. There are real opportunities in the defence investment plan, given the large commitment that we have made—it is £4 billion—to autonomy. You will see autonomy embedded across all our services as standard with crewed and uncrewed autonomous systems becoming the default across our armed forces. That is a way of increasing our lethality and protecting our people. We are working with our allies in order to do that. I would point you to the Drone Coalition that we co-lead with our Latvian friends to look at how we can work together with our allies, not only providing support equipment for Ukraine, which we are, but also learning from that and using that in our own technologies. The DIP will provide more on that.

Would it be a failure of UK policy if we did not have one or two major global drone manufacturers in this space that were UK‑owned and run?

The Secretary of State and I are big fans of having defence unicorns. The technology space, and drones in particular, would be one of those areas where I would look to see some of those firms grow. There are a number of firms with enormous growth potential, both in the UK and in the international markets, across the different domains in terms of drone technology. I also want to make it clear that we want to be a place where international companies seek to invest as well. Some of the conversations that we have had with our Ukrainian friends, for instance, are about investing in the UK. We need to have a mixed market, but I do want to see more British businesses grow to scale as well.

It has been suggested to us that there are not enough engineers in Australia to service a single Virginia-class sub. What assurances have you had that there will be adequate skills and workforce capability in Australia as part of AUKUS?

I might turn to Chris for that.

I am not sure I would recognise the picture that said Australia did not have sufficient engineers to service a Virginia-class submarine.

You do not think that is true.

No, I do not think that is true. More importantly, I can absolutely assure you that the Australians are investing very heavily in growing the engineering skill base that they need in order to support their submarines as they take ownership of Virginia going forward. There are significant numbers of Australians being trained by the US. We have put nearly 1,000 people through Royal Navy training on nuclear safety. There are five Royal Australian Navy nuclear marine engineers currently embedded in the Royal Navy.

Five is not going to crack many subs. What about security clearances for the ones that they have in place or they are going to have in place? These are very high-security activities. You cannot put an engineer on a sub who has not been appropriately vetted and assessed. You are not concerned about that.

No, I am not concerned about that. We have very clear security protocols and procedures in place to ensure that people are appropriately security vetted. We absolutely recognise equivalency between the three nations where it applies. We always apply the highest bar to that going forward. You have been to Stirling. You have seen the level of investment that is going in there. You have seen the blended workforce that is being put together to grow the capability and capacity in Australia to support and sustain submarines going forward. That is the whole point behind the structure of the rotational force and how we are putting it together.

Ministers have made it very clear that AUKUS is a national endeavour. It is national not just in the sense of being MoD and across Government, but also being across the whole of the UK in terms of the kinds of skills and talent that it requires. What is your strategy for pulling in people from other parts of the UK alongside the workforce that you are building in Barrow?

First and foremost, we have put in place the nuclear skills taskforce. There is a governance structure behind that, including Great British Nuclear, that is looking to grow the skills that we need in the UK to support both civil and defence going forward and grow the workforce by 40,000 by the end of this decade. We are seeing no evidence at the moment that we are struggling to get graduate trainees and apprentices to apply for jobs. In fact, just about every scheme we have is significantly oversubscribed going forward. We have opened skills academies in Derby, Barrow and Plymouth. There are satellite offices that Rolls-Royce have opened in Cardiff and Glasgow going forward. Through initiatives such as Team Barrow, Team Plymouth, and the Defence Growth Partnership, we will be putting in place all the enablers to ensure that we can deliver what is going to be required. At its peak, SSN-AUKUS will require 21,000 people in the UK to be working on it. We need to grow. There will be 7,000 additional jobs created as part and parcel of that as we bring SSN-AUKUS through design and into production readiness going forward. We are making a significant national effort, across Government, to enable what we need to deliver this.

That is helpful. My final question is for Air Marshal Jones. I thought you said earlier that the programme was making real progress on submersibles and underwater technology in relation to pillar 2. Have any projects been acquired? Have any platforms been built? Have any products been created that one could recognise as a completed task?

There are a couple of areas that are worth mentioning. This year, there has been the launch and recovery of underwater uncrewed vehicles from our Astute-class submarine. We did that in the Mediterranean over the summer. That was the first time that has been done. That was both launching and recovering that autonomous system, which allows us to investigate capabilities that are to do with underwater sensing. As part of one of the AUKUS pillar 2 operational experimentation events called Exercise Talisman Sabre, we remotely controlled an extra-large experimental uncrewed vehicle called XV Excalibur, which is the Royal Navy’s built capability underwater, and an Australian equivalent. One was in Western Australian waters and one was in European waters. Both those vessels were controlled remotely from a laptop in Australia to demonstrate how that technology works. Those are real things. When I was speaking to the team recently about it, they said, “We just would not be where we are on those technologies, were it not for the co-operation that has been possible under AUKUS pillar 2.” To take you up on the spirit of your question, though, we are not scaling these things yet. That is a fair point to make of AUKUS pillar 2 particularly. There are some great novel capabilities. There has been some really good early progress. The thing that we all feel about AUKUS pillar 2 is that we now need to be thinking about how we turn that into really tangible capability progress and scaling that up.

Is it a concern to you that the product could be developed but the DoD will never buy a non-American product?

The thing about AUKUS pillar 2 is that it is not about us buying and selling each other’s technology; it is about co-creation. That is where AUKUS pillar 2 has really succeeded. It is technological collaboration at the developmental stage so that each country feels a sense of ownership about what is then produced.

Therefore, there is not the “not made here” issue that you sometimes find with the Pentagon.

Precisely, yes. It is that collaborative approach from the outset that is in the spirit of AUKUS pillar 2. It does not need to be platforms, of course. We could be talking about electronic payloads or the wiggly amps that go inside. There are all sorts of ways of co-creating and collaborating in a way that still gives the different partners room to make their own things but collaborate where possible.

That is helpful. Thank you very much.

You have just brought up as an example of AUKUS pillar 2’s success us exercising off the coast of Australia with a particular large underwater capability and the Australians exercising at the same time with the same capability. In fact, they are not the same. They are different. Theirs was made by someone else because we could not get it together to get the same product and have the same capability. They are two different platforms made by two different companies. To say that this is a pillar 2 success because they are just about able to talk to each other but both go back to a separate ops room is stretching the definition of success. In the same answer, you said that pillar 2 should be collaborative co-development. Those things were not developed together. They are very separate items. When some of us on the Committee went to Australia, we were extremely disappointed to find that only two weeks before we got there they had signed an arrangement with an American company, at massive figures, to procure something that we procured, which you described there, six months ago that works. You say you have highlighted a success, but are you really not highlighting a problem?

I am highlighting that collaboration comes in many forms. The aim of AUKUS pillar 2 is not that we all stand in front of the same platform, painted the same colour and doing the same job. There are many ways to collaborate technologically. In fact, the most advanced technological collaboration often happens behind the scenes and under the bonnet. The realm of bits of metal and platforms is very much how we used to look at technology, but it is not how we look at capability now. The collaboration that I am talking about is absolutely cutting edge. The things that it enables us to do together as a force multiplier and the capability that that delivers is absolutely an operational success.

I buy what you have just said, but it is worth noting that, from where the conversation on pillar 2 was a year and a half or two years ago, we are now in a space where we are talking about stuff being able to use similar software and talk to each other. We are talking about that being the output for pillar 2, which is just worth noting.

I would challenge that ever so slightly. We are working with our American and Australian friends on a whole range of technologies at the moment. We are looking at whether we can develop signature capabilities alongside them. That is subject to outcomes from the US review and agreement between those three nations. What the Air Marshal was suggesting is that we are already seeing some technologies and products from that collaboration coming online. I would not want to leave the Committee with the impression that only a little bit of tech and a little bit of code has come out of pillar 2 so far. There are successes that we have seen, but they will not necessarily be scaled at the moment. One of the opportunities that we have with pillar 2 is to take those technologies and either develop those as single platforms or shared platforms, if appropriate. Many of those pieces of tech inform and work with other bits of tech that we have to create new platforms. Unlike in pillar 1, where it is very clear that you are building a submarine, in pillar 2 a whole range of technologies, platforms and ways of operating using those technologies could potentially be the result of it. It makes it harder to pin down.

We are saying the same thing, Minister.

Stephen Lovegrove told us not too long ago that past investment into pillar 1 did not happen quick enough. He described an ongoing requirement to make sure that funding coming into Barrow happened quickly and that was the biggest risk to AUKUS pillar 1. What was the root cause of the delays in the past with the funding? What will you be doing to make sure that that does not happen again?

I will start with that and perhaps ask Chris to fill in where we are on funding. The stop-start nature of submarine builds that we have seen in Britain over the last few decades severely damaged our skills base and the machinery used to build the bits that go into a submarine, and caused an atrophy of the supply chain. That stop-start, which I know you are very familiar with, significantly affects the capital requirements to get us back up to running order. One of the advantages of where we are with AUKUS that perhaps we might not have had with previous classes, such as Astute, is that you are seeing Astute to SSN-AUKUS transfer. The skills are transferable. The supply chain and the production facilities have not been demobilised and then remobilised. The lack of long-term drumbeat is a significant problem that we are seeking to overcome. That is not unique to submarines. In a number of areas we have inherited a lack of drumbeat and we have seen a higher cost to acquiring a platform, resupplying or restocking because there was not a drumbeat of orders. That is one of the reasons why that philosophy is present in our munitions factories. We are seeking to create always-on munition factories. We are stopping the peaks and troughs. As a Government we are quite proud of the investment that is going into Barrow. The 1,000 extra jobs in the shipyard under this Government is a significant investment. There is also the change in how the town centre feels in terms of the investment there. We know there is a lot more to do. The long-term commitment that we have made, in terms of the £200 million and its division into £20 million a year-ish, makes a significant difference in terms of the confidence that people can have to invest. I do not doubt that the totality of funds required to deliver SSN-AUKUS in Barrow and the uptick in production speeds means we have to crowd in more funding from defence, from other parts of Government and from the private sector. There is now a very clear demand signal and very clear seed funding provided by Government to do that. I am under no illusion that there is a lot more to do in Barrow, just as there is in Plymouth and just as there is in the operating base on the Clyde, to make sure we can successfully operate our nuclear submarines. We are dealing with a legacy deficit of investment going back many years. That makes investing again more expensive because we have not seen that drumbeat of investment in skills and the supply chain. Chris, do you want to add anything?

First and foremost, we are absolutely committed to getting to the capacity we need to meet that 18-month drumbeat requirement going forward. There is £6 billion going into the submarine industrial base in order to facilitate that. If you go to Raynesway, you will see all of the ground being broken; you will see the primary components operations factory going up; you will see the benefit of £2.4 billion of Australian investment going into Raynesway and into Sheffield Forgemasters. We are working very closely with BAE to optimise the laydown of Barrow going forward to ensure that we can absolutely streamline, set up for success and put in place the two streams of submarine building that are going to be required to enable us to meet that 18-month drumbeat requirement, which requires us effectively to double the capacity in Barrow over the next five years. That includes outsourcing activity into the wider industrial base and making the necessary investments in the supply chain to enable all of that going forward. There is a significant programme of physical activity going on in Barrow, as you well know, as well as the work we are doing on design to ensure that we can get after what is required to enable all of that going forward. You will see that in practical steps such as—again, this is now part of the public record—the purchase by BAE Systems of the old GSK site at Ulverston going forward. There is lots and lots of activity going on to ensure that we can get after it. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that we are in the position we need to be once we can get through the design phase and ready for production readiness, so we can then start building a submarine to continue to drive for having a submarine operational by the late 2030s.

I have absolutely no doubt that we will be able to deliver the infrastructure needed to build those submarines. What we do not yet see is any physical sign on the ground. If you talk to people in Barrow-in-Furness, they have heard all of this before. They have been let down for decades. For the people who actually live there, all they have heard so far is words. They have not seen a spade in the ground or any transformation. For them, it is incredibly frustrating. They do not get to listen to what I listen to when I am down here. All the talk is about Barrow-in-Furness; it is going to be a blueprint for other towns across the country. The majority of people see no change in their daily lives. We have talked about the speed at which we have to do things. We have had almost 12 months of Team Barrow. There is a huge amount of work being undertaken and still the people in Barrow do not see any of the changes. We talk about buying the GSK site. They still do not see, in Ulverston or in the Barrow area, what is going to happen at that GSK site. We just see announcements being made. How can we show the people living in that area that these changes are happening? What is going to be delivered rather than just promised? My challenge to people is the speed with which things happen. Politics is incredibly slow. It is infuriatingly slow when you are trying to make a change. We are 15 months into this Government and people in my patch are yet to see the physical changes to their lives. Are you confident that the speed we are going at will deliver those submarines on time?

I am not going to lie and say that there is not a significant level of challenge ahead of us. We have a very steep hill to climb in order to make sure that we create the overall ecosystem, the infrastructure that we need and the skilled workforce that will sit behind it to enable us to deliver SSN-AUKUS on time. We have a long way to go, and it is not without risk. There is a significant amount of impetus that we need to do that. What I can say is that I am absolutely committed to working alongside BAE in Barrow in order to achieve that. We spoke earlier about the need to communicate more clearly. Clearly, that is coming across, but I would hope that the investment we have made in the submarine skills academy, the work that you are seeing on Ramsden Dock, the new buildings that are going up in the yard and the growth of the workforce between 2023 and 2027 by over 5,000 people are all positive messages that we can be putting into the local community about the opportunities that are there and how it will support UK growth and, more importantly, the local economy. The activity that we are delivering through Team Barrow, including the investment in the town centre, should all start, I hope, to pay dividends in due course, if it is not already doing so today.

That is a big part of it. We are putting in funding, but so far all they have seen in Barrow is that we have stopped a project. That is what people see. There was a smaller project going to happen to the market, which was very run down and looking a bit dilapidated. With Team Barrow coming in, we have said that we can do something much more dynamic and impressive with the town centre, so they stopped that project happening. All they have seen is something taken away at this point. We need to go at pace to make things happen quickly so that people can see some changes.

Yes, I would agree. People need to see the change. Let me reassure you that this Government’s support for Barrow is total. The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have been clear in their support for Barrow. The royal status afforded to Barrow is a significant sign of the importance of Barrow. The commitment that we have made to build the new Dreadnought-class submarines and SSN-AUKUS in Barrow is something that Barrow has not had for quite some time, which is the certainty of what is ahead. We have policy certainty for Barrow. We have the commitment in terms of funds that we will be investing and spending there. We have the commitment in terms of the increase in workforce, which we are already seeing. More people are working in the shipyards than have been for a very long time. I agree with you. It has to be real. It has to be tangible. That is a challenge not just in Barrow, but in Plymouth, on the Clyde and in other places connected with AUKUS as well. It is one that we take very seriously because I want people not just to see the change but to be proud of it and to know they are playing a part in a programme that is vital for our national security. There is more to be done. I absolutely take your encouragement to move faster on this. It is something that I feel very strongly about, and I am very happy to pick this up outside this Committee to see what we can do to support you. I know you are making that case in Barrow and we are making that case as a Government. If more can be done, I am happy to work to see what we can do.

We are discussing the here and now with respect to Barrow, but when we were over in Australia many of us were impressed with the level of development in both South Australia and Western Australia. But let us just say that the Australians do not meet their targets and deadlines. What would that mean for delivery here? Should there not be some prudent risk planning for the future going on here in the UK?

Our primary focus has to be on supporting the Australians to deliver their programme on the optimal pathway against the commitments they have made. We also need to make sure that we can deliver our own SSN-AUKUS programme as well. That involves an increase in the drumbeat of production. Our immediate job is to support the Australians in doing so, but we are absolutely focused on delivering our capabilities. That is a joint capability with our Australian friends. Conversations take place all the time as to how we can further support the Australians in doing so. We remain committed to the plan, which is supporting the build of SSN-AUKUS in Barrow and, in due course, in Australia. That is our primary task. Of course, we keep in close conversation with our Australian friends as to what support they need. If they do need further support, the regular dialogue enables us to discuss where the additional options are.

There is excitement about pillar 2. That is the message that we picked up from the many companies that have assisted us in this inquiry. There is excitement that their company could be involved in a national defence programme, and not just nationally or bilaterally, but trilaterally. We heard that in Australia. At a particular meeting in Western Australia, we were joined by you, Admiral, so you know exactly what I am talking about when we heard about those industrial developers and innovators who were saying, “We have this product.” We heard it in Washington, and we have heard it from people in industry in the UK. However, the downside is that no one is telling them exactly what AUKUS wants them to deliver. They are spending money on the presumption of what bits of information have been released so far. That excitement is feeling a bit squashed. Everybody is getting excited because of the UK job growth, the growth in Australia and the jobs that can be created in the US. Pillar 2 offers a dynamic that they have not seen in a long time. One of the things that has been mentioned is that we should have two or three marquee projects that can be developed to offer excitement and credibility that things can be done now. Industry is out there saying, “Tell me what you want and we can go away and develop it.” What is holding us up?

I will turn to Tim to answer the broader point, but if I can just set the scene, the Lovegrove review was very clear in the recommendation to the Prime Minister, which we have accepted, that we should focus on a small number of signature projects. Whether that is a signature project, a marquee project or whichever word is used in these three nations, it means the same thing: we want to have a smaller number of projects that we can focus on. We are engaged in conversation with our partners as to what those projects can be. When we can make an announcement in due course, we will do so. That does not mean that there are not opportunities across AUKUS pillar 2 for other technologies that we are deploying already. Tim will be able to speak to some of the industrial collaborations that we have and that we invite people to be involved in. The challenge is how to create a scalable end product from pillar 2. As we discussed earlier, we are already seeing technologies being developed, but for people to realise the advantages of pillar 2, it has to be something that has a pillar 2 badge on it that says, “This thing was made by nations under pillar 2.” I get that, but we should not over-focus on that end product. We should also talk about the technologies that might go into things. Tim, do you want to add some more?

There is an inherent tension in pillar 2 because, by design, it is about emerging technology. A lot of it was, to start with, focused on research and development. From where I sit in the MoD, we talk all the time about what operational problem we are trying to solve in order to send a really clear signal to industry. Rather than trying to arrive, as you might say, up and dressed, with our requirements all set, we want to say to industry, “These are the problems that we are trying to solve. How would you solve them in order that they can be released to be creative in that space?” There has been a lot of industry engagement around pillar 2. I do not want to dress this up as being on the scale that we want to be on in terms of our overall ambition, but just briefly, for example, in the AI and autonomy programmes there have been 10 contracts worth £13 million, including eight UK companies. On the Maritime Big Play, which is the project where industry is invited to come in to demonstrate and develop its capabilities, there have been 11 contracts this year alone. Some 70% of them have gone to UK companies and 60% of them to small and medium-sized enterprises. The hypersonics framework is engaged with 124 suppliers across seven countries, and 50% of them are small and medium-sized enterprises. We also run these innovation challenges. There was an electronic warfare innovation challenge, which awarded £2 million of contracts to four UK organisations this year. There is a second innovation challenge running with industry in maritime next. That is all fine, but I want to do justice to your question. We want to do more. We hear from industry the frustration around, “Where is the road map? Where do we go? How do we channel this in?” As I say, it is different. It is not like pillar 1, where you are a prime and you can very easily see where you fit into a big contractual framework. It is more diffuse in the innovation space, but what we are keen to do, especially pending the outcome of the US review, is find a way to scale up into more tangible capabilities, send a really clear signal to industry around what those are and then really get behind them and back them. As a military person, I am ultimately concerned not with endless science projects but getting capability into the hands of the warfighter. Getting that focus into pillar 2, converting the great work that has been done so far and making some real progress on that ought to help industry as well in terms of how they engage with it.

On that point, pillar 2 particularly involves other Government Departments that do not sit under the MoD. We have the Department for Education, with all the students in science and particularly STEM subjects, and also DSIT, which holds the purse strings for innovation, cyber and AI. Minister, what are you doing to make sure that those Departments are on board? How often do you meet to discuss pillar 2 or AUKUS in general?

Both pillar 1 and pillar 2 have a cross-Government nature. In relation to where we are looking at, we are awaiting the outcome of the US review, which will help to inform which marquee or signature projects we will look to find a political agreement on. To a certain extent, the work on the big projects is awaiting that decision, which will be discussed by John Healey in due course with his colleagues. The work that we are doing across Government at the moment is aided by Stephen Lovegrove, who helps to facilitate some of those bits. We want to be seeing more of those engagements. I meet DSIT regularly. I was there this morning, for example, talking about tech transfers and innovation. Things have changed in the last two and a bit months with the defence industrial strategy being published, which sets out a different role for defence in terms of skills. That puts us in a closer collaborative space with DfE in England and the devolved Administrations across the UK in looking at how our skills funding works with some of theirs to deliver some of that investment. When it comes to pillar 2, the provision of smaller contracts—they are like seed funding—enables tech to be built up. We also have UK Defence Innovation, which is a £400 million fund that is designed to invest in novel technologies. Effectively, it provides a bit of a road map for UK firms that are investing in innovative technologies. It says, “Here is a road map about how we can help scale those. This is the commitment we are making to spend more money, in particular with SMEs.” We are increasing our direct spend with SMEs by 50%. We are deliberately making those commitments with money attached to them so that there is a clearer route for people to bring their product to market, to be effectively acquired by UK MoD and for the MoD to use their technologies in a platform, component, algorithm or code way. That is the route that we need to take. There is more to do on this. I absolutely accept that. One of the challenges for the coming year on pillar 2 is to narrow down those options and provide greater clarity about what we are going after so we can see the excitement that you spoke about directed at certain key projects. That would be our hope and intention.

What comes with that excitement is the great investment and the talk that we are hearing from Government about investment in SMEs. When they go out to get a product, it is harder to get the funding for them than it is for one of the big primes. How conscious are you of the awareness that what you are asking companies to produce and test the viability of, at a cost to them, is a lot of people’s mortgages, if the end product does not get accepted by the MoD?

Yes, that is why we want to increase direct spend with SMEs and provide a clearer pathway for them. We believe there are SMEs that do not yet think of themselves as defence companies that have technologies that could aid us in the adoption of new novel technologies. That is why from the start of next year, we are standing up the Office for Small Business Growth, which is effectively a one-stop shop for SMEs to access defence procurement and to have a clarity on the barriers around security clearance and cyber-resilience that we legitimately ask of our suppliers and how they can navigate those to ensure that they can sell into defence. We have a stated objective to increase direct spend with SMEs. We are absolutely determined to go after that and deliver that, and we are re-plumbing the system to make it easier for that to happen. There is progress that we can make there.

Given the time, I want to ask some quickfire questions. We are talking about innovation and pillar 2. In the context of UK MoD, UK Defence Innovation is part of the defence reform. Where does and will UK Defence Innovation get its demand signal from? How does it understand what problems it needs to solve?

The SDR sets out the context; the defence investment plan sets out broadly the big buckets in terms of the technologies and platforms we wish to procure against certain parts of that. The demand signal within that comes from the National Armaments Director Group, the NAD Group, which will effectively set the priorities within that.

It is not MSHQ.

NAD Group helps to deliver the integrated force plan and the defence investment plan. Effectively, MSHQ creates the integrated force plan. What do they need? When do they need it? NAD Group goes out and buys that, but it is also involved in the problem sets. In the past, defence would say, “Buy this thing. Here is a long list of requirements.” We are trying to move that to, “Here are the capability outputs that we are after,” giving NAD Group greater freedoms to be more innovative in its procurements.

It travels from frontline command, from MSHQ to NAD Group and then down to UKDI.

UKDI is part of NAD Group, yes.

It goes to something in NAD Group and then down to UKDI as part of NAD Group. That is clear. Who is going to run UKDI?

We are seeking the leadership role for UKDI at the moment, but in terms of the clear direction—

How senior will that leader be in terms of staff?

We are defining that at the moment. I am happy to write to the Committee with the full details once that has been set out.

Almost a year after the defence reform was announced, we still do not know how senior the leader of UK Defence Innovation will be.

I do not want to say something that is not correct, so I will write to the Committee to check and get you the correct answer.

Who will they report to, whoever that leader is?

It is the National Armaments Director.

It will be direct to the NAD.

Yes. The NAD is in charge of the National Armaments Director Group. We have pieced together quite a lot of the disparate bits of the MoD under there. UKDI is a really key part of—

UKDI will have a leader, who is not currently there. We do not know how senior they will be, but we do know they will report directly to the National Armaments Director.

I do not know the answer to all those questions off the top of my head, but I want to get them right. I will write to the Committee with the full details of those. I do not want to get something wrong.

Nine months after the announcement of defence reform and UKDI, it would be good to have an idea, not just for me but for industry, which is desperate for a clear idea about what the MoD wants it to do, what it wants it to invest in and what capabilities it wants. That would be very useful.

The defence investment plan will come out shortly. We are certainly seeing the energy from industry around Rupert’s appointment as National Armaments Director and a lot of energy around the changes he is putting in place.

I can see similarities with what we were just discussing about investment in Barrow. It is probably similar with Team Barrow and where we find ourselves now. We have huge interest from people who want to get involved with Team Barrow. Many of them want to invest with their own businesses. Others are interested because there is a huge amount of Government money coming in and everybody would like a bite of that cherry. We are doing a massive piece of work at the moment to work out who is going to be beneficial and who is not. I have to put on the record that I am a member of Team Barrow, just for people to be aware. They want to know where we are heading with the funding for this, where we can ensure that things will happen at speed and we will move away from the siloed working that they are now doing within Team Barrow. They acknowledge that everybody does their own job, but it is much slower if they are not communicating well. How can we do a better job with the funding for pillar 2 to make sure that that will work and we can get the right people involved rather than just being overwhelmed with the numbers that want to be in on the programme now?

The objective of pillar 2 is to narrow down the number of projects to a smaller number so that the funding, the use cases and the tech challenge we are trying to overcome can be clearer. That sets a clearer demand signal for those partners in the nations that are involved with those pillar 2 programmes to be able to go against. We want that clarity. That was part of the Lovegrove review. We accept that recommendation. That is what we want to get after. Our hope is that 2026 is the timeframe when we will be able to go after that level of clarity. That does not stop there being other projects on which UK, Australian and American firms in that pillar 2 set-up are providing opportunities for collaboration in addition to what we hope will be a small number of very signature projects.

While pillar 1 is very clearly a trilateral arrangement, we have set out that we believe that there are opportunities within pillar 2 for other nations to be involved. Canada, New Zealand, Japan and the Republic of Korea are the nations that have expressed interest and we believe are closest to having the close collaborative defence relationship not just with the UK but with the US and Australia that would be necessary to be a pillar 2 nation. That provides an opportunity for more technologies, cost-sharing and other things to be brought to the party. We are looking at how that can be brought together. Partly that needs to be on the back of where the US review ends up, in terms of where pillar 2 will look at, but we think, as a nation, that there are real opportunities for other nations to potentially be involved in some pillar 2 activities. It depends on individual nations finding a strategic advantage and being involved with that particular pillar 2 technology that we will seek to go against. There is some advantage in expanding the co-operation—we have seen some of that already with Japan being involved in some of the activities around the Carrier Strike Group in a pseudo-pillar 2 opportunity—but having additional nations participate needs to be a benefit to the United Kingdom as well as a benefit to those nations.

There are opportunities there, but I do not want to simply open the doors to the club and say, “Come on in,” without clarity about what projects we want people to participate in and where we see there being an advantage for the UK and the trilateral partners of further participation. That could be cost-sharing; it could be the tech they bring to a particular challenge that we are seeking to overcome. There has to be an advantage to participation. There is a good opportunity for that on some pillar 2 technologies, but those conversations are still ongoing. We are not yet at a point where we are saying, “Against this technology, these nations are going to be involved.” Because pillar 2, unlike pillar 1, could have subset projects, you might not necessarily see any nation that joins suddenly saying, “We are involved with everything.” They may have an expertise that we would like to see them use or focus on one particular type of technology. That is still to be determined.

It has been a fascinating session. Thank you very much, Minister Pollard, for your contributions, along with Vice Admiral Sir Chris Gardner and Air Marshal Tim Jones. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedules to inform our inquiry. We hope that we will be publishing a report for all to consume in the early part of next year.