Speeches by Pollard.

“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 fac…”

“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 si…”

“I want to understand what happened first.”

“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 e…”

“It is unhelpful to confuse two of those together.”

“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 coul…”

“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.”

“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 collabo…”

“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…”

“We have not yet got to the final outcome.”

“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 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.”

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

“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—”

“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.”

“It is the National Armaments Director.”

“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.”

“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 oppo…”

“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.”

“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…”