Speeches by Pollard.

“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.”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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 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 emb…”

“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 peri…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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 su…”

“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 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.”

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

“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 a…”

“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 …”

“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.…”

“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…”

“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…”