(Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
9. What recent progress his Department has made on the AUKUS
partnership.(900860)
The Minister for Defence Procurement ()
I am pleased to confirm that we have made significant progress in
developing the AUKUS partnership. The AUKUS defence ministerial
meeting last month announced a range of tri-national activities
taking forward advanced capabilities, including our deep space
advanced radar capability, DARC. Australian personnel are
training in the UK and the US, and £4 billion-worth of contracts
have been awarded to UK companies building SSN-AUKUS. Finally,
Congress passed legislation to enable AUKUS to facilitate
frictionless trade between partners, including the reform of the
international traffic in arms regulations.
Mrs Latham
The Secretary of State, together with the Australian Prime
Minister, was recently welcomed at Rolls-Royce
Raynesway in my constituency as part of the AUKUS preparations. I
am sure the Minister would also be welcomed, if he can find time
in his schedule for a visit. Two years ago,
Rolls-Royce opened its doors to the UK’s first
nuclear skills academy, which takes on 200 apprentices annually
and trains them to become nuclear engineers. Has the Minister
considered how the Government can work with
Rolls-Royce to further the UK’s nuclear skills
capacity?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her excellent question and I
would be delighted to visit Raynesway. Last August, I was pleased
to announce the launch of the nuclear skills taskforce, jointly
with the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net
Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and
Kincardine (). The taskforce will drive
activity through a coherent action plan, bringing together
Government, academia and employers, crucially from across both
civil and defence nuclear sectors, including from
Rolls-Royce. It will build on existing work to
address the skills challenge across the nuclear sector and will
bolster our ability to deliver on our commitments made under the
AUKUS defence partnership.
(Warley) (Lab)
AUKUS has strong support from across the House, but although the
time scales seem very long, in reality there is growing concern
in the defence community that they may already be slipping, often
because of bureaucratic inertia. What is being done to keep this
vital project on track? How often is the Minister meeting his
officials to monitor and chase progress?
I am not aware of any slippage. We meet frequently and discuss
this incredibly important matter. I am pleased to hear his
confidence that AUKUS has cross-party support. It is generating
huge numbers of jobs for the future: an additional 1,700 jobs
will be created in Raynesway to build the reactors for the UK and
Australia. It is an incredibly exciting project and we are 100%
committed to it.
Mr Speaker
I call the shadow Minister.
(Garston and Halewood)
(Lab)
Let me make clear that AUKUS pillar 1 and pillar 2 have Labour’s
full backing. However, we are concerned about whether the
Government’s current focus on implementing AUKUS is sufficient
and we want more UK leadership for this national endeavour. The
latest list of ministerial responsibilities, from October 2023,
does not even mention AUKUS or Australia, although it does
mention the USA. Ministers have agreed that pillar 1 should have
only a part-time official responsible for its implementation. If
AUKUS is not even in his job description and his officials are
working on it part time, how can we take the Minister seriously
when he says it is important?
The way we take it seriously is not by judging the number of
officials or what we are doing in that regard, but by looking at
what we are actually delivering in the real world in terms of
military capability and for British industry. As I just said, the
US has reformed ITAR and there are thousands of jobs across the
UK, boosting our Indo-Pacific capabilities. This is an extremely
important project. We are making huge progress and the Government
are very proud of the partnership.
