Landmark AUKUS meeting confirms commitment to trilateral project

The Defence Secretary has reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to the AUKUS defence partnership during a historic meeting in London.

John Healey said the agreement between the United States, Australia and UK came under ‘a growing cloud of global insecurity.’ Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia and the UK will operate a common submarine of the future, incorporating technology from all three nations, based on the UK’s next generation design led by BAE Systems.

Healey hosted the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd James Austin III and Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles to discuss the importance of the AUKUS partnership. The meeting was the first trilateral Defence Ministers AUKUS meeting to be held outside of the United States.

The three-year anniversary of the partnership was marked this month following a historic breakthrough in defence trade was reached between the UK, US, and Australia.

A significant reduction in red tape will allow trade worth up to £500 million of UK defence exports each year with billions of dollars of trade across all three nations helping boost UK economic growth.

The government says it is estimated that at its peak, the future AUKUS attack submarine programme will have more than 21,000 people working on it at UK sites, with the work generating an additional 7,000 skilled roles.

“As AUKUS partners, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder in an increasingly unstable world,”Defence Secretary, John Healey said: “This is a partnership that will boost jobs, growth and prosperity across our three nations, as well as strengthening our collective security.”

He added: “I’m delighted that we will soon be commencing negotiations on a bilateral AUKUS treaty with Australia, which will help create a more secure and stable Indo-Pacific for decades to come.”

The treaty work follows a UK-Australia Defence and Security Cooperation Agreement which was signed earlier this year, helping make it easier for UK armed forces to operate together in partner countries and allow UK submarine crews to visit Australia as part of the AUKUS partnership.

Since the AUKUS programme launch, nearly £10 billion of investment has been allocated towards UK nuclear work and infrastructure:

• £4 billion to progress SSN-AUKUS UK submarines through design, prototyping and initial purchases.
• £3 billion for new advanced manufacturing capabilities in Barrow-in-Furness and Derby.
• £2.4 billion over ten years from Australia to boost Rolls-Royce infrastructure and to share costs on SSN-AUKUS submarine design.

Through AUKUS Pillar 2, Australia, the UK and the US are pooling the talents of their defence sectors to develop at pace the delivery of advanced capabilities. Four UK companies have been selected by the UK’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) to receive a share of £2 million of funding to develop solutions in electromagnetic targeting and protection.