British Defence Secretary ‘confident’ Australian nuclear sub to be made in Britain

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said he was confident Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine would be British-made.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said it was “inevitable” that Australia would turn to Five Eyes intelligence partners to deliver a nuclear-powered submarine and he was confident the boat would be British-made.

Mr Wallace, speaking at a think-tank side event at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Tuesday, hailed Australia’s decision to change to nuclear-powered submarines as “saying something about Australia’s ambition”. He said France shouldn’t have taken the Australian move personally because “it was perfectly logical that the partners to choose would come from within the Five Eyes”.

Five Eyes is the intelligence-sharing partnership of Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

Mr Wallace said this big decision was strategic, likening it to a decision of whom to marry.

“Deciding to do that is extremely committed, and we are really committed to a nuclear capability. It is not something to go and buy off the shelf,” he said.

Mr Wallace also noted that the decision was “not about France and France shouldn’t take it personally”.

“Once Australia had decided to change from a diesel-electric submarine capability to a nuclear one to remain undetected below surface for a very long time it was inevitable that the Five Eyes were the partners, and I am afraid that is just the way it is,” he said.

Mr Wallace said he regularly visits the BAE Systems submarine plant at Burrow-In-Furness and noted that “they are the most complex things on earth”.

He said the submarine production would fit in with the British production cycle, given that the country has just kicked off its hunter-killer submarines, and the US is in full flow on its own boats. Australia has yet to decide whether to model its new submarine on the British or American models.

The British are in the final stages of completing the fifth Astute-class submarine, HMS Anson, which will begin sea trials early next year.

“We are in a strong position to help the Australians achieve that capability so I am very confident that British engineering, British skills, Australian nous, will deliver a very good submarine,” Mr Wallace said.

The former foreign minister and former high commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer, told the same panel at the Tory conference that Australia “hugely welcomes” British involvement in the Indo-Pacific.

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer. Picture: AAP

Mr Downer, chair of the conservative think tank Policy Exchange, said the development of AUKUS – the tripartite nuclear-powered submarine alliance involving Australia, Britain and the US – “has been a seminal moment, a really exciting moment”.

He said this was a “pivotal period” in British foreign and security policy and that people in two or decades’ time will look back and see this was a time when it fundamentally changed.

“To keep the world stable, prosperous and successful, then the West, the liberal democracies have to rally together more than they have done,” Mr Downer said.

“An abject lesson to us is that we have to show more resolve. Western countries as liberal democracies have to coalesce together more firmly than we had done before. The signs are there that the UK is back as a major player, the UK is making a contribution and let’s be honest there is nothing easier than for us Australians to work with the British and the Americans and the Canadians on a good day. It has been very exciting to see this transformation of British foreign and security policy.”

Mr Downer said the British government has to become involved so that the US is not carrying the burden or that, in the Indo-Pacific, Australia and Japan or India “can do the job”.