I am happy to engage with the Committee, as I did during the week on artificial intelligence. There will always be a balance to be struck between what we can share and where we have to recognise the sensitivity of defence.
From the High North to the Mediterranean, we are deploying 20,000 service personnel from our Navy, Army and Air Force on the NATO exercise Steadfast Defender,
which is one of the alliance’s largest ever training exercises. It is a valuable opportunity to strengthen interoperability between us and our allies.
I am happy to report that, as the right hon. Members for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and for Warley (John Spellar) said, overnight we have had confirmation that a new defence and security co-operation agreement has been signed with Australia, which will make it easier for our armed forces to operate together in each other’s country. It will also help facilitate UK submarine crews to visit Australia as part of AUKUS.
A large number of points have been made in this debate, and I will try to take as many as I can. The Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Sir Jeremy Quin), and several others, particularly the right hon. Member for Warley, talked about the importance of industrial resilience, and I totally agree.
The right hon. Member for Warley made an important point about finance. We must not forget the private sector’s role in investing in defence. We have seen commentary on environmental, social and governance, on which he wants to see cross-Government work. I am pleased to confirm that, with my Treasury colleagues, we held a meeting at Rothschild’s in the City to see what more we can do, and I am confident that we will be saying more on this important point about how we make the case for investing in defence as a way of investing in peace.