Kiran Stacey

You try and build very big, very sophisticated pieces of kit.

They're often out of date by the time you get them.

The Ministry of Defense, what they would say is we are living in a time of real instability.

John Healy talks a lot about the threats, not only about what's going on in the Gulf, but also particularly about the threat from Russia.

He has talked in the past.

He's given a whole press conferences about the fact that Russian submarines are

He says on our communications equipment at the seabed, you know, around the top of the North Sea and that we need equipment to be able to deal with that.

Now, there are two or three really big projects that are in question here.

One is called GCAP, which is a silly name, really, but it's actually just fighter planes.

Right.

And we were supposed to be building a whole new fleet of fighter planes here.

The Treasury said in the end, we're happy to do that, but we actually want to take charge of the program, not you, because you misspend this money.

Another big program that's in question here is called AUKUS.

And this is a big deal, not only for defense, but also geopolitics.

This is a partnership between the US, UK and Australia.

to design a new fleet of nuclear submarines.

It's going to incorporate technologies from all three of those countries.

And the UK and Australia are supposed to buy these submarines at the end.

Now, this was going to provide a major boost to the UK, not just in terms of defense, but also in terms of growth.

It's going to boost the industrial base.