LATIKA M BOURKE: UK AUKUS envoy Stephen Lovegrove tells Australia ‘don’t worry about us’

Keir Starmer’s AUKUS envoy says he wants to serve the UK Prime Minister’s successor and told The Nightly that Australia does not need to worry about the political upheaval over defence spending affecting the submarine production pact.

Sir Keir could be replaced by Andy Burnham as soon as next month, after bowing to pressure from his Labour colleagues to resign.

He had been under pressure since almost the beginning of his short premiership over a series of unforced errors, poor relations with MPs and no clear political strategy or plan to deliver the change he promised at the election two years ago, when he won in a landslide.

The eventual trigger for his downfall was a row over defence spending, with his then Defence Secretary John Healey quitting, saying his boss was not willing to fund national security as required and was leaving the country unsafe.

Mr Healey quit just hours before he was due to tour a naval base with Defence Minister Richard Marles to promote AUKUS, effectively standing up his Australian counterpart.

But Sir Stephen Lovegrove, who has also served as National Security Advisor in the UK and at the highest levels in the civil service, said the turmoil in the UK should not worry Australians about the long-term plan to build submarines together.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about the state of AUKUS in the UK. The investments are so large, which are going into Barrow and to Rolls-Royce in Derby, that they’re sort of unturnoffables really,” he said, during an appearance at the Westminster think tank Policy Exchange.

“Likewise, in the States, there’s a lot of talk about that as well, that ship has sailed, as it were. AUKUS is part of all three countries’ most important projects. It’s going to continue.”

Under the AUKUS submarine pact struck in 2021, Australia will buy three Virginia-class boats from the US Navy’s current fleet from early next decade.

Then Australia and the UK plan to build a brand new attack boat based on the UK’s existing Astute-class of boats that will be called SSN-AUKUS.

Shortly before quitting, Mr Healey said that steel would be cut on the first SSN-AUKUS, which will be for the UK’s fleet, next year.

The Australian government has repeatedly insisted that the UK will deliver on its end of the bargain, despite serious concerns about the UK’s poor production rates and degraded ability to field its current fleet.

The House of Commons Defence Select Committee chair Tan Dhesi has warned that the program is “plodding along” and needs a serious reboot from the three AUKUS leaders, as well as demanded his governing party deliver more defence spending sooner.

But Sir Stephen, who chairs Rolls-Royce SMR, the company that wants to build small modular nuclear reactors, said that while he could not speak about the broader UK defence investment plans, he did not fear for submarine funding.

“I don’t have any real concerns about the commitment to our nuclear submarine fleet, either the bombers or the attack boats,” he said.

“So I would encourage Australian and indeed American colleagues not to read alarming things into basically, shorter-term political perturbation in the UK.”

Sir Stephen also told The Nightly that he wanted to continue serving in his AUKUS role under the UK Prime Minister’s successor, Andy Burnham.

“I was renewed by the Prime Minister in that appointment for another stint in April. Do I want to continue doing it? Yes, I do,” he said.

“It’s very, very, very critical strategic, security development. It’s the most important strategic defence collaboration since 1956, and any part that I can play in helping it to be successful, then I would like to play.

“It’s not my choice as to whether or not the new Prime Minister thinks that’s appropriate or not, and I’ll leave that in his hands.

“I will certainly be trying to make the argument that someone — doesn’t have to be me — someone plays the kind of role that I hope I’ve been playing.”

Little is known about Andy Burnham’s foreign policy views.

The former Mayor of Manchester is destined to become the Prime Minister of the UK in a coronation, with key rival Wes Streeting throwing in the towel.

But the timing of the transition has only added to the ongoing row about defence funding.

Sir Keir will still be in the job during the time of the NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, set for the second week of July.

Current Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis said this week that he would publish the Defence Investment Plan before heading to Türkiye with the UK PM. The move would deprive Mr Burnham of releasing his own version first.

“There is £11 billion ($21b) more in the annual defence budget than there was when we entered office . . . we will invest £270b ($515b) in defence over the course of this Parliament,” he said.

But the UK is lagging on defence spending compared to other European allies, falling from third to twelfth place in the latest NATO report measuring allies’ spending.

US President Donald Trump successfully demanded allies pay 3.5 per cent of their GDP on defence and another 1.5 per cent on associated infrastructure by 2035 at last year’s NATO summit.

The UK is currently spending 2.4 per cent and aims to move to 3 per cent in the next parliament beginning 2029.

During a visit to the White House, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte lavished Mr Trump with praise, and held up a chart showing what he labelled as the “Trump Trillion” in defence spending from Europe and Canada.

Mr Trump reiterated his anger at European allies for refusing to support his war in Iran and said he would not have gone to NATO because of it but was going out of respect for host President Recep Erdoğan.

“I wouldn’t have gone for what we went through over the last two months with the various countries. I was disappointed with Italy, I was disappointed with UK, he’s now gone,” Mr Trump said, referring to Sir Keir.

He said he did not want anything but their loyalty and suggested he would be quizzing allies’ progress on last year’s commitments.

“The big question is, are they paying the 5 per cent? They agreed six months ago when we were together to pay per cent, and for the most part they’re not paying that,” he said.