What assessment he has made of the progress on the delivery of the Dreadnought programme.

On 9 May, I visited my hon. Friend’s constituency and we went to see the Dreadnought programme. He was with me when I signed the delivery of phase 3, the most important phase of rolling out the first of class HMS Dreadnought, in Barrow-in-Furness. It is set for sea trials so that it will be ready for patrol, hopefully in the early 2030s.

It was a pleasure to host my right hon. Friend in Barrow for that announcement. The submarine programme based in my constituency supports more than 11,000 jobs locally, but the Astute programme, the Dreadnought programme and the boats being developed under SSN(R) will keep us and our allies safe for generations to come. With that in mind, will my right hon. Friend thank those people, from pipefitters to programme directors, for the work they are doing on that critical national programme?

My hon. Friend is right. In Barrow, they are doing some of the most complex engineering on earth, and it is breath-taking and a huge achievement. Not only are we rolling out the Dreadnought class, but we have committed funding for the next stage of the attack submarine, the next generation of Astutes. It is a vital part of our subsea defence and I am delighted that the Australians, when they chose to switch from the French submarine, came to the United States and the United Kingdom as future partners in that programme, because very few places in the world can do it. One of those places is Barrow.