Over the parliamentary recess in my role as Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry I visited Japan, New Zealand and Australia on behalf of the UK Government for meetings that underlined the importance of our strategic partnership with all three countries.

Our relationship with Australia is now closer than in many decades, with the AUKUS agreement an important piece of our deterrent strategy going forward. I was pleased to visit the Osborne Shipyard in Adelaide to see progress on production of the next nuclear submarine production facility there.

In Auckland I met with my New Zealand counterparts and industry leaders to discuss deepening our security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and other joint defence initiatives. I also met with my counterpart Minister Honda in the Japanese government and other officials in Tokyo to discuss collaboration on major defence industrial initiatives including the GCAP next generation fighter programme.