It was floated by Wallace after he hosted Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles for dinner at his favourite pub close to his hometown in the Lake District ahead of their formal bilateral meeting at BAE Systems shipyards in Barrow-in-Furness.
Australia is to decide by early next year whether to buy its first boats “off the shelf” from either Britain of the United States,or possibly even a composite solution.
Asked byThe Sydney Morning HeraldandThe Ageif Britain was in a position to supply Australia with its first sub,Wallace said that was not the only way to address the region’s capability needs in the short-term.
“We’re not in a position to provide an Astute,here and now,” he said.
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He said that HMS Anson,which was commissioned at a ceremony attended by Marles as well as Prime MinisterBoris Johnson who flew in specifically to meet the Deputy Prime Minister,was only the fifth boat in the seven that the UK has ordered for its own needs.
“Once I’ve got seven,the ability to pulse,base and potentially be more permanent over in the Pacific becomes very much a greater reality,” he said.