I am delighted to be here in Armed Forces week. And earlier this year I reset the focus and our work at UK aid.

I made a speech about our national values and our connection to humanity and why that for us is something more than just a pragmatic choice for our nation.

Being unselfish and caring for others is at the core of our national values. It’s embedded in our politics and in our democracy. It’s at the heart of how we organise our public services. And it is the core principle behind how we pay for them.

The British people like to help each other. It’s in our communities, it’s how we work with our neighbours and our belief in good causes. And it is our ultimate expression of that willingness to help to serve in our Armed Forces.

And I say this as a Secretary of State who is both a current member of our Armed Forces and a former aid worker.

In that speech I spoke about operations MANNA and CHOWHOUND, run by the RAF in the closing stages of World War II. They were humanitarian aid drops of food to save the lives of thousands of people in the still unliberated Netherlands.

They were operations done at great risk, with little benefit to the war effort and they took from our own. Our own rationing was cut in Britain just 19 days after those air drops ceased.

So why did we do it? Because that is what great nations do. And I know that the connection between UK aid and our Armed Forces is deep and strong.

The instinct to protect and defend walks hand in hand with our politics.

Defence, diplomacy and development are inter-reliant on each other.

Often, we need our Armed Forces to create the security and the means to reach those that we are trying to help. Our Armed Forces are the global role model in this regard.

And defence depends on diplomacy and development to reduce the crises that it is dealing with.

As General Mattis said as he argued to maintain funding to the State Department, “If you want to cut the budget, you better buy me some more bombs.”

We’re both operationally focused departments, expert at getting the job done, often in incredibly difficult circumstances.

We are both members of the National Security Council. Our purpose is aligned, and with huge operational experience of working together: Typhoon Haiyan, Ebola, Mount Sinjar, the Caribbean hurricanes and the Nepal earthquake – and of course we work in conflict zones most notably on operations in Afghanistan.

We work in the same places, with DFID committed to spending 50% of our Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) in fragile and conflict affected states.

The UK has two of the largest mine action charities, HALO and Mines Advisory Group, who are already making use of ex-service personnel with explosive ordnance disposal expertise.

And sometimes our people aren’t just similar; they are the same people. There is a huge crossover between those who work in international development and those who are Armed Forces reservists.

Many I meet out in the field carrying out projects in the wake of disasters are Armed Forces veterans on their second career.

Part of the 0.7% Gross National Income aid budget has always been spent by defence and in support of defence.

But there is now a new approach that we are taking that involves much more explicit co-designed and co-funded projects. And these will help deliver excellence in aid but also will work more explicitly in Britain’s national interest.

A good example of that approach is the new projects that we’re taking forward with the MOD.

We’re doing this with every department, but defence was a particular priority. The first non-humanitarian trip I did as Secretary of State at the turn of the year was to the United States to look at civilian-military cooperation, which the Americans do extremely well.

I worked with their Armed Forces, with my US counterparts and others to develop our thinking on this.

Mark Green and I spoke at RUSI earlier in Spring on this issue and later together we launched the Hope in Conflict fund. This is a tech challenge to organisations around the world to provide us with new capabilities and solutions to protect people in conflict situations.

I want DFID and the MOD to develop those capabilities together. Whether it’s civil contingencies at home or humanitarian crises overseas. We can inform and support each other to better meet the challenges that we both face.

We’ve sought to generate our own capabilities which again will give Her Majesty’s Government more options in crises. For example, we’re tapping into the best minds in tech, defence civil contingencies and elsewhere to better protect civilians. And this was the idea behind the Humanitarian Innovation Hub I announced earlier this year.

I was fed up with going to the House of Commons and having to explain to them why technically we couldn’t air drop food and aid, or get the power back up, or create drinking water for people under siege in conflict zones. So we are developing those new capabilities.

And at the core of these changes is my intention to make best use of both our budgets. If I can deliver a humanitarian operation and it is cost-effective, and appropriate for me to seek the use of UK military assets to do so, then I will.

The fact that my actions benefit another department is a reason for doing it, not a reason for not doing it. And that’s why we must demonstrate in everything we do with UK aid that it is not just that we are spending money well, but that we couldn’t spend the money better in the national interest.

That is the new higher spending bar that my department has to meet.

So if there’s spare capability in defence that development can use, then we should do so and we should foot the bill for it. That’s right, to sweat those assets that have been paid for by UK taxpayers.

This is not about the militarisation of aid, but about ensuring that each department plays a complimentary role.

Government must be more than the sum of its parts.

And Global Britain remains committed to upholding and promoting international humanitarian law and its principles.

Remember, this country was the driving force behind the Geneva Conventions of 1949. And we were the driving force between the anti-personnel landmine ban and the Cluster Munitions Convention.

We take the preservation of international humanitarian law seriously.

Why? Because we have long memories.

And it has proved very expensive in the past for us to restore those norms, once they’ve been lost.

A disregard for those principles is directly responsible for the increasing civilian death rate and suffering in conflict.

Increasingly, parties to conflict are putting obstacles to civilians receiving even the most basic relief and protection. This is one of the main challenges faced by my department on a daily basis.

And we simply must make every effort to ensure that where that law is broken those responsible are held to account.

So, what else will you see different in the future about how we work with defence?

We’re talking about how we can best work together, share ideas and learn lessons.

We’ll further improve our joint preparedness for extreme weather events and in particular the hurricane season. And we’ll build the disaster response capability of all developing country partners.

We’re also building stronger ties in our respective worlds.

DFID briefs defence attachés before they go out into country. And DFID colleagues take key MOD leadership courses and the MOD brief us regularly.

In the future, we’re looking at working on several new projects tackling gender-based violence.

And this might include the provision and the improvement of quality of peacekeeping troops, as well as joint training programs and building stability and preventing conflict in developing countries.

The future does look exciting and there’s much more we can do to ensure that we’re more than the sum of our parts. But there are further things we can do too to support those who chose to do their duty for our nation.

Across the Commonwealth, many answered the call to serve alongside Her Majesty’s Armed Forces before their countries became independent.

And approximately 8,500 of these elderly veterans, or their widows, face a daily struggle to meet their basic needs for decent food, shelter and medicines. No-one could possibly think that is right.

Those who have served alongside our nation deserve our support in their twilight years.

So, I am very pleased to announce that DFID is designing a bespoke program for pre-independence Commonwealth veterans, who served under the Commonwealth banner as UK allies prior to their countries becoming independent, and are now living below the poverty line.

We’re working with veterans’ charities to ensure that those who have given so much are looked after for the rest of their lives.

We expect the program to commence next year at the point when Libor funding for those individuals ceases.

It’s a win for the developing world and it’s a win for the UK on an issue the public care passionately about: the welfare of our veterans.

And it is a further example of how UK aid is changing. A national mission in the national interests.

A global Britain delivering the Global Goals.

Thank you.

UK satellite imagery was also provided to government officials co-ordinating the response to help provide initial estimates of the scale of the blaze. The images below shows initial estimates of burned area and is taken from Airbus UK-DMC2 satellite imagery acquired early on Wed 27th June.

Sara Huntingdon from the UK Space Agency said:

The UK space sector plays a major role in using satellites for disaster risk management including the International Disaster Charter which brings together a collection of satellites from all over the world to collect data and images from areas suffering from natural and man-made disasters. From the Caribbean to the moorlands of Manchester, satellite data can play a major role in helping first responders coordinate relief efforts and potentially save lives.

In a further demonstration of the UK’s expertise in this area, UK scientists at the University of Bristol recently made a major contribution to assessing the hazard of Guatemala’s Fuego volcano. Maps and scientific analysis from satellite imagery including the Charter were provided to Guatemalan civil protection and local volcanologists.

The Charter is made up of 16 agencies, including the UK Space Agency, who work in partnership with Airbus to provide images and other satellite information free of charge to emergency response agencies around the world, whenever major disasters strike.

Since the Charter was founded in 1999 it has responded to 576 disasters including tsunami in Indonesia and Thailand in 2004, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the earthquake in Nepal in 2015 and Hurricane Irma last year in the Caribbean.

Highways England aims to dual an eight-mile stretch of the A30 between Chiverton and Carland Cross.

This will help to improve journey times for residents, businesses and visitors, as well as unlocking one of the last bottlenecks in Cornwall.

After opening the plans up for public consultation earlier this year the company is now continuing its community engagement, attending the Stithians Show on 16 July and the Camborne Show on 21 July. It will also be participating in live web chats with the first planned this Friday, 29 June (1pm-3pm) and a second on Friday, 27 July.

Project Manager Josh Hodder said:

We were at the Golowan Festival in Penzance last weekend and received plenty of interest from both communities local to the scheme and holiday-makers, and we are keen to keep communities updated on our plans.

Since consultation, we have been progressing with details of the design, working to reduce impact on the environment, and continuing our engagement and discussions with local communities.

I’d urge anyone with an interest to come and chat with us to find out more and answer any questions they have.

The dualling plan follows the opening of Cornwall Council’s A30 Temple to Higher Carblake dualling scheme last year.

Highways England is now finalising the details of the scheme, before submitting its planning application in late summer at which point people will also have the opportunity to register with the Planning Inspectorate to have their say.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling MP visited the site last week.

He was updated on the county’s improving transport links and services by Cornwall Council, and he also saw first hand the heavy traffic on the A30 and heard from the project team for the planned A30 Chiverton to Carland Cross improvement scheme.

The cost of developing the scheme is being partly funded by an £8 million contribution from the European Regional Development Fund, with an additional £12 million for the construction phase. The remainder of the cost of developing and delivering the scheme will be funded by central Government.

Subject to statutory approval, construction is planned to start in spring 2020.

In the meantime, anyone wanting further information on accessing the web chats can go to the web page.

General enquiries

Members of the public should contact the Highways England customer contact centre on 0300 123 5000.

Media enquiries

Journalists should contact the Highways England press office on 0844 693 1448 and use the menu to speak to the most appropriate press officer.

As some of you will have heard a few weeks ago at the RUSI maritime conference, the Secretary of State for Defence spoke of his vision for the Royal Navy, delivered through the vehicle of the Sir Henry Leach memorial lecture, the first of those in a series; I was grateful to him for coming to do that. He reflected on how today’s Royal Navy would be viewed by that great post-war advocate for the value of sea power, Sir Henry Leach.

Of course, he held the office of First Sea Lord during the Falkland’s conflict, that formative experience of my own Naval career. Sir Henry’s understanding of navies and what they mean to an island nation like the UK was forged during his time as a Junior Officer in the Second World War.

But as many of you will know, at that stage it wasn’t Sir Henry who was making the headlines. It was his father, Captain John Leach, Captain of the battleship Prince of Wales, a King George V Class battleship. It had a short but very busy life, lost eventually in December 1941 off the coast of Malaya but with great significance earlier that year she had sailed across with Prime Minister Churchill to Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, in August 1941 to provide the venue for an historic meeting between Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt, at which they set the scene for that pivotal policy statement that emerged from that meeting, the Atlantic Charter.

In those darkest of times at the height of the Second World War, our shared ideology of Anglo-American internationalism shone through, a clear expression of intent that Britain and America had to cooperate for the cause of international peace and security.

In the 77 years since that statement was issued, I would contend that the world has changed significantly, perhaps in some ways beyond all recognition.

Because today, as you heard from CNO, we live in an interconnected world where information is increasingly seen as the vital resource. Where we face an increasingly diverse range of potential adversaries, all of them emboldened by weapons proliferation. Where the resultant threats abound from space to sea bed.

It might seem rather alien to Captain John Leach on the bridge of Prince of Wales in 1941, or even to his son, Sir Henry on the bridge of the Royal Navy in 1982.

Yet there are also constants that I think would have been entirely familiar to both of them.

Crucially the importance of the maritime domain, the challenges of strategic great power competition, and the commitment of Great Britain and the United States to uphold international law and freedom of access to the global commons of the sea. All of those are common threads, as applicable in 2018 as they were in 1941.

So I’m indebted to Admiral Richardson for his very clear articulation of why the maritime matters in the 21st century, the brilliant slides he used to illustrate that, and why there is a collective security challenge that we face in that maritime domain. You won’t be surprised to hear I absolutely share that view. Indeed you could take that map of the world that he showed, and his Navy is of course deployed very extensively around it at scale to very significant effect. But so is the Royal Navy, of course to less scale but I hope also to significant effect. We’ve been operating in every ocean in the world and share the US Navy’s operational focus about the importance of presence. The importance of influence.

I was going to highlight just one area where we are linked, perhaps more than anywhere else, and it’s seen renewed efforts by both our Navies alongside our partners to counter the proliferation of threats; that’s in the North Atlantic. You only need look at the hugely significant symbolism of the United States Navy re-establishing the 2nd Fleet and the very fact that the Royal Navy’s high readiness response units in the North Atlantic are called upon ever more frequently.

It will be a major area of shared capability development as we look to how we will operate in that theatre going forward; equally importantly, the very high levels of operational activity now are shaping the thinking of both our Navies.

But our responsibilities, our shared responsibilities, are not of course confined to the North Atlantic. This year the Royal Navy has been out and about, perhaps at greater extent than for over 10 years. Operating, as I said, in every ocean of the world, trying to address the strategic challenges of today as seen from the United Kingdom, and part of a collective effort with all of our allies to maintain freedom and security on the high seas. And to enable that growth of global economic prosperity upon which our nation depends. And to uphold the international norms which we are the two principal nations and navies charged with defending.

There is of course nothing new in that. Historians and those who study the Royal Navy over a long period will know we’ve been at this for half a millennium, in some ways in an unchanged way. It’s all about national interest, it’s about exerting national influence, it’s about supporting partners and it’s about promoting our country’s prosperity; nothing changes in that space.

But to meet the breadth and depth of the security challenges we face today, and to have a sense of being able to deal with them going forward, we’re going to need a Navy that can bring a full spectrum of world-beating maritime capabilities to bear, alongside our partners, to deter and if necessary to defeat would-be aggressors who would challenge our nation. And we need to be able to do that on the waves, above and below them. We need to be able to do it from the sea to the land and we need to be able to do it in space and cyberspace. It’s quite a challenge to be able to do all of that at the same time.

And that’s exactly how the Royal Navy is adapting, transforming and modernising. And the current Modernising Defence Programme that’s running at the heart of Whitehall is enabling us to do that; the Navy is leaning powerfully into it as a great opportunity for us to realise that vision.

The arrival of our new aircraft carriers, Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales, along with their F35B lightning aircraft that will fly from them, means that we too will soon be able to take our place alongside the US Navy and French Navy delivering continuous carrier strike capability as part of a globally deployed maritime task group. That’s a very significant statement for the UK as a nation, not the Royal Navy as a navy, to make.

If you combine this with the fact that we have been delivering continuous at sea deterrence, unbroken for 49 years, and then you add into that our expertise in the littoral based upon the specialist capabilities vested in our Royal Marines and the very strong link they have with the US Marine Corps, and then you underpin all of that with a sustained piece of recapitalisation which we are undergoing across the whole fleet, across all our fighting arms, and the innovation we are reaching into along with our partners in the US Navy to embrace some of the new and emerging technologies that are racing into the maritime space, I think we can be confident that we’ve got a Royal Navy that is still very much at the vanguard of world Navies, fielding a potent suite of capabilities that few outside the United States can match.

But as much as the Royal Navy has to be able to do all of that, to retain the sovereign capability to act on its own when it needs to, even the most cursory analysis of our history as a nation will show that we are always better off when we work in partnerships.

NATO is of course the most obvious example of that, and I’m delighted to see that [Vice Admiral] Clive Johnstone [RN] is here today, to embody the maritime leadership within NATO that he provides on our behalf. That alliance has for so long been the cornerstone of both our national defence and that of all our allies who are a part of NATO.

And you only need look at the work of other key alliances too, like the Combined Maritime Force coalition in the Middle East, led by the United States with the Royal Navy as deputy, to see how that has contributed to regional security in a way that has enhanced collaboration with regional and international partners in a part of the world that is absolutely vital to the country’s economic and energy interests, but perhaps more unstable than it’s been for a long time.

Like the US, Britain has partners both old and new right around the globe.

Closer to home in Europe, our bi-lateral agreement with France, articulated initially at the Lancaster House agreement in 2010 and re-affirmed at the Sandhurst conference in January this year has seen us form a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force with the French. And we showcased that with exercises off the Brittany coast only last month, which I attended. It’s a very credible and capable force, fully integrated with Royal Navy and Marine Nationale Units. So too do some of the older but well established, credible links that we have with the likes of the Royal Netherlands Navy promote excellence in our combined amphibious warfare capabilities.

In the same vein, we are looking to establish those partnerships further afield. You’ve heard CNO talk about the significance of our new tri-lateral arrangements between our two navies and the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force. That’s not a meaningless piece of showmanship, where geography makes it impossible to do something real. It’s credible, it has significant workstreams that are driving forward, and we’ll be meeting again in Japan towards the end of the year to cement our plans.

But with all of these alliances, be they bi-lateral, tri-lateral or larger, multilateral ones, I think they point to what must be in place and that’s interoperability. Not just interoperability based on equipment, the ability for our comms systems to talk to each other, but also interoperability based on a clear understanding of how each other works, how each other thinks, and how each other fights.

Understanding each other’s capabilities, their limitations as well as what they can do. Understanding each other’s tactics and procedures and how to best fold them into each other. Understanding the nuances around how we each interpret rules of engagement, how we employ doctrine. All of this is essential if we’re going to have a chance of delivering together from Day 1.

UK/US Relationship And yet as much as all of these alliances and partnerships are highly valued by the UK, I will eventually boil down to complete agreement with Admiral Richardson that the key one is our link as a Navy to the United States Navy. There is something unique about that, something unique about the strategic nature of our partnership that goes back a long way.

Many of our Admirals and senior Civil Servants are over in Washington this week commemorating the 60th anniversary of the MDA, a hugely significant moment in the way we work together in the nuclear and submarine field.

The UK is the only Tier 1 partner in the F35 programme and from the earliest days of this programme, Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm pilots, ground crew and engineers have been working side by side with their US Navy and US Marine Corps colleagues to ensure that, as much as our new aircraft carriers will sit at the heart of the UK’s Joint expeditionary force, so too will they be ready to work with our American counterparts from the off. And you’ll see us doing that in 2021 when we first deploy that carrier operationally.

And as we look at the increasingly challenging underwater battlespace that I alluded to earlier, Britain and the US will be working very closely together to develop some of the world’s most advanced under-sea technology, including of course collaboration with the deterrent submarine programme.

It couldn’t be a closer link.

I will wrap this up now and I know we collectively look forward to hearing your questions. But I just leave you with this thought. Our Defence Secretary called upon the Royal Navy to lead from the front, to exploit our unique ability to exert not just soft power across the globe as we’re doing at the moment but also to be able to back it up with tangible hard power.

That’s a call that is a challenging one to achieve; for the service to do both, credibly, at the same time. It takes a lot of application and effort. But it’s a challenge I readily accept, because that enables the Royal Navy to power on, to get the fleet it needs to fulfil its commitments and meet the broad range of challenges we face both at home and around the world.

And as we look to fulfil our centuries-old role on behalf of our nation, we do so safe in the knowledge that wherever we are in the world, we can find partners and allies to work with. And we will find no partner more valuable, more credible, more trusted, than the United States Navy. And I’m honoured to think that they regard us also as the partner of choice.

Thank you.