I'm glad you raised the question, because there needs to be an urgent discussion, in government and more broadly, about whether we replace the Victoria class. If we want to have submarines into the future, the capability, we need to make that decision really soon. It takes a long time to procure submarines. The Victoria class is getting very old—they're still capable, but very old—and that means we need to be having this discussion, this debate, within your committee right now. That's without my taking a view on whether or not we should replace them, but the question needs to be on the table.
On November 22nd, 2017. See this statement in context.