Reshuffle continues as Boris Johnson makes statement on US, UK and Australia military partnership – live

Speaking in the Commons earlier, Boris Johnson said that cooperation to enable Australia to have nuclear-powered submarines would be just the start of the new Aukus partnership. He said:

This is just the beginning of collaboration on defence technology and, I have mentioned, of the areas where we now wish to go further – cyber, AI, undersea defences; there are many areas now where countries that have shared values, shared belief in democracy will want to take collaboration much further.

The Boris Johnson statement is now over. For a prime ministerial statement, it was over very quickly, but that is because most MPs had little notice that it was coming and many are not in London on a Thursday. Johnson presented it as a jobs announcement almost as much as a foreign policy initiative, and broadly it was welcomed.

I have updated some of the earlier posts with direct quotes. To get them to appear, you may need to refresh the page.

Back in the Commons the SNP’s Gavin Newlands asked Boris Johnson to deny reports that, if Scotland were to become independent, the rest of the UK would seek to keep the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland as British territory.

Earlier this month the Financial Times said this was being considered as an option in the event of Scotland voting to leave the UK. There were similar reports ahead of the 2014 referendum.

In his response Johnson ignored the question altogether, and just said most commonsensical people would welcome the arrival of jobs in the the UK, particularly in Scotland.

Here is an analysis of the Aukus initiative from my colleague Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor. He quotes a White House official calling it “a downpayment” on the “concept of global Britain”, and says President Biden now expects the UK to be more present in the Indo-Pacific.

Turning back to the reshuffle for a moment, John Whittingdale has announced that he has been sacked as a culture minister.

Whittingdale was unusual in that he was culture secretary under David Cameron, but subsequently returned to government under Boris Johnson as a more junior minister in the department he used to run.

Theresa May, the former PM, asks what the implications of this would be if China were to invade Taiwan.

Johnson says the government is determined to defend internal law, and that is the advice it would give to Beijing.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says he welcomes international cooperation with allies.

But he asks for an assurance that this agreement will not be used to supply Australia with nuclear weapons.

Johnson says there is no risk of the deal breaking the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

It is a defence technology agreement that is “very sensible”, be says.

Johnson is replying to Starmer.

He says this initiative is not about confronting China; it is about support the UK’s allies, he says.

It is important to understand that Aukus [the name for the Australia, UK, UK partnership] is not intended to be adversarial towards any other power. It merely reflects the close relationship that we have with the United States and with Australia.

On the subject of jobs, he says a scoping exercise will establish what opportunities there are. But he says there are pools of expertise in the UK, and he is no doubt there is an opportunity for hundreds of high-wage jobs to be created.

What I can say is that there will be an 18-month scoping exercise to establish where the work should go between the three partners. But clearly there are deep pools of expertise throughout the United Kingdom.

There is expertise across the United Kingdom and I have no doubt whatever that it will bring hundreds of high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the kind that we want to see in our country, and increasingly are seeing.

He ends by welcoming Starmer’s support for Nato, saying that at the last election he was campaigning to install a prime minister who had been opposed to Nato (Jeremy Corbyn).

Sir Keir Starmer says Labour welcomes the strengthening of the partnership with the US and Australia.

But he asks how it will affect relations with China.