We're about to hear from Biden, Sunak and Albanese as they address media in California with details of a new defence pact between the three nations.

You can watch the briefing by pressing the Play icon at the top of this page, and we'll bring you the latest updates right here.

Alexander Lederman
Reporting from San Diego

The pomp and ceremony is here for this announcement, with US Navy sailors all around, military music playing on a loop and the three countries’ flags projected behind three lecterns where the heads of state will speak.

Two nuclear-powered submarines are moored nearby, one of which is a Virginia class attack sub, the model the US will sell to Australia.

The media section is crowded as well, with visiting Australian and British reporters travelling with their respective prime ministers alongside President Biden’s pool.

Correction 18 October 2023: This post has been changed to remove a reference to the USS Missouri battleship.

US President Joe Biden has met with British PM Rishi Sunak and Australian PM Anthony Albanese at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, California to discuss the Aukus pact between the three countries.

The three sat at a roundtable and posed for photos.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Aside from nuclear submarines, Rishi Sunak is to use this meeting to formally invite Joe Biden to visit Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in April.

This is the peace deal designed to bring an end to a 30-year period of violent conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. It set up a new power-sharing government for Northern Ireland at Stormont in Belfast, representing both nationalists and unionists.

The devolved government has not been sitting because of the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol – a Brexit deal for Northern Ireland agreed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the European Union in 2019. They believe the measures effectively introduced a border in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which undermines the Good Friday Agreement.

It is not yet clear whether the new deal agreed by Sunak and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen in February will convince the DUP to end its Stormont boycott in time for the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement.

But Biden is a vocal supporter of the peace deal and has warned that peace in Northern Ireland should not be disturbed as a result of complications caused by Brexit.

Read more: Good Friday Agreement: What is it?

The Aukus pact crucially gives Australia the secret technology to build nuclear-powered submarines, though not equipped with nuclear weapons.

It means Australia will become only the seventh nation in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines.

Those submarines are key to the trilateral agreement. It shows the US and UK as willing to take the major step of exporting nuclear technology to a non-nuclear powered nation.

The submarines are to be built in Adelaide in South Australia and will involve the US and the UK providing consultation on "extremely sensitive" technology for their production.

"This is frankly an exception to our policy in many respects, we view this as a one-off," a US official told Reuters, when the Aukus agreement was first announced in September 2021.

Washington has only shared nuclear propulsion technology only once before - with Britain in 1958.

Nuclear submarines are much more stealthy than conventional ones - they operate quietly, are able to move easily and are harder to detect.

More detail is expected at the news conference.

Image source, Reuters

UK engineering giant Rolls-Royce will provide the reactors for Australia’s next generation nuclear-powered submarines.

It will mean thousands of jobs are created at Rolls-Royce's submarines business at Derby in England's East Midlands.

“We are delighted to be asked to play our part in delivering this element of the Aukus agreement," said Steve Carlier, company president.

"For over 60 years, we have provided the power to the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines and we are proud to be playing a critical role in helping Australia acquire their own nuclear propulsion submarine capability."

He said it was "an opportunity to showcase British innovation and expertise on the world stage”.

Will Grant
Reporting from San Diego

The alliance of the three nations has a logic beyond just their shared language: in the face of concern over what they see as aggression from China, the two with the most advanced submarine fleets - the US and the UK - are sharing their nuclear propulsion technology with Australia, a long standing ally located close to China’s widening sphere of influence.

Beijing, meanwhile, views the entire Aukus alliance as “extremely irresponsible” and says it demonstrates a “Cold War mentality” among its three members.

Rob Corp
Live reporter

Welcome along to our live coverage of a meeting in the Californian city of San Diego between the leaders of the US, UK and Australia, and a news conference a little later.

Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and Anthony Albanese are expected to speak to reporters at about 21:00 GMT (14:00 local time) about the Aukus pact. This is an agreement between the three countries where they will share defence and intelligence capabilities but will also provide Australia with new nuclear submarines.

The US, UK and Australia believe the new alliance is needed to counter China's growing military and economic might in the Indo-Pacific region. The US says it wants to have strong allies in both the Pacific and the Atlantic - and hence its desire to build strong ties with Britain and Australia.

We know, from the White House, that Australia has signed up for three new nuclear subs with the option to buy two more.

Hopefully we'll hear more detail about where those will be built, and when they will be delivered, when the three leaders speak later.

Image source, Reuters

The UK must "wake up" to the threat posed by China's challenges to global security, the ex-head of MI6 said last month.

Sir Alex Younger said Western nations were under the "full press of Chinese espionage".

His comments came in the week after US military shot down four objects - including a suspected Chinese spy balloon after it travelled over sensitive military sites across North America. China claimed the object was a weather balloon gone astray.

Speaking to reporters in the last half-hour, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says the Aukus deal will see Australia buy as many as five nuclear-powered subs.

The vessels will be armed with conventional - not nuclear - weapons, but will be powered by nuclear reactors.

Sullivan says Australia will receive three Virginia-class submarines with the option to buy two more, which will be delivered "over the course of the 2030s".

While these will replace Australia's diesel-powered submarine fleet, the Aukus pact will then work towards designing an entirely new class of vessel.

We'll hear more about the deal at a news conference in San Diego, California, which is expected to take place in the next little while.

Image source, Reuters

Sunak has said that China is a "challenge to the world order" and the UK needs to be "alert to that and take steps to protect ourselves".

In an interview with the BBC's political editor Chris Mason, Sunak said he was increasing funding for the UK's armed forces because "the world has become more volatile" and "threats to our security have increased".

He said the government took the "challenge" posed by China seriously, adding that the UK had taken action, including blocking Chinese investment in sensitive sectors like semiconductors.

Pressed on whether the ambition to increase defence spending to 2.5% of national income was meaningless without a timeframe, the PM said the government should be judged "on our actions".

As chancellor, Sunak said he had overseen the largest uplift in defence spending since the end of the Cold War and the government had increased spending every year since then.

Read more here.

New money key to Aukus deal but leaves armed forces shortpublished at 18:51 Greenwich Mean Time 13 March 2023

18:51 GMT 13 March 2023

Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent

It’s Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which prompted this refresh of the 2021 defence review. Defance Secretary Ben Wallace has been arguing for a significant rise in his budget - in line with what many Nato countries have already promised. But the armed forces have got less than they wanted.

An extra £5bn over the next two years won’t go far to filling the gaps in what the defence secretary has himself described as a “hollowed out armed forces”. Less than £2bn of that money will go to re-equipping the UK military - to rebuild ammunition stocks and replace equipment sent to Ukraine. But it won’t be enough to reverse cuts to the size of the army or its fleet of tanks.

It’s the UK’s nuclear defence industry and submarine programme that’ll get most of the new money – £3bn. It’s seen as key to the Aukus deal, helping counter the rise of China, but just as importantly securing British jobs.

It is a reminder that it’s often the economy, not defence, that decides elections.

Many Tory MPs have been left disappointed by this modest increase. The government has pledged to increase the proportion of national income spent on defence to 2.5% of GDP in the future. But without setting a date.

Image source, PA Media

As part of his US visit, UK Prime Minister Sunak has pledged to increase defence spending by nearly £5bn over the next two years to counter threats from hostile states.

The funding was outlined in a new UK foreign and security strategy that cast China as a challenge to the world order.

The UK government says £3bn from the extra spending would be earmarked to support a UK-US pact to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines - which is what we expect to hear more about shortly at a news conference in San Diego - along with boosting industrial infrastructure and servicing UK submarines.

The remaining £1.9bn will be used to replace weapons sent to Ukraine and improve the UK's munitions infrastructure.

Despite the announcement of more cash for defence, the UK's opposition Labour Party said defence spending had not hit 2.5% of GDP since it left government in 2010.

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy described the ambition as "another hollow promise", with "no plan and no timetable"..

Image source, PA Media

As well as Sunak's meeting with Biden and Albanese, the UK government has set out its plans for foreign and defence policy in an new version of the so-called Integrated Review today.

The update was ordered by then-Prime Minister Liz Truss in September last year to take account of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The review identified Russia as "the most pressing national security and foreign policy priority in the short-to-medium term".

But it also describes China under Communist Party rule as an "epoch-defining and systemic challenge... across almost every aspect of national life and government policy".

It says the government will engage "constructively" with Beijing on shared priorities but where the Chinese government's actions threaten the UK's interests "we will take swift and robust action to protect them".

Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who is among the Tory MPs calling for the government to take a tougher line on China, said he was "confused" about what the government's position was.

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the updated review was "overdue" but welcome.

"The initiative to improve understanding of China in government is vital, particularly given the Foreign Office has only been training 14 people a year to speak fluent Mandarin," he said.

Chris Mason
Political editor, in San Diego, California

Here on the Pacific coast of America, the military heritage is everywhere. Those hulking floating airports and aircraft carriers dominate the shoreline.

This is a gathering of what’s known as the Aukus pact: Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom keeping a collectively nervous eye on an increasingly muscular China.

Privately, the government is stark in its assessments.

Western democracies are comparatively and collectively weaker economically as China grows; Beijing can use every instrument of the State as a tool of foreign policy in a way that’s impossible in an open democracy.

All the data make us more concerned, not less, as one senior figure out it.

A review of foreign and defence policy which has just been published says the UK is committed to "swift and robust action" to counter any threat to UK national interests from China.

In the next few hours, Rishi Sunak will meet his Australian counterpart and President Biden and announce a joint programme to provide Australia with nuclear powered submarines.

Image source, Getty Images

Aukus is a defence pact between the UK, Australia and the US and was agreed in 2021 to counter what these three nations see as China's threat in the Indo-Pacific region.

The security pact involves the sharing of cyber capabilities and other undersea technologies. But crucially it gives Australia technology to build nuclear-powered submarines, armed with conventional weapons. This means Australia will be just the seventh nation in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines.

The plan is for the submarines to be built in Adelaide, south Australia, with the UK and US consulting on technology for their production. The UK also hopes the pact will mean work for UK shipyards.

The signing of the pact sparked a row with France back in 2021. Australia cancelled a multi-billion dollar deal with a French company building diesel-powered submarines. And what's more, France - a traditional Western ally - found out about the new pact only a few hours before the public announcement.

Jasmine Taylor-Coleman
Live reporter

I'm going to be leading you through the latest developments alongside my colleague Rob Corp. We're joined by our Live writers Emily McGarvey and Tori Lindrea here in London and Nadine Yousif in the Canada.

We'll be bringing you the latest analysis from political editor Chris Mason and the BBC's Will Grant, who are both in San Diego for the meeting between the UK PM and his US and Australian counterparts. And the BBC's Jonathan Beale and Frank Gardner will be be sharing their defence and security expertise.

Thanks for joining our live coverage as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets with US President Joe Biden and Australian PM Anthony Albanese in California to discuss details of a new defence pact between the three nations.

The meeting is set to agree the supply of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, with the three leaders due to hold a press conference a little later.

Stay with us as we bring you the latest developments.