So the UK and Japan have a ‘new type of alliance‘, and it has a maritime focus. And a ‘hotline‘ to coordinate actions in an emergency.
So there is a disaster in the Philippines and both the UK and Japan are using their military in the Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Relief role (HADR). Japan is sending its Self Defence Forces too.
So the UK Royal Navy is sending a helicopter ship to help, but their problem is getting replenished at sea (because the supply ships take too long to steam around the world, and can’t keep up with HMS Illustrious). But you can’t just expect anyone to do RAS – it is tricky and potentially dangerous, so it takes practice. Hmmm.
But wait, didn’t the RN and the MSDF cooperate in the Indian Ocean a little while ago, with Japan’s ships replenishing the RN and others with fuel, etc?
Mr. Abe, Mr. Cameron, what are you waiting for?
「新日英同盟」 Anglo-Japan Alliance 
Doesn’t the UK have access to supply bases in Singapore and Brunei? That’s where they could re-supply before going to the Philippines.
Re-supply on the way is useful but not a substitute for RAS. RAS means you don’t have to keep going back to Singapore (think of all those hours away from the Philippines area, and the wasted fuel getting there and back), and I am not sure Brunei has what is needed. Once you get there, you might want to stay quite a while so isn’t it better to have the supplies come to you? It is like in the Indian Ocean mission, many of those receiving supplies from Japan at sea could have gone back to bases in the Gulf and Africa, but its just much more efficient to RAS.
Of course it is better to have re-supply right next to your vessels. Just to clearify: I wrote “…before going to…”, because HMS Illustrious is underway and has not entered the South China Seat yet, as far as I know. I didn’t mean that they go back all the time from the Philippines to Brunei or Singapore. Instead, I think Uncle Sam’s supply ships will help the Royal Navy anyway.
But if you stop you lose time. I could be wrong, but I don’t expect they need re-supply before getting to the area of operations around the Philippines.
May be of interest for you: http://rusi.org/publications/journal/rss/ref:A52B0387F571DA/