Space Industry

Question for Short Debate

Asked by

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support the United Kingdom space industry.

I am delighted that your Lordships are debating the UK space industry. It is key to building back better. It is rapidly growing—by 60% in the past decade—and is spread across the whole country, from Goonhilly in Cornwall to the north of Scotland, via Guildford, Leicester, Glasgow and elsewhere. I declare my interests, especially my roles with Surrey Satellite Technology, SatixFy and Skyrora and my position as chancellor of the University of Leicester, which has a long and distinguished history of space science and is now creating a space park, which it hopes will host a national centre for space manufacturing.

I also welcome the Minister, my right honourable and noble friend Lord Frost, to his maiden speech at the end of this debate. I believe there will be two other maiden speeches as well, to which I am greatly looking forward; I am only sorry that the time constraints in this debate are so intense.

I very much welcome the initiatives the Government are taking to promote the British space sector. The National Space Council should integrate governmental policy work on space, and the investment in OneWeb was a welcome and bold initiative. The Government have also led the UN initiative on responsible behaviour in space, an excellent example of soft power. Britain is also one of the key players in the European Space Agency, which is an intergovernmental body and not part of the European Union, which I am sure the Minister will welcome. Now the Government are committed to a comprehensive space strategy, to be published in the next six months, which is also very welcome. Meanwhile, I would like briefly to set out four challenges, which I hope the Minister will be able to address in his response at the end.

First, there is funding. Space is one of those classic areas where well-designed public spending crowds in private spending rather than driving it out, so we do need a well-funded national space programme. However, there are concerns about the future of some existing programmes; for example, the space international partnership programme, which has been part of the Government’s ODA spend. There is a very tiresome media trope that developing countries should not have anything to do with space. The opposite is the case; many developing countries which do not have conventional infrastructure need space-based services even more. This programme provides for partnerships with them, and I very much hope it will be maintained. Also, a national space innovation programme was launched last year, which is an excellent initiative. Because of the lack of a long-term comprehensive spending settlement, there is a risk to that programme as well. It would be marvellous if it could be maintained.

The second challenge is regulation. The Space Industry Act 2018 sets out the framework, but it is important that the detailed regulation is correct and not too onerous. There are exciting prospects for space launch from Scotland. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, whose maiden speech we may hear shortly, who, when he was Minister, pushed the space launch initiative forward. We all want to see space launch from the north of Scotland soon.

My Lords, I welcome the maiden speakers, including the Minister. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, has stolen my thunder a bit because he has focused very much on OneWeb, which is one element of government investment in the space industry. They co-invested half a billion pounds in OneWeb, which was a failed satellite communications company that had gone bankrupt and had to be raised from the dead. Although it is based in London, OneWeb’s satellite manufacture is in Florida, and there is little evidence of benefit so far to UK taxpayers or jobs. The company’s plan was to provide global broadband coverage from space in the hope that it could provide an alternative secure satellite navigation system now that the UK has been thrown out of Galileo.

It is proving difficult to get information on the Government’s intentions on OneWeb—the UK Space Agency declines to comment. Can the Minister confirm whether OneWeb is to be the UK Galileo alternative, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, outlined? If not, what has the investment of half a billion pounds secured for the UK?

My Lords, there cannot be any other industry where international links are more fundamental. Since 31 December, we have been excluded from important schemes such as Galileo and EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service. From 25 June, UK users will lose access to the EGNOS Safety of Life Service. Can the Minister clarify the impact of that and the alternatives that the Government plan to provide?

Despite losing so much we are still awaiting the Government’s space strategy. The Government’s rather random decision to invest in OneWeb does not fill us with confidence. Launch is not the be-all and end-all—it is just an enabler. The space industry and its highly skilled researchers need a strategy that amounts to much more than picking possible winners. It needs balanced investment.

My Lords, I am delighted to have this brief opportunity to make my maiden speech. It gives me a moment to put on record my great thanks for the generous kindness of the Convenor, Black Rod, the Clerk and the excellent House authorities. I want to make special mention of Kate Long, Daisy Christy, Ayeesha Bhutta and Gabby Longdin. I also thank my noble supporters—both colleagues and personal friends for many years—the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale.

I am honoured to join many very distinguished noble Lords and friends in this House whom I have valued over the years as teammates in this country’s national security machinery, whether in the police service, the Armed Forces, the Civil Service or in political, judicial or scrutiny roles. There are too many to name today, but all are bound together in the single common endeavour of protecting this country. For my own part, I could not make this maiden speech without taking the opportunity to pay tribute—as I may now do from the outside—to the exceptional dedication and skill of all those who work so hard in MI5 and its partner organisations to keep this country safe through thick and thin. They do more than we know, and we owe them our wholehearted admiration and thanks.

I had been very much looking forward to contributing where I could to the legislative programme of this House and perhaps even serving on a Select Committee in due course. This House is tackling a slew of important Bills on national security matters of considerable interest to me, where I had hoped I might add some value. I would also have liked to engage on a range of other matters, including conservation, faith, social justice and science and technology, including this important question before us now.

However, as your Lordships will understand, this first speech must also be my last for some time. Since my recent appointment to this House, Her Majesty the Queen has graciously further appointed me as the next Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household. I am absolutely delighted and humbled by such an extraordinary honour. It follows that the work that I had planned to do in this House as a participating Member will now properly be restricted to my prospective duties as Lord Chamberlain, following in the highly distinguished footsteps of the noble Earl, Lord Peel. I very much look forward to serving Her Majesty in every way that I can in this role.

Congratulations, Lord Parker. I call the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley.

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to warmly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Parker, into our midst. The noble Lord has served our country within the national security space during particularly testing times. In a career of public service spanning 37 years, he rose to the rank of MI5’s director-general. On behalf of the House, I confine myself to thanking him and his former colleagues in MI5, together with the other intelligence agencies and police, for making our country a safer place.

In the normal course of events, he would embody the contribution that your Lordships’ House brings to the national debate. As he has just informed us, however, Her Majesty has other plans and has determined that she wishes him to head the Royal Household as Lord Chamberlain. He should know that, while his contribution to our deliberations is on hold, and we wish him well in his new post, we await his return and trust that, in the meantime, he can also find time to follow his passion of watching and photographing birds.

I offer just one brief point on space. The relationship with China is pivotal to the UK space programme, and vice versa. China has, as a national priority, the development of new, innovative approaches in space science applications and space skills development. The UK is a recognised world leader in these areas. Cool heads need to prevail generally in this relationship, taking account of course of all the recent, well-rehearsed challenges, but also to reflect carefully on the potential strategic nature of that relationship.

My Lords, the UK space industry is made possible because it adheres to the laws of science but also to the laws of humans, upheld by the United Nations. Satellites orbit on agreed paths and transmit their information on agreed frequencies. Through these laws, we avoid chaos in the cosmos. There is a trust between nations evident above the earth that sometimes eludes us on it. When viewed from space, we see the earth without borders; we see a beautiful planet of colour and contrast, home to all the life we are currently aware of in the universe. This should remind us of our solemn responsibility to care for our common home and for those we share it with. Space invites us to explore its wonders and unravel its mysteries, and we can do that if we remember the first law of human dynamics: we can accomplish immeasurably more if we work together and learn from each other.

My Lords, I was delighted to see that the European Space Agency recently announce that it was intending to send a disabled person into space. There was much celebrating from non-disabled people, who saw it as a step towards inclusion, but personally, I would prefer it if it were possible for me to get onto the Northern line.

Asking the International Paralympic Committee to help highlights some of the challenges of not being able to go down the more traditional recruitment route. The sector employs 42,000 people but, as with other areas, it is hard to find data on representation, and we know that getting into STEM subjects is not easy for disabled people. It is not quite comparative data, but the British Medical Association stated that 77% of respondents were worried about being treated unfavourably if they disclosed a disability or a long-term health condition to their employer or place of study. I would be interested in the data for the sector and, as we are under a strict time limit today, I will just say that I would also be interested in the employment of disabled people and how it can be included in a future strategy—not just one person being sent into space, if the ESA finds someone.

My Lords, it is good that we have the noble Lord, Lord Frost, with us to be accountable for Brexit, because he has a lot to be accountable for. His UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement is the most damaging treaty negotiated by a British Government for more than 50 years. It reduces our trade and undermines our co-operation, and nowhere is the damage of Brexit greater than to our space industry. Some £1.2 billion has been needlessly squandered in our expulsion from the Galileo project, and £500 million has been speculatively invested in OneWeb. Dr Bleddyn Bowen, a space policy expert at Leicester University, says that the OneWeb investment is a “tech and business gamble”, and OneWeb satellites have been described as unsuitable for navigational purposes by our own space agency. Space is turning into another Brexit catastrophe, and no one is being held accountable.