Science and Technology: Economy

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Stansgate for introducing this debate. He is a whirlwind of knowledge and energy, as anyone who has attended one of his STEM events in Portcullis House will know.

I was a member, and subsequently chair, of two of our former EU sub-committees, on internal markets and services. Among other activities, we visited universities and catapults, and invited representatives of the UK’s space industry, just referred to by the right reverend Prelate, to give evidence to our committee. I notice that another member of that committee, the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow, is in his place, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say. Some of the issues raised will not surprise anyone here: skills gaps, the importance of attracting and retaining talent, international interdependency, the mobility of skilled labour and the need for long-term strategy. Incidentally, talking about catapults, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee reported that SMEs that had worked with catapults grew 50% faster than those that had not, with an average of five times return on investment.

As a former university administrator of over 30 years, it pains me to see the dire straits to which our universities have been reduced. Their significance for research and development should not be understated. As the daughter of an aero-engineer who worked for Armstrong Siddeley, which became Bristol Siddeley and then Rolls-Royce, it was the space industry which captured my imagination —perhaps it was also listening to “Journey into Space” on the radio. In pride of place on my bookshelves, which I inherited from my father, are the complete works of HG Wells—but it is not just a romantic interest.

The Minister has already answered questions this week about medical research, defence research and the importance of curiosity-based research. These are all vital, but I want to draw his attention to the importance of the UK space industry, which employs 50,000 people. According to the World Economic Forum, the global space economy will be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035, up from $630 billion in 2023—almost twice the rate of global GDP growth. It will connect people and goods and play an increasingly crucial role in mitigating world challenges, ranging from disaster warning and climate monitoring to improved humanitarian responses. This will involve agriculture, construction, insurance and climate change mitigation.

The Minister will be aware of the previous Government’s policy paper Space Industrial Plan: From Ambition to Action published in March this year. It was obviously too late in that Government’s election cycle to do much about it, but it stated:

“Global satellite services … underpin at least 18% of UK GDP (£370 billion), supporting everything from mapping to weather forecasting, to monitoring the power grid and enabling every single financial transaction”.


I ask my noble friend the Minister: do the Government recognise the potential importance to the UK economy of the space industry, and what action do they propose to take to ensure its growth and future potential?

EU Programmes

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

Better than nothing is indeed a dispiriting thing. Better than Erasmus is the assessment that the Government made when declining the opportunity, on negotiation of the TCA, to remain part of Erasmus and choosing instead to put in place the Turing scheme, on the grounds that it offers not only better outcomes but better value for money for British taxpayers.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for accepting that this Statement is overblown. I think some of us are getting a bit fed up with these Statements that are claiming the earth when, really, it is a damage limitation exercise.

I chaired the EU Services Sub-Committee for two or three years, and we spent a lot of time discussing the importance of Horizon and Erasmus, and the importance of academic links and the mutuality of those links. I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said about that mutuality, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, in his plea for Erasmus and getting the discussion back on a real basis.

The Statement says that this is

“why we did not take the first deal that was offered to us”.

At the time, we asked what that deal was. What were the details of the deal? Why did we not get the information to allow us to make the judgment about whether the Government had taken the correct decision? It is all very well putting these things in a Statement but all that does is trigger really poor memories about the fact that an unreasonable decision was taken. An unreasonable decision was also taken about Erasmus. Turing is very much a scaled-down and second-rate scheme. For it to be named after a genius is just disgraceful.

I should like to ask also about the so-called new clawback scheme. The old Horizon deal was the best clawback scheme in the business. We got a heck of a lot more money than we put in. You do not get better than that, so will the Minister say what clawback scheme could possibly be better?