Queen’s Speech

Baroness Wilcox Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox (Con)]

My Lords, following the gracious Speech, it is a privilege for me to take part in the debate today. I am delighted to start by congratulating our Government on the measures they have taken to bring our economy firmly back on course, and delighted to have heard those measures so well outlined by the Minister, my noble friend Lord Livingston.

We now know that education, training, business and the industries and services of the future are what will provide the wealth that is so necessary for the safety, social provision and happiness of our people. It was therefore a disappointment to me that our space industry was not mentioned at all in the gracious Speech. I shall take this opportunity to encourage the Government to press forward with their work of identifying space as one of Britain’s great eight technologies.

Those eight great technologies are—as I am sure your Lordships know, but I will name them—big data, synthetic biology, regenerative medicine, agriscience, advanced materials, energy and space. By supporting the British capacity for brilliance and invention, and by encouraging our vibrant small businesses to develop their ideas much further and drive into this new sector, in which we are already enjoying great success, there will be a great opportunity for our country. Our space industries already support 95,000 full-time jobs and generate over £9 billion for the economy each and every year. The Government are planning to achieve a £40-billion UK space industry by 2030, a coherent approach to protecting the UK’s space assets and—I must add, because it is an area in which I am very interested—to look carefully at protecting our intellectual property, our field of gold.

The outlook for the UK space industry is extremely positive for us, a fact which cannot be better illustrated than by the recent achievements of two UK companies: Astrium and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. Astrium was selected by the European Space Agency as the prime contactor for the Solar Orbiter mission in its close-up observations of the sun. Astrium UK will lead the European companies making the spacecraft parts; it is one of the largest ever contracts between ESA and a UK company. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, with OHB System, will work on the construction of eight navigation payloads for the European Galileo programme. Those two companies will co-operate to build the 14 satellites under the supervision of the ESA.

Britain is surely open for business. Space is a global market, international collaboration is the norm, and we must encourage inward investment, creating jobs and opportunities for the wider UK supply chain. Here lies excitement and adventure for our next generation of apprentices and graduates, to fire their imaginations, to lead them to wonder and dream, to work, think and discover. I am with the Royal Society of Chemistry, which urged that we must have qualified science subject leaders in our schools, particularly for the young.

We all have and need our heroes. We are remembering those of D-day even now. Andy Green is preparing to drive the Bloodhound, a jet- and rocket-powered car designed to travel at 1,000 miles per hour, which his team hope to do in South Africa in 2016. I have promised my seven year-old grandson, who is a supporter of that great venture, that he and I will go there to see it happen. It is time for people like Tim Peake, who will be the first British ESA astronaut on a mission to the international space station in November 2015. I am with David Willetts, the Minister for Universities and Science, in encouraging businesses and schools to follow these space heroes and to find other heroes where they can.

In recent times we have so often heard that British industry is in trouble, that it is finished, that we do not make anything any more and there is nothing for us to do. Here in this short speech, however, are new horizons. We should embrace them and rebuild our confidence as manufacturers again, reaching for the skies.