Space Industry

Lord Bowness Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Bowness (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister and look forward to his maiden speech. There are many questions about the £400 million purchase of OneWeb, a bankrupt UK company trading in the US that required a ministerial direction for the purchase to proceed. Have all the US court consents to the purchase now been obtained? Is the manufacturing capability to be transferred from the US to the UK and when will that happen? Will we ensure that satellite launches are not dependent on the Russian Roscosmos agency? How does the purchase of OneWeb fit with the work of the space-based navigation and timing programme, which is exploring new ways of delivering satellite navigation to the UK? What part in our space policy will be played by the international agreement between the UK and the US on technology safeguards associated with US participation in space launches from the UK? When will that be debated in the House? If we are to develop an alternative version of Galileo or GPS, what is the estimated cost and how long will it take?