Space Industry Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Dykes and Lord McNally

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 16th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, this is a historic moment for me because this is when I take the Liberal Democrats into space. As noble Lords will realise, particularly the Liberal roots of our party are based on pavement politics—picking up rubbish and keeping the streets clean—and this is my attempt to be a first mover politically on this by making it clear that we are the party that is determined to clean up space as well as go there.

That ambition apart, this is a very serious matter. Again, since I became involved in this, I have taken to watching the various documentaries about what is going on in space. Quite frankly, it is frightening how much rubbish is up there. It is not known who owns it, what the responsibilities are, how we get it down, and so on—at a time when we are told, and I believe, that we are only in the foothills of developing space in an economic way. There is a lot more going up there and the Bill needs to put responsibility on those who send things into space for having a clear idea about how and when they should come down in an environmentally friendly and safe way.

As of 5 July 2016, United States Strategic Command tracked a total of 17,852 artificial objects in orbit above the earth, including 1,419 operational satellites. Furthermore, more than 170 million pieces of debris smaller than 1 centimetre, about 670,000 pieces of debris sized 1 to 10 centimetres, and around 29,000 larger pieces of debris were estimated to be in orbit.

Space debris poses a risk to unmanned spacecraft, manned spacecraft and even the earth itself. We want to make sure that the Bill includes that responsibility, and perhaps create another new industry from this. On one of my viewing nights I saw that work was being done on sending up a kind of—it shows my age if I call it a hoover—Dyson to pick up some of this debris and bring it back safely. It is a very real challenge, which is worthy of consideration in the Bill.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

I apologise for not hearing the earlier parts of the debate. Is not what the noble Lord is saying, quite rightly, another international reason for us all resisting Brexit and making sure that we work through the European Space Agency?

[Lord McNally]

Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, was not here for my first amendment, which would have given him a good hour to go on about Brexit. But I am sure it is noted. I beg to move.

Political Parties: Funding

Debate between Lord Dykes and Lord McNally

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I think that we are on common ground. I worked on the Bill that set up the Electoral Commission with the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, and a representative from the Conservative Party who had worked in Central Office. The three of us had worked in the political parties’ headquarters and thought that there was a ludicrous amount of detail in the Bill about the responsibility of party treasurers at local level. The debate was couched in terms that would lead one to think that being a treasurer for a local party was one of the pinnacles of political achievement, whereas, as everyone in this Chamber who has been active in party politics knows, you look for some poor dumb cluck—as the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, helpfully said, the person is usually absent from that meeting—to take on that responsibility.

We are awaiting the report of the Electoral Commission on this issue. We are some way from a general election. Perhaps one of the advantages of a fixed-term Parliament is that, at this early stage in a five-year Parliament, we can look at this issue without saying, “Well, what implication will it have for us in the impending general election?”. We can take a proper cross-party look at this. We can look at what Hayden Phillips recommended, which I still think is a good basis for negotiations, and move with it with some sense of urgency.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, my noble friend has given some sensible and wise answers on these questions today. Does he share my anxiety, bearing in mind that politicians are, quite rightly, individually and collectively severely criticised in a lively British press, that almost every British newspaper now has overseas-based owners who do not pay United Kingdom taxes?

[Lord McNally]

That is another matter that is beyond this Question. However, if politics really wants to be respected, it has to be less beholden to big money and less subservient to our press.