Space Industry (Appeals) Regulations 2021

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her homework and her explanation of these SIs. I always particularly like her style because there is a slight ironic tinge to everything she says, which always adds something to the explanation of rather technical SIs. I will not be as poetic or lyrical as the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, I am afraid, but I suggest that he needs immediately after this session to put down a fatal Motion against these SIs on the Floor of the House to move his position forward.

One of the fundamental things that I welcome here is the splitting of promotion and regulation. It is one thing that we have learned from government and administration. We start from a good basis.

I hope that the Minister will forgive me if I have got this wrong but, having read through the SIs, although the intention is for the Secretary of State to delegate powers to the Civil Aviation Authority, I could not see it named in the regulations. If that is the case—I may be wrong—why not? It seems to leave open the possibility that the Secretary of State could appoint anybody to this role. I know that consultations with the CAA have taken place, but it seems strange that this is not in the regulations. I may be wrong; maybe I read the wrong one.

The third-party limit clearly makes sense in terms of commercialisation, but nowhere are we given to understand what those financial limits are, what they are likely to be and what the residual public liability to the taxpayer is likely to be. I would be interested to understand from the Minister some of the mathematics or the potential risks to real money, rather than just the principle.

I do not think the Minister mentioned the definition of a “suitable person” who may hold a licence. Again, I look at this more broadly. A completely unrelated area where similar regulations have been introduced is the home parks industry, where there are notorious owners of mobile home parks. The Government have tried to bring in regulations about suitable persons, which I welcomed, but all that happens is that those companies nominate someone who has a reasonable background, so the people who manage the businesses are those who would have done so anyway. How robust does the Minister see the process being in such an important industry, which includes technologies that are inherently dangerous? I would be interested to understand that.

More broadly on space strategy, how is the £400 million purchase of OneWeb proceeding and do the Government still see that as an alternative to Galileo? A quick answer on that would be very useful. I understand that the special adviser to the Government who suggested that purchase, a Mr Cummings, has left. I wonder what the situation and the intention are in respect of OneWeb, which I understand is co-owned with an Indian company.

I very much welcome our still being a member of the important European Space Agency, it not being an EU institution. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how our work on the Copernicus project is proceeding and whether British companies are able to access supply chains.

On the overall strategy that these SIs should fit into, my brief research indicated that the previous space strategy was in 2015. Space quite rightly got a mention in the integrated review, but it was very brief. Our expenditure and forecasts are still well below those of France and Italy, as other European nations we might compare ourselves with, so what are we really trying to do in this sector?