UK Strategy Towards the Arctic (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Willetts Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, I have a personal reason for engaging in this debate. When I was a Member of the other place, it was my constituent, Commander Eddie Grenfell, who served on the Arctic convoys, who led the campaign for the Arctic Star, which he then received in 2013. Some 20,000 veterans have now received the Arctic Star, and that campaign was a reminder of the heroism of our Armed Forces in those treacherous waters.

My second reason for intervening in this debate involves wearing my hat as chair of the UK Space Agency. I hope to persuade noble Lords that space is a crucial domain for thinking about defence and security. The Arctic theatre is a vivid example of that, as I will briefly explain.

Traditionally, satellites were great big objects, 30,000 kilometres away, in geostationary orbit, always looking at the same part of the globe, with very little coverage of the polar regions because they were receding from view—but that did not matter because not much was happening there. Now we are moving to low-earth orbit constellations of much smaller satellites, a few hundred kilometres up, most of them in a polar orbit, with the earth revolving underneath them. That means that the data they collect and transmit is collected most efficiently in the Arctic regions. That is where the density of satellite coverage for LEO constellations is greatest. That is why Svalbard is now one of the most active centres for the collection of satellite data anywhere in the world and an intense scene of strategic competition. Those satellites collect earth observation data. They are also probably the best single fallback we have if we lose the cable transmission of data.

As well as the change in the orbits of satellites, we have as a result a change in launch. Historically, to get great big satellites into orbit, you had a launch site near the equator and used the power of the earth’s rotation to push them up into high orbit. Now, when you want to get small satellites into polar orbit, it is very sensible to launch northwards close to the pole, so the new competition is who is going to win the strategically significant northern launch sites.

It so happens that we have at SaxaVord one of the best candidates for a strategic polar space launch capability. It is currently the only UK CAA licensed spaceport. It is at 60 degrees latitude. The RAF, having closed its defence radar systems there about 15 years ago, is reopening them because it is a great location for a ground station. We expect the first space launch from SaxaVord to happen this year.

Of course, there are other opportunities. We are in competition with Norway and Sweden, but thanks to the legislative process in which this place played a significant role, we are ahead of them in the legislative framework. The US has Alaska. However, its sites in Alaska are very hard to reach, whereas at SaxaVord we can use the infrastructure created around North Sea oil installations. Also, the Americans are very worried that their Alaskan sites are too close to Russia. It is therefore true to say that the US DOD is far more interested in SaxaVord and UK space launch capabilities than the UK MoD, which I greatly regret.

The challenge now is to ensure that as the space domain becomes so significant in the Arctic region, Britain plays its part. I therefore have three requests for the Minister. I welcome his presence in the Chamber. First, it was excellent that last October the Defence Secretary signed up to the NATO initiative STARLIFT, which is about boosting space launch capabilities. It is undoubtedly thinking about polar launch. Will the Minister commit that the British Government will play an active role in promoting STARLIFT and will consider SaxaVord as a UK contribution to this NATO effort? Secondly, regrettably, the UK Government did not sign up to Northlink at the same NATO ministerial summit. It is a NATO system providing satellite communications in the Arctic. Is this something that the Government will reconsider? Thirdly and finally, overall, will the Government recognise SaxaVord as a UK strategic asset and consider space and the space domain as part of their future planning on defence and international strategic issues?