Oral Answers to Questions

Adam Afriyie Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to support growth in the UK space sector.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

6. What steps he is taking to support growth in the UK space sector.

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)]

The UK has a world-leading space sector. A quarter of the world’s satellites are either built in the UK or have major components from the UK. At the last European Space Agency ministerial in 2016, the Government agreed €1.4 billion of new funding for space programmes, and we have recently introduced the Space Industry Bill, which will enable UK firms to participate in a sector worth £25 billion.

[Joseph Johnson]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. British expertise has been absolutely fundamental to the development of the Galileo and Copernicus programmes. The “Collaboration on science and innovation” paper we published just last week made it clear that the UK would very much welcome an agreement to continue to collaborate with our European partners on major science, research and technology initiatives. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have made it clear that we want our companies and our universities to continue participating in key EU space programmes.

[Adam Afriyie]

The ingenuity, expertise and experience of our UK space sector enables us to punch well above our weight and to collaborate globally in bodies such as CERN, ESA and many others that predate the EU. Does the Minister agree that we should continue fully to support the role that British companies play in both other European space agencies and the EU space programme?

[Joseph Johnson]

My hon. Friend has great expertise in this area, through his association with the parliamentary space committee. I can reassure him, as I did a moment ago, that we are committed to continuing to collaborate closely with European countries to develop our space sector to the benefit of all those in employment in this sector in this country.