Space Industry

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Murray. I pay warm tribute to the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) for securing this debate and for the work he does in the sector. We have spoken about the strategic significance of the space industry for the United Kingdom as a whole. Everything he said in that respect was absolutely correct, but the words in his peroration—about ensuring that we maximise the opportunities that will come from the industry—were particularly pertinent. For my constituency, that goes beyond the high-level opportunities that the hon. Gentleman identified.

There are a number of specific local opportunities for Shetland, as we host on Unst—the most northerly of all the Shetland Islands—the Shetland spaceport at SaxaVord. We have seen that quite remarkable progression in recent times as a consequence of a lot of hard work by the Shetland spaceport, and I pay particular tribute to Frank Strang and his colleagues for getting it to this point. It is now licensed by the Civil Aviation Authority, and we were delighted that it got a commitment of £10 million from the Government in the Budget. Indeed, such is the nature of the achievement that the Shetland spaceport is now even getting some interest from the Scottish Government—something else that must be welcomed.

If you look at the right map, Mrs Murray—by which I mean a map that has Shetland on it, and not just parked somewhere in the Moray Firth in a box—you will see that Shetland, and Unst in particular, sits at the highest latitude point in the United Kingdom, and indeed one of the highest in Europe. That, in turn, allows for a greater payload to be launched for the same fuel efficiency, turning many of the disadvantages with which we have struggled for so long into advantages. Because of where we are, there are natural opportunities for security and safety that would not necessarily be found closer to other larger centres of population.

[Christine Jardine]

I was privileged to visit my right hon. Friend’s constituency last month to see the SaxaVord spaceport and the work being done there. Does he agree that a lot of that work reflects the ingenuity and effort that went into developing the oil and gas industry in Shetland, and which is now being used in a similar way to develop SaxaVord, and that that has already been recognised by the space industry elsewhere in the world?

[Mr Carmichael]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend understands that it was a privilege to visit Shetland. She is absolutely right about that. What I am coming on to say fits well with that, because there are lessons for Shetland to learn from its engagement with the space industry and from how we have successfully engaged with the North sea oil and gas industry for the past 40-odd years.

The history of Saxa Vord, even in my time, has not always been a happy one. Back in the day, it was an RAF radar station waiting for the Russian bear in the cold war to come screaming over the polar ice cap. With the end of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin wall, it was felt that that sort of presence was not necessary. That may have been somewhat premature. I remember, as a Member of Parliament, when the RAF announced its drawdown from Saxa Vord in 2005. I remember going to a meeting of the local community in the Baltasound Hall and the feeling of absolute desolation at that point, because RAF Saxa Vord had become such a massive part of the local economy of Unst. That was to go virtually overnight, and it was a struggle to find something to replace it. We welcome the coming of the space industry to Shetland, but we welcome it on our own terms and—as we did with the offshore oil and gas industry—we want to maximise for ourselves the opportunities that it can bring to our communities.

Some of this is already starting to emerge. SaxaVord spaceport has a science, technology, engineering and maths initiative that already has collaborative research and development projects under way with academic institutions, including the University of Alaska, the University of Strathclyde and the University of Edinburgh—I suspect that Edinburgh probably has the least welcoming environment, in terms of temperature, of those three.

SaxaVord also has an outreach programme for local Shetland schools and colleges, generating future technical skills in the area and ensuring a sustainable spaceflight ecosystem in Shetland and the wider United Kingdom. For us as a community, keeping young people in our community or giving them opportunities to come back when they have been away and had their education is critical. We see this as an opportunity.

It has to be said, though, that the coming of a spaceport to Unst will be transformative for the community. One project that the community is keen to proceed with—and which is deserving of some support from the Scottish Government and the United Kingdom Government—would be to replace our inter-island ferries with fixed-links tunnels going from mainland Shetland to Yell, and Yell to Unst. It is a case that stands well in its own right. It is not an easy thing. To see the opportunities that come from the construction of tunnels, look no further than to our neighbours to the north-west, in Faroe Islands. That is the sort of thing that should be Shetland’s price for playing host to the space industry. That is the sort of opportunity that we as a community should be entitled to exploit and to expect co-operation on, and support from, Government and elsewhere.

We are putting a lot of ourselves into this industry. This industry has great significance strategically for the United Kingdom, as well as economically and militarily, and in just about every other way imaginable. When the Minister replies, I hope he will acknowledge the significance of the contribution that Shetland stands to make to the rest of the United Kingdom, and that there is an understanding that, if we are to step up to the plate for the benefit of the rest of the United Kingdom, then the rest of the United Kingdom should acknowledge that responsibility.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mrs Murray, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing it.

Something exciting has been happening in the space industry in Cornwall in recent years. We have seen the revival of the world-leading Goonhilly satellite tracking station, and I am incredibly proud to have Spaceport Cornwall, based at Newquay airport, in my constituency. It is something that I started championing before I became a Member of Parliament, way back in 2014, when the original call for sites for a spaceport went out. I worked very hard with Cornwall Council, the airport, the Government and the UK Space Agency to get the licence for the spaceport, and I was absolutely delighted that in January 2023 we had our first launch—well, almost. Frustratingly and sadly, due to a faulty $100 fuel filter, the final stage of the rocket burn failed, so the satellites did not reach their intended orbit.

However, that should not detract from the fact that, for Spaceport Cornwall, we played our part perfectly. Everything went well at the spaceport itself. Spaceport Cornwall remains the only licensed spaceport in Europe, and we are ready to launch again.

Also, there continues to be great interest in the facilities that we have, especially the satellite integration clean room—a world-class facility, and there are not many around the world—and our space systems operations facility, which is a dedicated office block on the spaceport site that continues to receive expressions of interest from people who want to locate there. Last month, Slingshot Aerospace announced that it will expand into the UK, with new offices in London and Cornwall, and just this month Space Ai, the Argentinian blockchain innovators, announced that it will set up new offices at the spaceport in Cornwall.

We continue to attract interest from around the world, and there is still a great deal of interest from launch operators who want to launch from Cornwall. There are advanced discussions going on with a number of potential partners that could see us launch satellites from Cornwall once again in the coming months.

In my view, the UK will struggle to fulfil its space sector ambitions without launch capabilities, and although it feels like all the attention is now on Scotland and the vertical launch site there, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) highlighted, it is important not to forget that in Cornwall we have a UK launch site that is licensed and ready to launch.

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Inevitably in a competitive process, that kind of rivalry can emerge, but the real rivalry is between the UK space industry and the space industry elsewhere in Europe and the world. There must surely be a role for horizontal launch in Cornwall and for vertical launch in Shetland, and also at the Sutherland space site.

[Steve Double]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who makes the point that I was literally about to make—it is amazing how often that happens in debates. I am convinced that there is room for both. If the UK is really going to play the role that it aims to play, of being a world-leader in the space industry, we need both capabilities in the UK—vertical launch and horizontal launch. I am convinced that horizontal launch will very much be part of the future of space launch. As satellites become smaller, a horizontal launch will be the sustainable and more accessible option for many operators who want to put satellites into space.

Will the Minister ensure that his Department and the UK Space Agency do all they can to continue to support Spaceport Cornwall, and also work with us so that we can secure the partners to enable us to launch satellites from Cornwall once again in the months and years to come? The UK has an absolutely huge opportunity to stay ahead of the rest of Europe. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland pointed out, we are in a good position in the global space race to ensure that the UK can take advantage of that opportunity.

Spaceport Cornwall is a huge opportunity economically for the UK, and specifically for Cornwall, to attract investment and create the highly skilled and well-paid jobs that we desperately need in the Cornish economy. But for me, this has always been about something more than that. It has been about inspiring young Cornish people to believe that they can go and get the qualifications in science, technology, engineering and maths, and then have a career in the space industry while still living in Cornwall. That is what has driven me throughout this whole process.

With the establishment of the spaceport and the work that the team have done to engage with schools and colleges, we have already seen literally thousands of schoolchildren from the south-west come to see what is going on there and be inspired. That is so important, because one of the challenges we face with our young people in Cornwall is a lack of aspiration. There is no replacement for something on their doorstep that inspires them to say, “Yes, I can go on, get the qualifications and get a good career in this sector.” To that end, we were delighted that Cornwall secured the replica LauncherOne rocket, as a visible and tangible display: the centrepiece of an education centre that will inspire our young people and stimulate their interest in the space industry for generations to come.

There has been a bit of misunderstanding, in that the UK Space Agency seems to think that we are looking to build a tourist centre. We are not. It is an education centre, which will attract visitors and, in particular, inspire young people. Can the Minister look at what support his Department and the UK Space Agency can provide to Cornwall, so that we can create a world-class education centre? It will play a part in inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers, not just in Cornwall and the south-west but across the whole country. We will need them in the UK if we are going to fulfil our ambition to continue to be a world leader in space.

These are exciting times. Just as Cornwall has always pioneered and led the way in new technology, whether that was the steam engine or Marconi and wireless communication, we again want to play our part in leading the UK into space launch.