Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill

Anthony Browne Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 23rd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Anthony Browne)]

This is probably the most enjoyable debate I have ever taken part in. Particularly after Wednesday night’s activities, it is nice to have a debate of a cross-party nature in terms of its support and enthusiasm.

[Mike Kane]

Resign!

[Anthony Browne]

He has gone and spoilt it all, Mr Deputy Speaker.

A few months ago I went to see the show “The Moon Walkers”, with narration by Tom Hanks, about the 12 men —and they are all men—who have walked on the moon. It is a remarkable exhibition, and I highly recommend it to everyone, particularly you, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you are interested in space. It is about an age of adventure, an extraordinary era 50 years ago when people were walking on another celestial body. We thought it was the dawn of a whole new era and that mankind, and womankind, would carry on and explore the rest of the universe, but that did not happen, and no one has been back to the moon since. Yesterday, however, the United States returned there, for the first time for 50 years, as the shadow Minister said, although it was not a person but the Odysseus robot that landed near the moon’s south pole.

The real significance of this event, however, is not the 50-year gap but the fact that Intuitive Machines, a Houston-based company, sent that robot to the moon. The space age has entered a completely new era, which is not about states and Governments of big countries trying to prove how powerful and effective they are for the purpose of national pride, but about real commercial opportunity. Many of my hon. Friends have mentioned all the commercial opportunities that are out there. People are doing this not for reasons of national pride, but because it is so useful to humankind, and so important for communications, sensing, geographical information and all the other elements that have been mentioned.

This is now a properly based commercial opportunity for the UK, and that is why I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Lord) for bringing this short but impactful and timely Bill to the House. I also greatly enjoyed the contributions from all the other Members who have spoken. I am pleased to confirm that the Bill has the Government’s full support. Let me briefly explain why.

As my hon. Friend and others have said, the UK has a thriving space sector. In fact, I learned this morning that Cornwall has 150 space companies. We have a far more thriving space sector than most people realise. Did you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the satellite capital of Europe is Glasgow, and that more small satellites are built there than anywhere outside California?

The UK is now the second most attractive destination for commercial space investment after the United States. We get more space investment in the UK than any other country in the world apart from the United States. Given your interest in space, Mr Deputy Speaker, did you realise that no rocket has ever been launched into orbit from European soil? We have a European Space Agency, which has launched rockets into space, but it does so largely from French Guyana in South America. Rockets have been launched into space from Kazakhstan, but never from European soil. We now have a spaceport in the Shetlands preparing to do just that—SaxaVord, which many hon. Members have mentioned. We might end up with one from Cornwall as well, but Shetlands might be the first. That will be a truly historic moment.

Let me clarify that rockets are launched into space from Europe, but they are suborbital. From Norway and Sweden, they go around the earth once or maybe twice, and then come back down to Earth. Never has a rocket been launched into sustained orbit from European soil. The UK plans to be the first European nation to do that, which marks a huge opportunity. We set up the regulatory and licensing regimes to license the spaceports because, not just in the UK but in other European countries, companies are making satellites and rockets that they want to launch into space. It will be far easier and cheaper for them to do it from European soil than having to transport the rockets to America, French Guyana or Kazakhstan.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

On more of a technical point, if the Minister does not mind, I know that we have done an awful lot in a very short space of time to get our regulatory system up to scratch. How do we compare with the other European nations, or Europe as a whole?

[Anthony Browne]

This has been a Brexit opportunity, dare I say. Leaving the EU enabled us to set up a whole new regulatory regime in great detail. Other European countries have regimes for space activity, but none with the same detail or launch opportunities as the UK. In the UK we are blessed with our geography, for various reasons. To launch a rocket in space, it needs to be launched from somewhere where there are not a lot of people, and with a trajectory so that if the rocket has a splashdown, it will not land on any other people. Cornwall is obviously very interesting, as is the north of Shetland. If a rocket is launched into orbit from there, it goes north and through the Bering strait. The first land it would hit would be New Zealand, but hopefully it will be up in orbit by that time. Not many other European countries have such geographical opportunities. It would be very difficult for Switzerland or Germany to do that. We are blessed with our geography.

Another difference—and why there is an opportunity for the UK—is that if we go back a couple of decades, the main focus was on big rockets launching satellites into geostationary orbit, which is 47,000 miles out, where they stay above the same point of land as the Earth rotates. A very big rocket is needed to get a satellite up there and into place. It is far easier to do that if the rocket is launched close to and in the direction of the equator. The European Space Agency’s launch site is in French Guyana because it is close to the equator. We now do not send geostationary satellites that far out into space—all the interest is in low Earth-orbit satellites. All the satellites launched by SpaceX for its internet service are low-orbit satellites. It is easier to do that over the north pole.

The changing technical nature of the use of space and satellites represents a huge opportunity for the UK. The satellites themselves are getting a lot smaller. Going back 20 or 30 years, the satellites were the size of buses, whereas now they can be the size of fridges or microwaves. They require much smaller rockets to launch them into space. I hope you enjoyed all that explanation, Mr Deputy Speaker.

As we have heard from various hon. Members and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), the UK space industry supports an industrial base of over 1,500 space companies and provides highly skilled, high-quality jobs across the UK, with over 77% of employees holding at least a primary degree. We heard about jobs in Cornwall and Manchester; this is true levelling up. I also mentioned space jobs in Glasgow and at SaxaVord in the Shetlands. In 2018, Orbex, another Scottish company, opened a new facility in Forres, incorporating design and manufacturing facilities for its Prime launch vehicle. The Prime project has created more than 140 highly skilled jobs in the local area so far, with many more anticipated as the company continues to grow.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise anticipates that the Sutherland spaceport will support around 613 full-time equivalent posts throughout the wider Highlands and Islands, including an estimated 44 full-time equivalent posts on the site. SaxaVord anticipates that by the end of this year, its spaceport site could support 605 jobs in Scotland, including 140 locally and 210 across the wider Shetland region. As we heard, Spaceport Cornwall anticipates that its project will deliver 150 direct jobs and 240 indirect jobs by 2030.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am a little bit anxious that the Minister will forget Airbus, which is in Newport West. I am sure that he was going to mention it. As the shadow Minister said, it is really important for cyber-security and tech jobs in south Wales. It is a vital part of our network, and I wanted to remind him about it.

[Anthony Browne]

The challenge is that there are so many businesses and companies involved in aerospace in the UK, and in the space industry generally, that I cannot list them all. The shadow Minister mentioned Airbus. Clearly, Airbus and British Aerospace are the two really big aerospace companies, but the industry is not just about those two giants. There are many thousands of small and medium-sized companies, and there is a whole supply chain, creating jobs, value and economic opportunities for the UK, which the legislation is designed to help enable.

Building on the success of the UK space sector, the Government have set out bold spaceflight ambitions—the text I was given by officials is definitely bold. In our national space strategy, the UK is boldly going where no country has gone before. [Hon. Members: “Hooray!”] The puns are not stopping. That includes making the UK the leading provider of commercial small satellite launch in Europe by 2030. As I say, the small satellites present the opportunities, not the big ones. To achieve our ambition, the Government have invested over £57 million so far through the Launch UK programme to grow new UK markets for small satellite launch and suborbital spaceflight.

Before I come to the regulatory aspects of the Bill, let me say that many hon. Friends have talked about the commercial opportunities. I will not talk only about that, but the choice to land the Odysseus robot on the moon yesterday was interesting. Why go to the moon? I am trying to paint a bigger picture, rather than concentrating on the immediate commercial opportunities, because lots of people see opportunities for further space development. Elon Musk, who has a few achievements under his belt, has said that he wants to die on Mars. I do not know how realistic that is, but he has launched a Tesla, or one of his cars, into orbit. There are plans to send humans back to the moon next year, and plans to send humans to Mars.

Humans have looked to the skies since time immemorial and dreamed about what is up there. Human instinct is to go and explore, which is why we went around the earth. In Polynesian culture, people went from one island to another. They set forth in their boats without necessarily realising what they would find when they arrived. The human instinct is to explore the universe. We do not know what we will find there, or what the opportunities will be, although I do not think we will find the Clangers or the Soup Dragon on some other planet.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

I never thought I would intervene on the word “Clangers”, but there we are. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for critical minerals. Obviously, critical minerals are another huge industry in Cornwall. As we know, globally, we still do not have enough supply for the future—certainly not from friendly nations that we can trust. Does my hon. Friend agree that in future generations, space could be another source of critical minerals that we need for our supply chains?

[Anthony Browne]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for that point, which was very well made. The Odysseus robot went to the south pole of the moon because that is where the supply of water is. Water is obviously not a critical mineral, but it is a source material for energy and oxygen. We can get hydrogen out of it, but the reason why commercial companies and, indeed, Governments are interested in the moon and Mars is exactly that: critical minerals. We have a limited supply of those minerals on Earth, but we may be able to find them in other places.

[Mark Garnier]

While we are waiting to get to infinity and beyond, it is important to highlight other very innovative British companies that are looking at doing extraordinary things in the area of critical minerals. They are seeking to take the lunar regolith—moondust, which is a metal oxide—and use robots to create 3D printing powder, which could be used to print a moon base through additive printing. The by-product of the powder is oxygen. Keep in mind that it costs $1 million per kilogram to get a payload to the surface of the moon, and that we need not just breathing oxygen, but energy and oxidants for propulsion. It is extraordinary what British companies are doing to make it possible to not only get to the moon and occupy it, but use it as a launchpad to get to further places—such as Mars, speaking of Elon Musk’s ambition. The Americans need us; I think we should remember that.

[Anthony Browne]

My hon. Friend has expounded a very important point: we are critical to the space industry, and to space exploration more generally.

Coming back to the issue of regulation—coming down to Earth from our big visions, the Clangers and so on—the Government have been funding the industry. We put in place the Space Industry Act 2018, which my hon. Friend the Member for Woking talked about, and appointed the Civil Aviation Authority as a spaceflight regulator—that is why I am answering this debate, as a Transport Minister, rather than someone from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Getting into space and orbit is a DFT responsibility. The civil aviation regulator—which has licensed SaxaVord, for example—enables the licensing of spaceflight activities from the UK, such as operating a satellite in orbit, and enabling a launch to orbit from UK spaceports for the first time.

The Government recognise that the issues of liability and insurance are of the utmost concern to the space sector, and they are obviously the entire point of the Bill. The industry made clear in its responses to the consultation on the then draft space industry regulations in 2020, and in response to the Government call for evidence to inform orbital liability and insurance policy in October 2021, that holding unlimited liability will have an adverse effect on the UK space flight industry. People sometimes object to private Members’ Bills because they are not based on consultation, but this issue has been endlessly consulted on and negotiated with industry, and the industry is calling for this Bill.

The industry has advised that it is impossible, not just difficult, to obtain insurance for an unlimited amount. Members might ask, “Why is that, if the chance of something happening is infinitesimally small?” The reason is that it is impossible for the actuaries to quantify it; with infinity over infinity, one could come up with any value. Also, insurers are required by regulation to show that they have the capital to meet any claim on them. Clearly, insurers cannot have unlimited capital, so it is regulatorily and legally impossible for insurance companies to insure to an unlimited amount. It is very difficult for the industry to say to investors, “Please give me money to fund the launch of a rocket, even though I may not be able to insure it.” We need liability limitations so that launch companies and other space operators can get insurance, and so can get the investment that they need.

If a spaceflight company cannot get unlimited insurance, it obviously cannot get full insurance. As a number of hon. Members have said, if the Government did not limit a spaceflight operator’s liability, spaceflight companies and investors would instead look to more favourable regulatory regimes in other countries, where Governments share the risks involved by limiting an operator’s liability and offering a state guarantee. The United States already does this, as does France with French Guiana.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Woking has explained, there are powers in the Space Industry Act that we can and do use to limit a spaceflight operator’s liability when carrying out spaceflight activities from the UK. Government policy is that the regulator should use those powers and specify limits on operator liability in the licence, so that no operator faces unlimited liability. However, the law sets out that the Government “may” do that, rather than “must”.

The Government fully support the Bill for two key reasons. It is consistent with our policy that all spaceflight operator licences should have a limit on liability. It will not, therefore, impose any additional liability or risk on UK taxpayers. My hon. Friend made that point. The Government also recognise the value that the industry places on legislative certainty on this matter. As I pointed out, if investors are to make an investment in a space company, they need to know that the company will be able to get insurance. The report by the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform—the TIGRR report, for short—published in May 2021, expressed concerns from the space sector over the use of the word “may” in section 12(2) of the Space Industry Act. The Bill would replace that “may” with “must”.

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) explained his great interest in space, and mentioned financial services, which I want to come on to. The point was well made that before the UK was a spacefaring nation, we were a seafaring nation. London was the biggest port in the world for more than 200 years, which led to a whole maritime industry with insurance around it, including Lloyd’s of London, and lawyers. We have a huge maritime industry in London as a result of having a maritime fleet, and we now have the same opportunity with space. We can have space investors—I have met some of them—as well as space lawyers, space insurance companies, regulatory experts and so on. It is a huge opportunity. The Government and the regulators need to ensure that the industry has the right incentives.

[Chris Clarkson]

The Minister mentions ports. Obviously, quite a few of our maritime assets are considered critical national infrastructure. Have any discussions been had on whether our space assets will also fall into that category? That applies particularly if we are to launch a 3D printer so that we can build on the moon, which is apparently the only place where the Liberal Democrats will not try to block house building.

[Anthony Browne]

My hon. Friend asks an interesting question. I will raise it with officials and come back to him with an answer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) gave the most fantastic and enthusiastic speech about the space opportunities for Cornwall. I bet most people in Britain do not realise quite how important space is for Cornwall. There are 150 different companies; I had no idea that Cornwall had its own space lawyers, so that is a great insight. We also heard about the use of satellites for the maritime sector and various other issues to do with Cornwall. I want to make sure that my hon. Friend knows that as the Government Minister responsible, I fully agree that the Cornish launch, which was before my time as a Minister, was absolutely a success from a regulatory and investor point of view. I agree that the whole regime worked.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest made the point that we in this country tend to overemphasise the negative, and we always look at the bad things that happen. I think I am right in saying that the first three launches from SpaceX did not get into space, but were actually seen as successes because they contributed to the whole launch operation. Lots of things were learned from those launches, and the same is true of the Cornish launch.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

I do not think I said earlier that the Cornish launch did actually make it to space; it was during the secondary bit that the fuel problem happened and it went wrong. However, we did launch successfully from British soil, and did make it to space.

[Anthony Browne]

I would not want to malign the Cornish space launch in that way, so I fully accept my hon. Friend’s point. It is great to hear that Cornish children are so inspired by space now. As we have heard, there are huge commercial and job opportunities, and I am sure there will be many great careers that will come from children having an interest in space.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) for his general huge enthusiasm and countless puns, which have livened up this day. We could all do with a bit of levity. I thank the shadow Minister for his great speech and for some of his puns, as well as his call for me to resign—[Laughter.] I am grateful for the Opposition’s support for the Bill.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Woking for his Bill, which would amend section 12(2) of the Space Industry Act and meet a key request from the sector, as well as address a recommendation made by the taskforce on innovation, growth and regulatory reform. Indeed, by turning that one word “may” into “must”, the Bill will enable Britain’s space industry to reach the final frontier and beyond.