Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill

Debate between Anthony Browne and Jonathan Lord

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

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

It is an honour to serve under you, Sir Philip. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woking for promoting this short but incredibly important Bill. I also commend the eloquence of his speech. He made all the points that I would have made. I have a speech here, but I will not go through it all; not only has he made all the points but on Second Reading we had a prolonged debate in which the issues were covered extensively. I covered all the points that the Government want to make and can declare that we fully support the Bill.

Before I conclude, I want to answer a couple of points. It was lovely to hear the excitement of my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor; I loved his description of the Bill being the last piece of the jigsaw being put in place. It very much is that. We now have a comprehensive set of legislation and regulation for the space industry, which I am sure will grow fast. I was looking for the information about how much it is going to grow; we do have a forecast somewhere. I will get back to my hon. Friend. At the moment, we know that 48,000 people are employed in the UK space industry, but that number will grow rapidly. There is a huge opportunity.

On my hon. Friend’s question about liability, I should say that that is set by the regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, under something called the modelled insurance requirement process; if he wants more detail on that, he can write to me and I will give him it. Basically, this is done on a case-by-case basis, depending on the type of spaceflight being undertaken. In the case of insurance for satellite orbital operators, for standard orbital missions there is a flat-rate liability limit of £51 million. I think that answers all the questions, but as I set out on Second Reading, there are no amendments and the Government fully support the Bill.

[Mr Lord]

The Minister’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor was absolutely correct, and I have further details in front of me that I am very happy to share with my hon. Friend. I am extremely grateful to all colleagues for attending and for the cross-party support that I have received. As the Minister said, we had a full Second Reading debate; it was wonderful to have you participating in that as well, Sir Philip. Without further ado, I commend the Bill to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill to be reported, without amendment.