Queen’s Speech

Baroness Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, although one could always wish for more, it would be churlish not to acknowledge the important steps forward contained in the gracious Speech on vital infrastructure for our country. I will focus on this today, and on transport, including the regime to enable spaceports to be developed in the United Kingdom. Before I do, I declare my interests on the register relating to housing and commercial property, and as chairman of Scottish Television, with a natural interest in developing satellite technology.

The statutory footing proposed for the National Infrastructure Commission is a very welcome step in the right direction. Together with the recently updated national infrastructure plan, it provides a clear signal to investors of the Government’s commitment and priorities. However, we will wait with interest to understand the statutory remit of the commission and the scope of its powers. These will determine whether it has real teeth and can meaningfully move forward the whole programme of infrastructure delivery that is so badly needed to enable our country to improve competitiveness and, crucially, productivity, which currently lags so badly behind all our major competitors.

However, I greatly regret the Government’s abolition of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, the creation of which was one of the first acts of the coalition Government in 2010. Had this body been allowed to develop as planned, we would now have at our disposal all the tools to accelerate infrastructure development in the UK. I ask the Minister: are there any plans to resurrect the idea of a national planning body for major pieces of crucial infrastructure? This would sit well alongside the new National Infrastructure Commission and the national plan.

As we return to considering HS2 in this House in the forthcoming Session, I echo the sentiments expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, at Second Reading. This is a huge undertaking and yet quite literally it does not go far enough. To realise the full economic benefits to the UK as a whole, the project needs to continue in due course to Scotland. The west and east coast main lines have become increasingly busy over the past 20 years. If we are serious about economic competitiveness, about running more passenger services between Scotland and England, and about cutting emissions levels, more capacity is required. HS2 could certainly help address this. Creating an additional electrified route to Scotland would also improve network resilience—something that the flood damage to Lamington Viaduct brought to everyone’s attention earlier this year. Can the Minister say what progress has been made on the question of an extension to the project since the joint announcement between the UK and Scottish Governments on 16 March this year?

I turn to the modern transport Bill, in particular the very welcome announcement that a licensing regime is to be created, rather than a competition among locations, for the development of spaceports. The space industry is growing at just over 8% per annum but its development is constrained by a lack of low-cost and reliable access to space. Launches are very expensive, have to be booked years in advance and are repeatedly delayed or rescheduled. UK and European businesses looking to undertake space launches currently have to look to Kazakhstan, the US or French Guiana. A UK spaceport, or spaceports, with reliable launch vehicles operating from them would reduce the cost of launch substantially and increase the certainty of launch dates. This would both result in increased demand for satellites for a range of applications and allow launches into non-equatorial orbit from the UK. This opens up tremendous economic development possibilities for all downstream activities that are reliant on satellite technology.

The proposed new regime is exceptionally good news for locations such as Prestwick international airport, to which I have a strong local attachment and where I have seen tremendous work being done in the past few years in preparation for its next phase of development as a spaceport. It is quite simply the perfect location for such a facility—geographically, technically and commercially. With almost a hundred years of experience in the aerospace sector, the airport offers a ready-made cluster on site. There are already thousands of highly skilled people working on testing, modifying, repairing and maintaining aircraft. These are the highly skilled jobs that will readily adapt to the demands of the spaceplanes. It is a very exciting and natural next chapter in the airport’s development, and will be a fabulous platform for growing the regional economy in Ayrshire.

The proposed licensing regime will enable the investment community, already excited by what is on offer at Prestwick and other locations, to select the best location for development, rather than being directed to a predetermined site chosen by government. We can look forward to the Bill coming forward to enable this hugely important industry to flourish and to flourish safely. There are currently no commercial spaceports in the UK, and this legislation will pave the way for Prestwick and any other suitable locations to develop a very important 21st-century industry.