Space Industry

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB) [V]]

I welcome today’s maiden speakers and thank the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, for the way in which he introduced this debate. I was interested to hear his positive comments on OneWeb, which were particularly striking in contrast to the remarks others have made on that issue. Following the latest fundraising for OneWeb, can the Minister tell us where the country’s holding in that company now stands? It had been 42.2% and I wonder whether it has been significantly diluted. Could he also tell the Committee how much money was spent on trying to develop our own GPS system, a scheme that has now been abandoned?

More positively, astronauts such as Chris Hadfield are now talking about colonising the moon. NASA is setting up a lunar village, or has plans to. Can the Minister say whether the government’s space strategy will be similarly forward looking? Can he also tell us how we are regulating commercial activity in space?