Space Industry Bill [Lords]

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for making such a good choice. I welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), to his place. He has moved seamlessly from his previous role as a Minister with responsibility for science. When he held that role, we had many interactions about space and space legislation.

The SNP welcomes the Bill and supports its aim of ensuring that the UK and Scotland can take advantage of new markets, overcome our dependence on foreign launch sites and benefit from the development of new spaceports and supply chains. The space industry has the potential to be worth billions of pounds to the UK economy, but proper investment must be made and work undertaken by all sides to ensure that it is a success.

As a number of Members have mentioned, space is an inspiration. I suppose the first big space development that people are aware of—if we disregard Sputnik, which is possibly not fair—is the Apollo missions to the moon. They were slightly before my time, but I understand their impact. The 1980s were the era of the space shuttle, and I remember as a child the great excitement around a space shuttle launch. An event in 1983 probably shaped my future career as a physics teacher. The space shuttle took part in a European tour, piggybacked on a jumbo jet, and—I do not know how many Members remember this—it flew over Glasgow. On that day in 1983, we heard the jumbo jet from our primary school classroom and ran outside to the playground, where we saw the most spectacular sight. It was quite incredible to see the size of the jumbo jet with this tiny thing stuck on the back, and even more incredible to think that that tiny thing was able to go into space.

The next big development, which happened when I was a young teacher, was the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. It was launched just over 20 years ago, in 1997, to investigate Saturn and its moons. The mission was supposed to be quite short, but it was extended several times because of the discoveries that were made and the volume of data. One of the big discoveries concerned the moon Enceladus. Until that point, Enceladus had been seen as a tiny, icy and fairly nondescript rock in space, but the mission discovered that jets of water vapour were firing from the surface of the moon into space. Liquid water is incredibly important, as we all know; liquid water is the foundation of life. Suddenly, this icy and seemingly irrelevant moon became very important in our consideration of the potential for life in other places.

Finally, I want to mention Tim Peake. I was already a Member of this place when Tim Peake was launched into space, and his mission has inspired a new generation of young people to consider STEM careers and careers in the space industry. Over the years of the space race, we have moved from looking out the way and trying to see what is out there to looking in the way and providing data for us here on Earth. Increasingly, satellites—several Members have mentioned them—provide just such information, and they have become fundamental to our way of life. From maps and navigation systems to up-to-date weather forecasting, those satellites offer us information that we could not previously get.

Despite some embarrassing comments—I am sorry to bring the tone down slightly—last summer from a member of the Scottish Conservative party who described the industry as “science fiction”, the space industry in Scotland is flourishing. The first company was Clyde Space, which was founded in 2005 by Craig Clark. It was named after the River Clyde, on the banks of which it sits. Craig Clark had the ambition that it took to set up Clyde Space. He knew that there was the talent required in Glasgow, and that the universities—Strathclyde, Glasgow and the West of Scotland—had space-facing courses. They have been adapted to work with the satellite industries in Glasgow, and that has been a huge success.

Clyde Space has a vision. At one point, 25% of all ships were built in Glasgow, and the company has a similar vision for spacecraft—a vision that we in Glasgow are well placed to fulfil. When Clyde Space came to Glasgow, it had a multiplier effect. Alba Orbital, only a mile and a half away from Clyde Space, makes pocketqube satellites, which are tiny satellites that weigh about half a kilogram. Unicorn-1, the first pocketqube satellite, was developed in partnership with the European Space Agency and is due for launch this year.

Another company, Spire Global, is coincidentally located in the same building in the centre of Glasgow as Clyde Space. Spire’s headquarters are actually in San Francisco, but it was looking to expand and chose Glasgow for some very good reasons. The chief executive talked about the high quality research taking place in Glasgow, and the skilled technicians. Spire develops its own satellites and, unlike the other satellite manufacturers, launches them and sells on the data, including data about weather and tracking ships at sea. It does something different. These three companies together have ensured that Glasgow is now a European hub for CubeSats, and is now building more than any other place in Europe.

All hon. Members will, of course, champion their own constituencies as the potential location of the spaceport. But, just like the ambition of Clyde Space and Craig Clark, we should look further; we should look into having a number of spaceports. Scotland is absolutely spoilt for choice. Machrihanish in the Kintyre peninsula, and Stornoway airport in Na h-Eileanan Iar have potential. The A’Mhoine peninsula in Sutherland is another entrant to the spaceport race. More recently, it has been suggested that Unst in Shetland offers the opportunity of launching north straight into orbit, without passing over any centres of population. And, of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) has already mentioned, Prestwick airport has an extra-long runway and fog-free facilities, which give it a huge advantage.

The educational opportunities of having a spaceport cannot be underestimated. As a teacher, I had the real privilege of working with the Scottish Space School at the University of Strathclyde, which sent students from Scotland to Houston in Texas for a week-long programme of activities about space; in fact, those trips still happen. If we get this legislation right, we have the potential to do that again here in the UK—in Scotland.

The regulation must support the work that companies are doing. A number of Members have mentioned launch sites. Manufacturers will always launch from the most economically viable location. The difficulty with the UK just now is that it is considered to be far more stringent in its jurisdiction than other locations. The third party liability cap has also been mentioned. The cap must be in place and it must be realistic in order for operators to get the insurance. Without it, CubeSats currently manufactured in Glasgow will continue to be transported to other locations, even when we have a spaceport. The difficulty for the UK space industry is that some countries will require the satellites to be manufactured there in order for them to get the licences to launch. Although that is not currently a big issue, it could be an issue for future investment. If restricted regulation causes the developers to invest elsewhere, we will lose out on future business, regardless of the attractiveness of locations such as Glasgow.

I wrote to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in August last year, and I got a reply from the then Science Minister, who is in his place today. He said that

“some small satellites can represent an increased risk over larger satellites as they often operate in the most congested regions of space, they rarely have any means of propulsion and can be difficult to track”.

Now, that is the case regardless of where we launch from, so we must get the legislation right to ensure that we can launch from the UK. The Minister went on to say:

“The UK Space Agency is also reviewing the UK’s approach to third party liability insurance, in particular with regard to small satellites and large constellations.”

I hope that this will ensure that a reasonable cap is placed on the liability for operators. Without it, they cannot get insurance; and without insurance, there will be no launches.

The Government have a duty to support this industry. Reaction Engines has been mentioned a number of times. The Minister has already mentioned the £65 million investment that I believe Reaction Engines finally received in 2016, but it was promised that money in 2013, so the company was trying to develop for three years without getting funding. We need to be realistic about the funding.

Brexit poses some threats to the space industry, to which collaborations and people are key. These people need assurances, not the ongoing uncertainty of the current situation. I found myself in the strange position a few moments ago of agreeing with the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) when he raised concerns about the Galileo project. We must ensure that we protect UK industries in that project. If suppliers for Galileo must be part of an EU state, our suppliers are under threat. There must be protections in place for them. The Galileo and Copernicus programmes were both designed by the European Space Agency, but they have been built with EU funds. This money is funnelled through member states of the single market only. The UK currently receives about 15% of inward investment from the European space budget, but its contributions account for only 12%. The UK Government must make up the difference to ensure that there is continued financial support for space-related activities.

There is a great potential in space, and great potential for us to get the legislation right. Let us hope that we can work together to ensure that the UK space industry gets what it needs. This is one area of UK Government policy that has the potential to be frictionless.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

I rise to make a short contribution to the debate, not on the basis of any kind of knowledge or technical insight but simply as an enthusiast. I was unsure whether I, as the Member of Parliament for Stirling, could stand here and speak with any authority about such matters as the European Space Agency, but such is the marvel of the days we live in that I have received a communication while I have been in the Chamber from a constituent, Mr Gordon Honeyman, who tells me that I have a constituent who works for the European Space Agency—it happens to be his wife—so I now feel flush with authority to address these subjects, perhaps with an even greater degree of enthusiasm.

I should like to speak in support of the Bill. I am reliably informed that to achieve escape velocity from the Earth, a vehicle must be travelling at 25,020 mph. That is quite fast. The need for speed in rocketry and space engineering is a well-documented fact. The vast distances of space and the physics of gravity make such speed a requirement.

[Carol Monaghan]

That escape velocity applies if the vehicle is pinged from the surface of the Earth and no further propulsion is used. Actually, if we could continually move upwards at 1 metre per second, we would eventually get into space.