Space Sector: Government Support

Debate between Chris Bryant and Peter Dowd

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant]

That is a very fair point. All the new Ministers arriving in DSIT have been very keen to provide as much strategic clarity as possible about our direction of travel. Perhaps one could say that the advantage of having a decent majority in Parliament is that one can lay out a strategy for a period of time, rather than just running to catch up with one’s tail. Likewise, I take the point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland that it is that clarity of strategic objectives that shows, “Yes, this is what we are doing; that is not our priority.” That makes it much easier for inward investment into the UK to make secure investments for the long term.

Some of the things that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has said about business taxation are important as well. The aim is to create an environment in which people can invest securely, knowing where they are going, that the Government will have their back and that the strategy will not change every six months. I note the points made by the National Audit Office. I think the previous Government were very much trying to point in this direction, but perhaps they did not quite land it; maybe there was an anomaly at some point in the process of developing the long-term strategy.

Some hon. Members might not initially think of space as significant to the daily lives of their constituents, but I think it is worth pointing out something that is part of our lives: sat-nav. We all used to have rows in the car, trying to work out where we were going. Sat-nav now does the work for us—although I note that none of the sat-nav operators seems to understand how to say the name of my street in Wales or, frankly, any of the roads or towns in Wales—but this is not just about sat-nav for personal life; it is also about Earth observation, which makes it much easier to predict weather patterns. I had an interesting conversation the other day with a wine operator from the south-east, who was saying that that is really important for them to work out when they should harvest to ensure that there is the right amount of sugar in the grapes and so on. Similarly, data coming from satellites will enable the Government and many operators to provide services more effectively, efficiently and cheaply, and in a way that is more intuitive for ordinary consumers.

In all those fields, space is a really important part of how Government do their business, and how we better facilitate a strong economy and better society. Of course, it is not just the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology that has a very significant interest in space. I pay tribute to the Ministry of Defence, which has been a major player in the field; obviously, it is a NATO operational domain, apart from anything else. The MOD is investing £6.5 billion over a decade, including £5 billion for satellite communications through Skynet and £1.5 billion through the defence space portfolio. Many other Departments—the Department for Business and Trade, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Department for Transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and so on—are also engaged in this work.

Skills were mentioned earlier. The UK Space Agency has been funding £19.6 million since 2022 in this skills field, because if people want to invest, they are going to do so on the basis that we have a skilled workforce in the UK that is available not just today but in five, 10, 15 and 20 years’ time.

I will say a few things about the launch sector, which is obviously of primary interest to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. Roughly 200 companies are engaged in the launch sector in the UK. As I said, some are involved in rockets; we have also referred to subsystems, spaceports, mission control, apps and all the technology that goes into making all of this possible. Roughly 1,500 people in the UK are involved, and they are fairly well paid, so that is a significant part of our economy with significant opportunity for growth. It brought in something like £336 million last year and had a GVA of £153 million. Over the past six years, the Government have invested something like £91 million in our launch capabilities—the right hon. Gentleman referred to the £10 million loan to SaxaVord.

We are ongoing in our commitment, and that commitment has not been shaken by any anomalies that might have been seen on launch. I did feel a bit worried that my first engagement with space was something going not entirely to plan, but I do not think that there is a causal relationship between that and my arriving in post.

In relation to Shetland, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need to work with the devolved Administration. I am very keen to have conversations with our colleagues in Scotland, my counterparts in Scotland, and of course with the Scotland Office. We need to work as a united Government to achieve what we want in the field.

As I say, I have spoken to Frank Strang and I am very keen, at the earliest opportunity, to visit both Grantown-on-Spey and Shetland. I cannot say when the next attempted launch may be, but Members are absolutely right: it is not a failure to have an event that does not go entirely to plan, when all of the contingency plans do click in correctly and properly so that there is no harm or danger to life. We see it as a blip, not as a final problem, and it does not undermine our long-term commitment.

There are a couple of points to be made about value for money, which goes to the point about clarity of strategy. We are going to have a very tough spending review—I think everybody might have sussed that by now; the messaging has been strong enough on the subject—and that will undoubtedly be true in this field too. We need to be absolutely clear about what we are seeking to achieve, and about what the whole consortium of businesses and players in the space field want to achieve, so that we get really good value for money for the UK economy. It would be a terrible dereliction of a significant economic and strategic opportunity for the UK if we were somehow or other to abandon this field or diminish our commitment.

I hope that I have reassured the right hon. Member—just as I reassured him on 28 October 2009, when we were both in favour of the abolition of the death penalty everywhere in the world—that the UK Government are not stinting in our commitment to space and to the strategic and economic opportunities that it affords us.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Thank you. On the subject of space, Minister, can I say that your tie is stellar?

Question put and agreed to.

Broadband: Rural Communities

Debate between Chris Bryant and Peter Dowd

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Chris Bryant]

No, it is not a good excuse and that is not a very good argument to make.

I concur with the point made by the hon. Member for Meon Valley about the head of Openreach. It is important that major corporations, which broadly speaking have not far off a monopoly position in the UK, respond to Members of Parliament as swiftly and directly as possible and do not simply pass the buck. The hon. Lady also made a very good point about the need for better co-operation between all the different operators in this field, because now, with all the “old-nets”—I fully support competition within the market—there is a danger, which I will discuss a little later, that if there is not co-operation there will be a complete and utter muddle.

I think I have heard some of the speech by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) before, too, and again I commend him for repetition; it is not something ever to complain about in politics. He made two really important points. The first was that being isolated is a dangerous place to be in the modern world. If we think about an elderly person who relies on mobile connectivity to connect to her relatives, who might be on the other side of the world, or to healthcare providers, that is evident, and the point is extremely well made. He also made a point about hill farmers. Funnily enough, when I had a farm in the Rhondda, which was on a hill, I had the best connectivity I have ever had, but that was purely and simply because the mast was almost immediately opposite my house.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) made a very important point about Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency or DVLA services no longer being available in post offices. Soon, my constituency will no longer have a bank at all—no bank whatsoever. Of course lots of people are using digital banking services today, but sometimes it is necessary for someone to go physically to a bank, to prove their identity and so on. Banks will need to go a considerable further distance to make some things available online that currently people cannot do online; because of the distances involved in travelling in rural areas, the present situation is simply problematic. However, even if that happens, people need full access to a broadband connection; otherwise, they are simply unable to continue their business.

I think that Vintage Ghetto is the hon. Lady’s business, or perhaps one of her businesses; I do not know. Vintage Ghetto has some very fine things online, if anybody wants to go shopping before Christmas. However, I simply note that it will be difficult for people to pursue that kind of business, which many people in rural areas now do, without having a really strong broadband connection.

Finally, there was the contribution by the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan). I would have laid a bet that he would refer to what the Scottish Government have done and condemn the Westminster Government for not doing what the Scottish Government have done. I could point out that the Welsh Government have often intervened in the same way in Wales to address some of the problems that we have in rural areas. However, the truth is that we need a whole-UK answer to all these issues, and I will give some of the reasons why in a moment.

Broadband is not just important in rural areas but absolutely vital—for building or growing a business; for running a farm or, for that matter, diversifying an agricultural business, for instance by allowing tourism; for doing homework or, for that matter, doing university study; for providing healthcare and local services; and, frankly, for growing up, by allowing children to talk to their friends online, play a video game or download a film.

Members have talked a lot about the haves and the have-nots in this field. Members may not be aware that the phrase “haves and have-nots” originally comes from “Don Quixote”. It is when Sancho Panza says:

“There are two kinds of people in this world, my grandmother used to say—the haves and the have-nots. And she stuck to the haves. And today, Señor Don Quixote, people are more interested in having than in knowing. An ass covered with gold makes a better impression than a horse with a packsaddle.”

I quote that extract because one of my concerns about the way that we are developing in relation to broadband and digital connectivity in this country is that we get a bit too focused on the “having” rather than on the “using”. Indeed, my biggest concern as an MP who represents one of the poorest constituencies not only in the UK but in Europe, is the affordability issue.

I have raised this issue in a previous debate and I know that the Minister has similar concerns. There are social tariffs. They are almost unknown to most of the people who might be able to take them up. One local council—maybe several councils now, but certainly Sunderland City Council wrote to everybody in its area about social tariffs. The council had the information on who qualifies for universal credit and who therefore qualifies for a social tariff, so it wrote to everybody concerned and that drove up the take-up of social tariffs. However, when 18% of poorer homes in the country—in my patch, I suspect the percentage is even higher—do not have any internet to home at all, even when superfast broadband or gigabit capability is available, that is going to be a long-term problem for levelling up, for all the reasons that the hon. Member for West Dorset gave earlier. It is not levelling up if people simply cannot afford to take something up.

Secondly, as several Members have said, many people are not taking up better connectivity, either because it is too expensive or because they simply do not understand what the benefit might be to them. When we and the industry bang on about gigabit-capable, megabits per second, superfast or fast broadband and all the rest of it, that is not a sell to an ordinary household. People want to know what they will be able to do that they could not do previously and therefore why they need it. There is a real marketing problem across the whole of the UK that we need to address if we really are to drive up take-up, otherwise the danger is that all the companies will be making massive investments but getting no return. That is when the whole situation may get into trouble.

I worry about the exclusion of certain areas and categories of people. I have asked the Minister this before and I ask him again: how are we doing on new contracts for Project Gigabit? When I asked him the last time we met, he said that more were going to be let in the next few months. It would be interesting to know precisely how that is going.

My other concern is this: competition is a really good thing, but not if it turns every street into the wild west. In just the last few weeks, in my own patch—particularly in Tonypandy, CF40—lots of different companies have been digging up the roads again and again. People are sick of it. It is happening not just in Kingston upon Hull but in lots of different places in the country. I worry that the system, through Ofcom’s powers, is not strong enough to ensure that there is proper co-operation. One complaint I had said:

“You will have seen road closures without relevant permissions being granted, poor reinstatement of pavements, mud-laden streets, poor communications with residents and tardy workmanship.”

I am fully in favour of companies such as Ogi rolling out gigabit-capable broadband in my patch, but I also want to see rational co-operation between the different organisations.

Finally, the Minister will know that the Government’s digital strategy is now more than a decade old. In fact, the online version has references to websites and programmes that no longer exist, so I think it is time for a new Government digital strategy. After the Government responded to the House of Lords digital exclusion report, Baroness Stowell, who is a Conservative Member of the House of Lords, said that the failure to come up with a new Government digital strategy

“suggests a reluctance to dedicate political attention and departmental resource to this matter”,

and the Communications and Digital Committee in the House of Lords said:

“The Government’s contention that digital exclusion is a priority is not credible.”

I therefore hope that the Government will announce today that they will start consultation on a new Government digital strategy.

I will end with some questions. I have asked these questions before, but the Minister did not answer them. Have I run out of time?

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

indicates assent.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I have run out of time. I asked them last time: perhaps the Minister will answer them this time.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution, particularly the opening part.