UK Space Industry

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con) [V]]

May I thank the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for securing this debate? It is important for many reasons, not least because the space sector provides an opportunity for significant post-covid growth, and indeed growth that features high levels of productivity. A report by the London School of Economics showed that small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector are growing by more than 30% per annum. The UK is already a world leader in space science, in producing small satellites, and utilising space data; and as part of the Government’s strategy of achieving 10% of the global space market share by 2030, it has been decided that we also need to focus on space launch services. We have the suppliers and the customers; now we need the infrastructure, the equipment and the services to bring them together in the launch sector. But I ask the Minister: are we pursuing our 10% market share goal with sufficient purpose and are we prioritising the areas that will bring the biggest benefits? The largest value sub-sector of launch services, the design and manufacturing of rockets, has so far received the lowest amount of support funding from the UK launch programme. Only one UK launch vehicle company has benefited from the “LaunchUK programme, whereas seven spaceport sites have already received support.

We have heard a lot in the mainstream press about spaceports; they are, after all, a prerequisite for the UK’s launch ambitions and critical national infrastructure. However, the breakdown of the value of each launch will see spaceports gaining fees of about 2% of the total value of a launch, which compares with the launch vehicle representing more than 60%; we are talking about a difference of thousands versus millions of pounds. It is therefore clear that the UK should be doing all it can to gain this value of the upstream space market. To be clear: if another nation launches its rockets from our spaceport, we get thousands, but they get millions. The benefits of supporting more than one domestic rocket company would be immense in terms of new jobs, productivity, growth in skills, technology and benefits to UK supply chains.

However, it is not too late to correct the balance. A company in my constituency, Raptor Aerospace, is developing the next generation of suborbital launch vehicles. Yes, in among the golden waves of North Norfolk’s finest agriculture, a company is designing and building rockets to access space—it is one of only three significant home-grown rocket companies. Raptor is a start-up that has doubled in size in the past 12 months, and it will grow faster still in 2021. The company has developed a unique hybrid rocket engine facility in the east of England, and the company’s trajectory will see the launch of a development rocket from a UK spaceport later this year, with a commercial space-capable rocket the following year. We have brave companies such as Raptor Aerospace that are willing to take the first steps. We must rely on them and the advantage of the synchronicity and the boost that developing launch capability can provide for all the UK.