King’s Speech

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to today’s two maiden speakers for their eloquent, thought-provoking, even lyrical contributions.

Many today are speaking about the environment. Environmental issues have become an increasing concern as we consume this planet’s resources and bring ourselves closer to a climate tipping point. In his most gracious Speech, His Majesty referred to

“long-term decisions in the interests of future generations”.

He has often personally been ahead of many others in his concern for the environment. That concern is not only for terrestrial life but now includes the space that surrounds this planet. Today we need not just to look at life on earth but to look up and address what we are doing around our planet, in space.

Space is no longer accessible only to state agencies. Both state and private actors are firing more and more material into the limited orbits available around our planet. Such launches now often release numerous small satellites in their wake, making orbits ever more crowded.

There are many positive sides to space technology, of course—communications, climate observation and navigation systems, to name but three—but this new space race has negative consequences too. There are now millions, indeed tens of millions, of fragments, many of them simply untrackable, orbiting our planet at very high speeds in these limited orbit zones. Not only do they collide with other equipment in orbit, but astronauts—this is insufficiently publicised—have to take cover inside their spacecraft in order to avoid being hit. Even a fleck of paint hitting an astronaut at such speeds would likely be fatal. States, in acts of bravado, have used missiles to shoot down and explode redundant satellites, creating thousands more fragments circling our planet in blizzards of flying metal. Where overcrowding causes one item to smash into another, that creates a cascade of yet more debris that in turn hits other objects, and so on—known as the Kessler effect.

New frontiers are pretty lawless places. History shows that mankind explores new frontiers, then exploits and, in doing so, despoils them, and then looks for new opportunities to repeat that process. Space is no exception. As a student of space law, I quickly realised how limited and often out of date the regulation of space is. That is compounded by the fact that enforcement is extraordinary difficult. For example, imagine trying to prove liability, or even jurisdiction, when an astronaut is cut in half by a flying fragment of unidentified metal thousands of miles above the surface of the earth.

Furthermore, I was astonished to learn that 85% of the satellites circling this planet today have no insurance. Can you imagine airlines or vehicle fleets being allowed to run on that basis? Unless proper regulation, backed by effective detection and enforcement, is put in place, we will see a repeat of the pattern that we have seen on this planet: a scramble by those who can afford it to take control of the frontier—by force if necessary—pollute it for their own gain and leave our grandchildren with the consequences.

There are some causes for hope. His Majesty has again led the way with his support for Astra Carta—a kind of Magna Carta for space. With others, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is working on standards for space activity that it hopes will become the norm for space projects seeking investor finance, for example. I was sad to learn today of the resignation of George Freeman as the Minister for this department, as he has been a great champion of these standards.

There are also companies—I know of three in the UK—developing ways to remove space junk or extend the life of items in orbit. I note that, last week, the UK Space Agency announced a bid process—albeit a modest one—of £2 million for research into this area. But until there are effective regulatory and commercial incentives to do these things, they face an uphill struggle to realise a market for their services. Success will need both international buy-in and global enforcement. If the UK is going to lead on this, continuity of effort beyond the impending election will be needed.

In short, humans have always looked up at space and felt its seeming vastness and mystery, but today the orbits around this planet are limited and are becoming overcrowded by state actors, the military and commercial operations. Can we do better in space than we have on this planet? As a first step, the Government should publicly and clearly recognise that space is an inevitable and integral part of our environment. As such, proper regulation and management of this so-called new frontier requires urgent and co-ordinated action every bit as much as addressing the environmental issues on the surface of this planet. Will the Minister undertake tonight to follow up on this?