OneWeb Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord Fox
Main Page: Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Fox's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan
The noble Lord asks a lot of questions and there is not time to address all of them. We are investing in this as a one-off strategic opportunity to own a satellite communications network, working with Bharti Global Ltd, and to support our ambition for the UK to be a pioneer of novel satellite technologies. We are delighted that our bid was successful.
Lord Fox (LD) [V]
As recently as last year, OneWeb raised $1.25 billion, then in March of this year, having launched only a fraction of the satellites that it needs, it filed for bankruptcy protection. Clearly, the American market was not prepared to back it any more. For now, the UK Government, along with Indian tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal, have committed a further billion dollars. On recent experience, that will last about nine months. How much more will it cost the British taxpayer before the Minister and his colleagues realise that this is not a good investment?
Lord Callanan
As I have said, given commercial considerations, I am unable to provide further detail on ongoing discussions, but we will be discussing the future funding of the business, and the merits of bringing in additional shareholders, with our partners in due course.