Global Positioning System

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the United Kingdom’s fallback should Global Positioning System (GPS) services be (1) disrupted by an enemy, or (2) damaged at the peak of the solar cycle in 2025.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, I think I would back the noble Lord to get me home safely using dead reckoning. But he is absolutely right to raise the issues of precision and resilience in relation to the importance of position, navigation and timing to the UK’s prosperity and security, including the real risk of disruption. We are actively examining the critical dependencies we have on GPS to inform the measures needed to defend our critical national infrastructure.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. It does not really help in terms of what I actually asked but there is no doubt whatever that the impact of the loss of PNT is almost existential. Banking, trade transactions and all areas of transport and food supply would all be affected and in complete chaos. The signals from GPS and Galileo are very vulnerable. The strength of those signals is less than some of the cosmic signals coming from the stars. They can therefore be intercepted and adjusted very easily; the Chinese and Russians have already done this. It is absolutely essential that the national PNT strategy, which is being worked on, is brought forward as a matter of urgency. There will be a real risk to this nation if we do not do that. Is there any thought in that strategy of having a terrestrial, high-strength power system to be a fallback should we lose the satellite systems because of satellites either being knocked out, which our enemies can do, or being interrupted by other electronic means?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I did try to answer the Question, and I agree with the noble Lord in his original Question that this is important. The review to which he referred has concluded, and it identified overreliance on GPS and other space-based systems. It looked at numerous use cases across the economy and recommended a system-of-systems approach as being the best fit for the UK, which would obviously include examination of ground or lower-level alternatives. The review concluded that the Government should support resilience by exploring new systems, and a whole-of-government effort is necessary to do this. That is under way and will be led by BEIS.