Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lyn Brown and Stuart Andrew

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

7. What funding his Department has allocated to the proposed global navigation satellite system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Stuart Andrew)]

Some £92 million has been allocated from the Treasury EU exit fund to the engineering, development and design phase of a UK global navigation satellite system, which is currently under way. The UK Space Agency is leading the work, with the full support of the Ministry of Defence.

[Lyn Brown]

And yet the reality is that £1.2 billion of UK investment in the Galileo system may now have been wasted because of this Government’s failed negotiation. This Government now want us to spend billions more on a delayed, diplomatically divisive and sketchy system just to cover up for their failure. How much more does the Minister expect the women and men of our armed forces to suffer as a result of lower investment in them because of this Government’s botched Brexit negotiations?

[Stuart Andrew]

Galileo is an issue because our armed forces need to know that we have absolute faith in their secure systems. The EU decided not to allow us to have that information, which is why we are coming out. However, we are working across Government to look into the alternatives, which is why the Prime Minister has put the funding in place.