Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill

Mike Kane Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 23rd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow Jean-Luc Picard—sorry, I mean the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson). That was pun-central. I may have a few of my own in this speech. I congratulate the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Lord) on bringing the Bill this far. It has been brought before us for Second Reading. The aim of the Bill is to help support our space sector, as he eloquently said.

I was born in 1969, as it happens—the same year we took

“one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,”

as the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) said. It feels with recent technological advances that we could be on the threshold of another such leap. We woke up to the news today that Odysseus had landed on the lunar plains, on the face of the moon—the first private mission by the Americans since 1972. We have always as a species looked to the stars and hoped one day to dwell among them, and I felt the enthusiasm in the House for that mission today. The hon. Member also mentioned the Artemis mission, which will be the first staffed space mission that will orbit the moon, hopefully next year. Artemis was the goddess of the wilderness, so the mission has been aptly named as we begin our new era of exploration of the stars.

The Bill amends the Space Industry Act 2018, which was written with the purpose of regulating space activity, sub-orbital activities and associated activities carried out in the United Kingdom. The space industry and its trade body, UKspace, welcome the Bill, as we do. The Space Industry Act enabled spaceflight activities from the UK, such as operating a satellite in orbit and enabling launches to orbit from UK spaceports for the first time. Companies that conduct spaceflight activities from the UK must hold insurance and indemnify the Government against possible third-party claims for damages. Currently, the Space Industry Act says that there is no limit to the amount of compensation that must be paid if anything goes wrong with UK-owned satellites in space. Industry believes that addressing this will prevent satellite operators from registering satellites in other countries to get a better liability deal. Space is becoming more congested. It is right that we amend legislation as the industry develops.

We are now at a key point in developing a thriving and dynamic space industry—an industry that we now know is worth £17.5 billion to the UK, employing up to 50,000 people. I was speaking recently to Airbus, which the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton also mentioned. As I am sure Members are aware, Airbus is the second biggest global space company and the largest in the UK. Its representatives told me that they operate over seven key sites in the UK, principally Stevenage and Portsmouth. From Stevenage to Saturn has quite a ring to it—pardon the pun, I was just following the puns of the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton. As he says, why should this industry not feature in every sector and in every constituency. We are developing the new Atom Valley in Greater Manchester, to the north of the conurbation. The supply chain is vast. There are almost 2,900 space suppliers, half of which are small and medium-sized enterprises, and it is vital that we support the industry here in the UK. I happen to know that in 2022 in my constituency £1 million was spent with space suppliers. It is good to see procurement in the sector that benefits the bottom 10% of the most deprived areas of the land.

There are so many good reasons to support the sector. We want to remove barriers to new businesses setting up here in the UK. We want companies to be incentivised to set up in the UK, rather than taking their business elsewhere, whereupon they are likely to use suppliers geographically local to themselves. We do not want to lose out on these jobs; we want these jobs of the future to be here in the UK.

Interestingly, one of the other main sites that is strong in the space sector is Newport. As we heard from the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), jobs have been at risk in that area because of the Tata Steel plant. Unite the Union and my own union, Community, tell me that well-paid, highly skilled, unionised steel jobs are at risk in the area, so we must ensure that these areas are not de-industrialised so that there are opportunities available for our workers and for our young people. We also want our own SMEs to be part of the supply chain. Encouraging businesses is what we should be all about.

The Bill addresses what happens if anything were to go wrong, from launch failure to satellite crashes. However, this is not just about UK launches, but UK ownership, as the Government have the final liability on any space item that is owned by the UK Government.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Woking on bringing his Bill to the House today. I thank the hon. Member for Wyre Forest for his work with the all-party parliamentary group for space. He quoted the “The Wealth of Nations”, which is much-favoured by Conservative Members. I remind him of Smith’s treatise “The Invisible Hand”, in which he said that economic activity should enrich the whole community. We know that space can do that.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth. I was intrigued by what she said. Our nation contains a number of left-behind areas, including—I am not trying to make a party political point—some of our coastal areas, market towns and suburbs. Through an agglomeration of the maritime, aviation and space sectors, we can really begin to think about how we can regenerate those areas by giving people opportunities, just as, when I was a young councillor in Manchester in the 1990s, we created a legal sector, a banking sector and a media sector. People will not have to leave their communities when they turn 18, or turn 22 and get their degrees, because those technological jobs of the future will be in the areas in which they grew up, and that, I think, is one of the greatest hopes that we politicians can give our young people. This is what the space sector provides through the supply chain across the country, but particularly in the south-west and the Shetland Islands: a diverse geographical spread.

To the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton I say thanks for all the puns, and I wish him good luck with his career as a space lawyer after—well, whatever happens at the general election! I wish him well.

Industrialists tell us that the Bill will give them confidence and will encourage investment in the UK, providing highly paid, highly skilled and yes, unionised jobs throughout the nation, and on that basis, we support it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

May I say how privileged I am to be chairing this debate? I once hosted the astronaut Nicole Stott and the crew of Discovery in the Public Gallery and then took them over to No. 10 Downing Street. I am also honoured and privileged to have met Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, on two occasions—once here and once at Cape Canaveral—and I have seen a few launches. So space is very important to me.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Anthony Browne)]

This is probably the most enjoyable debate I have ever taken part in. Particularly after Wednesday night’s activities, it is nice to have a debate of a cross-party nature in terms of its support and enthusiasm.

[Mike Kane]

Resign!

[Anthony Browne]

He has gone and spoilt it all, Mr Deputy Speaker.

A few months ago I went to see the show “The Moon Walkers”, with narration by Tom Hanks, about the 12 men —and they are all men—who have walked on the moon. It is a remarkable exhibition, and I highly recommend it to everyone, particularly you, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you are interested in space. It is about an age of adventure, an extraordinary era 50 years ago when people were walking on another celestial body. We thought it was the dawn of a whole new era and that mankind, and womankind, would carry on and explore the rest of the universe, but that did not happen, and no one has been back to the moon since. Yesterday, however, the United States returned there, for the first time for 50 years, as the shadow Minister said, although it was not a person but the Odysseus robot that landed near the moon’s south pole.

The real significance of this event, however, is not the 50-year gap but the fact that Intuitive Machines, a Houston-based company, sent that robot to the moon. The space age has entered a completely new era, which is not about states and Governments of big countries trying to prove how powerful and effective they are for the purpose of national pride, but about real commercial opportunity. Many of my hon. Friends have mentioned all the commercial opportunities that are out there. People are doing this not for reasons of national pride, but because it is so useful to humankind, and so important for communications, sensing, geographical information and all the other elements that have been mentioned.

This is now a properly based commercial opportunity for the UK, and that is why I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Lord) for bringing this short but impactful and timely Bill to the House. I also greatly enjoyed the contributions from all the other Members who have spoken. I am pleased to confirm that the Bill has the Government’s full support. Let me briefly explain why.

As my hon. Friend and others have said, the UK has a thriving space sector. In fact, I learned this morning that Cornwall has 150 space companies. We have a far more thriving space sector than most people realise. Did you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the satellite capital of Europe is Glasgow, and that more small satellites are built there than anywhere outside California?

The UK is now the second most attractive destination for commercial space investment after the United States. We get more space investment in the UK than any other country in the world apart from the United States. Given your interest in space, Mr Deputy Speaker, did you realise that no rocket has ever been launched into orbit from European soil? We have a European Space Agency, which has launched rockets into space, but it does so largely from French Guyana in South America. Rockets have been launched into space from Kazakhstan, but never from European soil. We now have a spaceport in the Shetlands preparing to do just that—SaxaVord, which many hon. Members have mentioned. We might end up with one from Cornwall as well, but Shetlands might be the first. That will be a truly historic moment.

Let me clarify that rockets are launched into space from Europe, but they are suborbital. From Norway and Sweden, they go around the earth once or maybe twice, and then come back down to Earth. Never has a rocket been launched into sustained orbit from European soil. The UK plans to be the first European nation to do that, which marks a huge opportunity. We set up the regulatory and licensing regimes to license the spaceports because, not just in the UK but in other European countries, companies are making satellites and rockets that they want to launch into space. It will be far easier and cheaper for them to do it from European soil than having to transport the rockets to America, French Guyana or Kazakhstan.