Space Industry

Sarah Russell Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I thank the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) for securing this important debate.

I am delighted to say that my constituency is part of the space economy, as it includes part of the Jodrell Bank site. Jodrell Bank is the home of the Lovell telescope—an incredible, major radio telescope that was first built at the beginning of the cold war, after world war two. It is part of the University of Manchester, so I should say that my husband is employed elsewhere in the university but has nothing to do with Jodrell Bank.

The site makes a major contribution to the local economy, and its science contributes to our country’s global scientific stature. Two hundred people are employed on the site, and more than 180,000 people, including a great many children, visit the visitor centre every year. Members present may have fond memories of a Jodrell Bank school trip, and I have taken my children there since they were tiny. The site welcomes about 200 school pupils every day during school term time, providing early inspiration that a science career might be for them. The Jodrell Bank workforce is so important, and local businesses have spoken to me about the importance of our young people having a science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.

Jodrell Bank is far more than an employer and a visitor attraction, however. It is also a world-leading research facility that, for more than 80 years, has been making internationally important contributions to our understanding of the universe. I am very proud that it is part of my constituency.

The work done at Jodrell Bank requires dark, quiet skies, which means that future space technology needs to be deployed in a careful, consultative and sustainable way. The world has changed enormously in the 80 years since Jodrell Bank was built. As the hon. Member for Wyre Forest mentioned, where once there was a space race, there is now SpaceX. In that context, Jodrell Bank is also contributing to national space security and sustainability.

Scientists are now using the Lovell telescope and e-MERLIN—the enhanced multi-element, radio-linked interferometer network—to track satellites, monitor space debris and observe near-Earth asteroids using radar techniques. As space becomes increasingly congested and contested, that is a powerful and important capability in which the UK is playing an internationally leading role. It is vital to ensuring space situational awareness and planetary defence, which are key priorities of the UK national space strategy. This is not fantasy stuff: the possibility of satellite collisions risks everything from navigation to online banking, so this is crucial national infrastructure.

The increasing congestion of airspace has implications for air traffic control, and the economic value of supporting that work is very real. The world will, of course, continue to change—that is inevitable—and local businesses that are part of the aerospace industry could definitely move more towards space too. I spoke recently to Bird Bellows, an aerospace manufacturer in my constituency that creates bespoke, precision-engineered metallic bellows and flexible joints. It is incredibly specialist and is used to working to the very tight, regulated demands of the aerospace industry. Last week, I visited CLD, which, if the UK Government build infrastructure, is very likely to be the company that manufactures the fencing and other security that protects it.

It is fantastic that we have these local businesses, but there is real scope, particularly as part of the north-west’s investment in the net zero industrial cluster, for us to crowd in and work with academia and the manufacturing businesses in my constituency, of which there are many, to develop the space economy in my area. I want to see the high-skilled, high-value jobs and investment that can bring.

I am pleased that the Government are protecting record funding for research and development, which will be a relief to anyone who recalls the words of Jodrell Bank’s founder, Sir Bernard Lovell:

“civilisations that abandon the quest for knowledge are doomed to disintegration.”

Thanks to researchers such as those at Jodrell Bank, we may be safe for a while longer yet.