Space Industry Bill [Lords]

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Philippa Whitford

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whitford]

I agree with everything the hon. Lady says. As I said, we will have tourism, hyperbolic flights and satellites. Different spaceports might develop different specialisms, so we should not be trying to shut down this industry. Although there will be a first—I am incredibly delighted that the site in my constituency in Prestwick has moved from being a rank outsider to one of the leading contenders—we should not have any sense of “there can be only one”. Prestwick was the first passenger airport in Scotland. We could not imagine Scotland now with only one airport. We do not know where this industry will be in 2030—perhaps hyperbolic flights for long distance will be the norm. Therefore, we do not want to shut down any site.

Of course, as the only place that Elvis put his feet down, Prestwick is already famous. From the point of view of being the first—I mean the first—UK spaceport, it is known for already having a long runway. It is particularly known for its clear weather, which is why it is the back-up airport for the whole UK. It has better visibility and less low cloud even than Newquay, which is hundreds of miles further south.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady confirm that Prestwick has clear airspace and that there is not another commercial airport within the vicinity that shares that airspace, because that is quite important.

[Dr Whitford]

We actually have quite a lot of airspace in that we take off right across the Atlantic. National Air Traffic Services has its air traffic control centre based in our airport. It has already been consulted and has explained that there is no significant issue from the point of view of airspace and launching. Our airport has very good transport, with road and rail links. Having both the air traffic centre and an aerospace cluster onsite strengthens it. Although we talk a lot about the spaceport, what we do not yet have is the routine development of the launch vehicles, and they will evolve hugely in the next decade. Therefore, the more we have the ability to bring expertise together to do that, the stronger and the quicker we will achieve it.

Obviously, the aim of the Bill is to do with licensing, which I welcome because it allows any site to aim to become a spaceport, but it is also to create, as was mentioned, a regulatory framework for sub-orbital and outer space, or orbital spaceflight activities. It amends the Outer Space Act 1986 to make it simply apply outside the UK and be replaced by this Bill within the UK. The regulator is likely to be the Civil Aviation Authority for horizontal take-off and sub-orbital, and the UK Space Agency for vertical take-off and orbital or outer space missions.

Looking at the Bill itself, some issues have already been highlighted, but the biggest one is that of liability, which is causing real concern among the industry. It is the Government who compensate someone who is affected—either their property or their person—by a UK launch or satellite and the company must indemnify the Government. The cap is something that protects that company. What the company has to do is find insurance. At the moment, the cap is set at €60 million per satellite launch under the Outer Space Act. It is important that a figure is arrived at, but we are talking about launches that will have quite a broad range of risk depending on the scale of the satellite.

There is discussion in the Bill and the explanatory notes about using red, amber and green to describe the types of missions, so there might well be slightly different caps. It will also be important that we no longer say “per satellite” because the micro-satellites, such as Unicorn or CubeSats, go up in clusters. If the figure were €60 million for every one of them, that would be prohibitive, but to get insurance for unlimited liability is not really possible, which is why, in the Deregulation Act 2015, this limit was introduced. Other states such as America, Australia and France have a cap on liability. I understand from the Minister that that matter will be discussed, but a cap will need to be set or people will still to choose launch from elsewhere.

It is also really important that we look at the regulations themselves. It is very disappointing that we have no draft regulations to scrutinise; we have instead this absolute burgeoning of delegated powers. I understand the need for flexibility, but the original target was launching in 2020, and there was mention in the Lords that the regulations might not be ready until two years after Royal Assent—the middle of 2020. How do we expect a spaceport to design itself to meet regulations that are not available? How do we expect people to invest in that? How do we expect people in the industry to raise money on the basis of regulations that, suddenly when they come out, might completely rule out a company, a project or even a spaceport site? It is really important that the decision on regulations gets a bit of rocket fuel under its bahookie and starts moving forward.

In general terms, there is the slippage of the timeline. We had a long time of planning blight when it was described as a competition, with all five—it was eight at the time—sites sitting waiting to see who would win, and so nothing happened for a year and a half. Now another year and a half has passed, with things moving forward slowly. We need a little bit of speed.

At the moment, the Government are supporting spaceport sites and launch companies with grants. It is crucial that domestic launch companies should be considered within that—and that includes Reaction Engines—to ensure that they get the funding to take forward the air-breathing rocket engine.

In my area, there is also the issue of orbital access. If our spaceports are just to be three-kilometre slabs of tarmac used by someone from the States once or twice a year, they will not stimulate the industry as we want them to. We need a domestic capability that can launch the satellites when the satellite companies want them to be launched. It is imperative that, in providing the seed money, we are not just sitting back and waiting for Virgin or XCOR to come in; we must invest in our domestic launch companies. We also want the manufacturing—the supply chain all the way through. We do not want just to be providing a piece of land to be used on one day.

As other Members have mentioned, we want the Bill to stimulate the whole industry and to be the key of innovation as well as the stimulus and inspiration for the next generation to take on the STEM subjects and see their future in a burgeoning space industry.