Space Industry

Steve Double Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mrs Murray, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing it.

Something exciting has been happening in the space industry in Cornwall in recent years. We have seen the revival of the world-leading Goonhilly satellite tracking station, and I am incredibly proud to have Spaceport Cornwall, based at Newquay airport, in my constituency. It is something that I started championing before I became a Member of Parliament, way back in 2014, when the original call for sites for a spaceport went out. I worked very hard with Cornwall Council, the airport, the Government and the UK Space Agency to get the licence for the spaceport, and I was absolutely delighted that in January 2023 we had our first launch—well, almost. Frustratingly and sadly, due to a faulty $100 fuel filter, the final stage of the rocket burn failed, so the satellites did not reach their intended orbit.

However, that should not detract from the fact that, for Spaceport Cornwall, we played our part perfectly. Everything went well at the spaceport itself. Spaceport Cornwall remains the only licensed spaceport in Europe, and we are ready to launch again.

Also, there continues to be great interest in the facilities that we have, especially the satellite integration clean room—a world-class facility, and there are not many around the world—and our space systems operations facility, which is a dedicated office block on the spaceport site that continues to receive expressions of interest from people who want to locate there. Last month, Slingshot Aerospace announced that it will expand into the UK, with new offices in London and Cornwall, and just this month Space Ai, the Argentinian blockchain innovators, announced that it will set up new offices at the spaceport in Cornwall.

We continue to attract interest from around the world, and there is still a great deal of interest from launch operators who want to launch from Cornwall. There are advanced discussions going on with a number of potential partners that could see us launch satellites from Cornwall once again in the coming months.

In my view, the UK will struggle to fulfil its space sector ambitions without launch capabilities, and although it feels like all the attention is now on Scotland and the vertical launch site there, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) highlighted, it is important not to forget that in Cornwall we have a UK launch site that is licensed and ready to launch.

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Inevitably in a competitive process, that kind of rivalry can emerge, but the real rivalry is between the UK space industry and the space industry elsewhere in Europe and the world. There must surely be a role for horizontal launch in Cornwall and for vertical launch in Shetland, and also at the Sutherland space site.

[Steve Double]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who makes the point that I was literally about to make—it is amazing how often that happens in debates. I am convinced that there is room for both. If the UK is really going to play the role that it aims to play, of being a world-leader in the space industry, we need both capabilities in the UK—vertical launch and horizontal launch. I am convinced that horizontal launch will very much be part of the future of space launch. As satellites become smaller, a horizontal launch will be the sustainable and more accessible option for many operators who want to put satellites into space.

Will the Minister ensure that his Department and the UK Space Agency do all they can to continue to support Spaceport Cornwall, and also work with us so that we can secure the partners to enable us to launch satellites from Cornwall once again in the months and years to come? The UK has an absolutely huge opportunity to stay ahead of the rest of Europe. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland pointed out, we are in a good position in the global space race to ensure that the UK can take advantage of that opportunity.

Spaceport Cornwall is a huge opportunity economically for the UK, and specifically for Cornwall, to attract investment and create the highly skilled and well-paid jobs that we desperately need in the Cornish economy. But for me, this has always been about something more than that. It has been about inspiring young Cornish people to believe that they can go and get the qualifications in science, technology, engineering and maths, and then have a career in the space industry while still living in Cornwall. That is what has driven me throughout this whole process.

With the establishment of the spaceport and the work that the team have done to engage with schools and colleges, we have already seen literally thousands of schoolchildren from the south-west come to see what is going on there and be inspired. That is so important, because one of the challenges we face with our young people in Cornwall is a lack of aspiration. There is no replacement for something on their doorstep that inspires them to say, “Yes, I can go on, get the qualifications and get a good career in this sector.” To that end, we were delighted that Cornwall secured the replica LauncherOne rocket, as a visible and tangible display: the centrepiece of an education centre that will inspire our young people and stimulate their interest in the space industry for generations to come.

There has been a bit of misunderstanding, in that the UK Space Agency seems to think that we are looking to build a tourist centre. We are not. It is an education centre, which will attract visitors and, in particular, inspire young people. Can the Minister look at what support his Department and the UK Space Agency can provide to Cornwall, so that we can create a world-class education centre? It will play a part in inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers, not just in Cornwall and the south-west but across the whole country. We will need them in the UK if we are going to fulfil our ambition to continue to be a world leader in space.

These are exciting times. Just as Cornwall has always pioneered and led the way in new technology, whether that was the steam engine or Marconi and wireless communication, we again want to play our part in leading the UK into space launch.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)]

I remind the SNP spokesperson and the shadow Minister that they have five minutes and the Minister has 10 minutes, because this is an hour-long debate. I call Carol Monaghan.