Space Industry

Debate between Steve Double and Sheryll Murray

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[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.

Space Industry Bill [Lords]

Debate between Steve Double and Sheryll Murray

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

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

It is a pleasure to speak about this important Bill and to follow the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who shares my keen interest in this matter.

I greatly welcome the Bill, which will set out the framework for the growth and development of this exciting sector. If we are to maintain and improve our national position as a global economic power, it is vital that we should participate fully in the expected growth of the space industry. It is absolutely right that the Government should be ambitious and that they are putting in place the necessary measures to ensure that our country benefits from the rise in demand for commercial satellites and the emerging sub-orbital spaceflights.

As we have heard, there is the potential for people to fly from this country to Australia in about four hours. I add something for the consideration of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman): that is quicker than it takes me to get from London to my constituency in Cornwall by train. Will my hon. Friend look favourably on the Peninsula Rail Task Force report on reducing train travel times to the west country so that I can get home as quickly as I hope to be able to get to Australia one day?

If the Government had not taken the opportunity to draw up the Bill and put the regulation and licensing framework in place, it would have been a dereliction of duty: the missing of a golden opportunity for the future of our nation. That is why I greatly welcome the Bill and am delighted to support it. We have to be ready to move quickly. We live in a fast-changing world in which we are surrounded by new and emerging technologies. We have already heard about the potential of autonomous vehicles, and I put the space sector alongside that technology—we are going to see rapid change and growth in the space sector, and we as a country need to be ready and to have the regulations in place. We need to support our businesses and industry so that we can make the most of the coming opportunities.

My one concern about the Bill, also mentioned by other Members, is about limited liability for operators. I have met a number of potential operators and all have raised the desperate need for clarity about the limit of liability. They cannot currently get insurance and that could be a brake on investment in this emerging industry. Will the Minister consider that quickly as the Bill progresses so that we can provide certainty to the industry and so that it can know the limits and get insurance cover? That would give it the confidence to develop further.

As many Members will be aware, I have a particular interest in this matter. Cornwall Airport Newquay is in the constituency that I have the honour of representing, and it is one of the potential sites for the UK’s first spaceport. I was not going to go into detail about why I think Newquay should be the first spaceport, but as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire promoted Prestwick, I feel duty bound to do the same for Newquay.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Will my hon. Friend clarify what I think was misunderstood by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford)? Unlike Prestwick, which is near Glasgow airport, Newquay is not competing with another airport for airspace. Is that my hon. Friend’s understanding as well?

[Steve Double]

Absolutely. Newquay has several things in its favour. It has a very large runway and easy access to uncongested airspace over the Atlantic. There are literally hundreds of acres of development land in an enterprise zone ready for developing the necessary business and manufacturing that would support a spaceport. Uniquely, I believe, we also have the space enterprise zone through our partnership with Goonhilly satellite station. That makes us in Newquay very well placed to be the first UK spaceport.

Although Newquay should be the first spaceport, it should not be the only one. As the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire said so well, there will be a need for further spaceports as the industry grows in our country. I believe that we will want to be launching satellites, putting people into space and operating sub-orbital flights from across the country, not just one location, much as I would love Newquay to be that location.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Steve Double and Sheryll Murray

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I want to start by saying that I will be supporting the Bill and concur with the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) about why he supports it. However, I will mainly talk about the impact that the proposed boundary changes will have on Cornwall. I want to explain why people in Cornwall, my constituents in particular, feel so strongly about this issue and have urged me to speak up today.

Many hon. Members will be aware that the restrictions in the current legislation mean that Cornwall will have to share an MP with Devon. There will have to be a seat that crosses the border between north-east Cornwall and north-west Devon.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Will my hon. Friend explain to me what part of his constituency may cross the border with Devon?

[Steve Double]

My constituency is clearly in central mid-Cornwall and no part of it will cross the border, but the people of Cornwall feel strongly about this whether they are directly impacted by the cross-border seat or not. The Minister will know that the matter has provoked strong feelings for many in Cornwall. I acknowledge that that reaction may seem strange and make little sense for people outside Cornwall—many simply view Cornwall as another English county—but the Cornish pride themselves on being different, un-English, and unique in many ways. It is therefore unsurprising that people who do not share that sense of pride and passion in being Cornish do not appreciate how the Cornish people feel. The truth is that this is an emotional reaction to the proposals.

I will admit that I have looked at many of the reasons for objecting to the cross-border seat in the current legislation, and there are no reasonable legal arguments to stop it going forward.

[Mrs Murray]

rose—

[Steve Double]

I will make a little progress before I take another intervention.

Cornwall’s democratic representation will not be somehow diluted by sharing an MP with part of Devon. I do not believe that an MP will be unable to represent two different counties in one constituency. Many hon. Members represent diverse constituencies with people from all sorts of ethnic and cultural backgrounds very effectively. This is about a purely emotional response from the Cornish. We have seen over the past six months that voters have become much more emotional in how they react to Government and our democracy—politics is now much more emotional.

Like many, I had hoped that the granting of minority status to the Cornish people would provide a basis for a legal challenge. There was great joy in Cornwall in 2014 when the Cornish were recognised under the Council of Europe’s framework convention for the protection of national minorities. We were told that it would give us the same recognition as other Celtic people in the UK, but it appears that this does not apply when it comes to parliamentary boundaries. Although the Boundary Commission has recognised and maintained the borders of Scotland and Wales when drawing up the constituencies, the same respect has not been shown to the Cornish border. Sadly, legal advice obtained by Cornwall Council has stated that our Cornish minority status is not something that can be used to argue against a cross-border seat, so despite all the rhetoric, it seems that the legal arguments against this boundary are very weak.

[Mrs Murray]

There has been a petition on this and some of my constituents wrote to me about it. I looked at the petition website and saw that 400 of my constituents—out of 72,000—had signed it. Does my hon. Friend know how many of his constituents signed it? He said he was speaking on behalf of the Cornish, but let me put on the record the fact that I am a Cornish girl and he was not speaking for me.

[Steve Double]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I do not know how many people from my constituency signed the petition, but I have been out in my constituency, on the doorsteps, in the pub and at my surgeries, and what I do know is how many people have come directly to me to raise their strong feelings about this issue. That is what I have taken notice of. Leaving aside how many constituents have raised this issue with me, it is one that I, as a Cornishman, feel strongly about.

EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Debate between Steve Double and Sheryll Murray

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I feel a bit of a lone voice because I am going to speak in favour of voting to leave next week. It is very important for me to do so because I believe that Labour Members’ comments about a Tory Brexit betray the fact that they are not listening to the British people. The vote next week will quite clearly be very close, but at least half of the British people have had enough of the EU and want to leave. By calling this a Tory Brexit, Labour Members are just not listening to the many millions of British people who have genuine concerns about our current relationship with the EU.

This debate, however, is about the supposed economic benefits of our membership of the EU. I will address one very specific point in that regard. According to the House of Commons Library, in 2016 Britain is forecast to give £20.5 billion gross and £11.2 billion net to the EU, so we will be getting back some money from that £20 billion. No one can deny that that will be a large sum of money, and there are various opinions about how it could be spent, but only if we leave will we get to decide how it can be apportioned.

Part of the money we get back from the EU comes in the form of economic development aid. The constituency in Cornwall that I have the privilege of representing is one of the areas in England that benefits the most from that aid. Over the past decades, Cornwall has received hundreds of millions of pounds in regional growth funding from the EU.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

I believe Cornwall has been getting around £65 million a year since 2001.

[Steve Double]

I thank my hon. Friend for that—I was about to make the point that over the past 10 years or so Cornwall has received around £600 million in economic development aid. But we need to remember that that is not EU money. The EU does not actually have any money—there is no magic EU money tree. It is our money, which we give to the EU. It converts it into euros, then converts that into sterling to give back to us, except that it gives it back with a whole load of strings, bureaucracy and red tape attached about how we can spend it.

The fact is that that money is not working. It was meant to create 10,000 new jobs in Cornwall. In fact, in the past 10 years or so, it has created around a third of that number. That Cornwall has now qualified for a third round of EU funding demonstrates that the funding is failing. It is not lifting the Cornish economy as intended. It is not raising wages or the standard of living in the way it was designed to.

Local Government Funding: Rural Areas

Debate between Steve Double and Sheryll Murray

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Murray]

That is something my hon. Friend the Minister could consider.

There is also a problem with specialist schools, which are often a considerable distance away from where children live. Facilities can also be more difficult to get to. As well as having to travel many miles to the local swimming pool or to see a film at a cinema, we have to look at essential amenities, such as doctors, dentists and hospitals. I worked as a doctors’ receptionist at one of my rural practices for more than 21 years, and I used to try to arrange people’s appointments around the bus timetable, but that was not always possible. My nearest hospital is over the Tamar in Plymouth, and getting there involves a ferry or a long trip around by the Tamar bridge. Google Maps shows it takes one and a half hours to get there by public transport.

Such matters create considerable transport costs for anyone in a rural area, and especially for any local authority that must help people to get around these vast areas. It is simply not financially viable for the private sector to run such services on a regular or affordable basis, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) said. These rural communities, such as my own, need assistance with that extra burden. Last week, I spoke on the importance of food security, and I remind my hon. Friends that it is in these rural areas that we produce our food.

I want to finish with a complaint from one of my long-standing councillors. Councillor Armand Toms from Looe wrote to me recently, although I acknowledge that he must also raise this matter in Cornwall Council. He said in his email:

“Year on year the revenue from the Cornwall Council car parks in Looe is going up hitting the local community and tourism. Yet the town gets very little if nothing in return and has taken on public conveniences which will cost over a million pounds in the next ten years.”

I remind the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset that when town councillors have the ability to increase a precept without being called to account for it, that often has the same effect as raising council tax revenue by the back door. In Councillor Toms’ words:

“I believe that Cornwall Council is treating Looe’s car parks as cash cows.”

Those are his words, not mine. He is a Cornwall councillor, but I point out that he is not a Conservative one.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the case right across Cornwall and not just unique to Looe? Newquay in my constituency, which raises more money from car parks than any other town in Cornwall, is just the same. The council keeps putting up the car parking charges, but the town gets very little back.

[Mrs Murray]

I completely agree. Cornwall Council seems to be taking revenue from its revenue-raising amenities, but offloading the costly amenities we provide in tourist areas on to town and parish councils.