Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what support the Government is providing to UK companies that have already been excluded from bidding for projects from the European Space Agency on the basis that the UK is leaving the EU.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is independent of the European Union. Therefore our support for the European Space Agency is largely unaffected by the decision to leave the European Union. Indeed we made subscriptions of €1.4 bn at the ESA Ministerial meeting in Lucerne in December 2016 which is allowing UK companies to bid for ESA grants and contracts.