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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to help support the space industry in Wales.

The Government is committed to growing and levelling up the UK space ecosystem. Since 2014, the UK Space Agency has invested over £7 million through its national and European Space Agency programmes to support space companies in Wales develop new and innovative technologies, including Space Forge who have built Wales’s first satellite. In addition, the Agency also invests significantly in academic R&D institutions in Wales, which stimulate and enable industry spin-out companies and applications in other sectors. This includes the £16.5 million investment in the Cardiff University-led SPIRE instrument aboard the ESA science observatory mission Herschel and up to £2.5 million planned funding in the Ariel mission, as part of the £30 million package announced last year.