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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans his Department has to support the North East Space Hub.

The recently published National Space Strategy set out our commitment to supporting businesses across all parts of the UK, helping to develop clusters based on areas of local excellence and addressable market opportunities.

The UK Space Agency has co-funded a Centre of Excellence for Satellite applications in the North-east, in partnership with the Satellite Applications Catapult, since 2014. This has helped to forge collaborative partnerships across the region’s space sector.

This has provided a strong platform and evidence base for the Northeast Space Hub and the region clearly has an important role to play to achieve our ambitions of making the UK one of the most innovative and attractive space economies in the world.