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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the speech by the Prime Minister on 24 July 2019, what steps they have taken to establish a UK satellite navigation system.

The UK’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Programme is currently in its Engineering, Design and Development Phase to research and understand what would best suit the UK’s positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) requirements. The Programme is taking the appropriate time to investigate the requirements, design specifications and costs as fully as possible. This includes assessing value for money, scope for innovation, new markets and how much a system could meet the UKs assured PNT requirements.

We recently proceeded with a number of technical contracts from April to September to deliver key engineering work whilst protecting skills and technical GNSS sector jobs. We are now considering workstreams past September in addition to looking at wider PNT requirements, bringing together expertise from across Whitehall, industry and the PNT community to consider the requirements across military, civil and Critical National Infrastructure sectors.