Space Industry Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Joseph Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that we will be introducing draft legislation. Should he detect any shortcoming in its application and should he continue to have concerns about whether the spaceport and spaceflight activity enabled by the Bill would have risks posed to it by drone activity, there will be plenty of opportunities in the development of that legislation for Members to point that out to Government.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

When will the draft legislation come forward? Given that the police have indicated they do not have the resources to investigate crimes such as shop lifting, bike thefts and mobile phone thefts, will it include resources to ensure that the police can adequately deliver those new responsibilities?

[Joseph Johnson]

Sorry, I did not catch the last bit of what you said.

Space Industry Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Joseph Johnson]

The European Space Agency delivers a number of programmes for the European Union, but we continue to be a member of the ESA in our own right and, as I said, we are contributing record amounts—more than €1.4 billion in the current budget period.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

For absolute clarity, is the Minister suggesting that payments via the EU could still be possible, in contrast with the Foreign Secretary’s position on that matter?

[Joseph Johnson]

I am not going to parse comments by others that I have not seen, but I can confirm that we remain a full member of the European Space Agency in our own right, we are contributing record amounts to its budget, and we have every expectation of continuing to be a full member of that organisation long into the future.

On the new clause’s requirement to undertake an assessment, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union provided the relevant Committees with reports for many sectors, including one for the UK space sector, on 27 November. As the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire said, that report contained a description of the sector, the current EU regulatory regime, existing frameworks for the facilitation of trade between countries in the sector, and sector views.