Space Industry

Chris McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. When we think about space, it is a natural instinct to look towards the skies, but actually someone wanting to find out a lot about what is happening up there could do much worse than dive one mile underneath the North York Moors—something I did a number of years ago when I went underground at the Boulby potash mine in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer).

I had never been down a mine before, and this was the second deepest mine in Europe. In the cage, we were swallowed into the darkness and down this incredibly deep lift shaft, then travelled miles underground, bumping around in a beat-up old Land Rover to get to the face of the mine. We then came to a state-of-the-art facility: an underground dark matter laboratory operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. It is positioned there because it is safe from atmospheric radiation. Part of what the laboratory does is enable research into dark matter, which will help us to understand how to survive in hostile environments—on Earth and beyond it, in space—and contributes to technologies such as quantum computing. That is just one of the facilities that forms the cornerstone of the north-east of England space community. I want to talk a bit about that today. I must also declare that a close relative of mine is employed adjacent to that sector.

When NASA decided to build the James Webb space telescope, that was of course a great national effort for the USA, but it came to Durham for the development and engineering of the telescope. It was Durham University’s centre for advanced instrumentation that constructed the infrared spectrograph integral field unit— I am sure that everyone here knows what those five words mean individually, although when taken together they might be a little more confusing.

We heard from the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier)—I congratulate him on securing this debate—about the defence applications for such sensing technology, and there can be that crossover with different industries. But that centre at Durham University had the ability to develop and manufacture those components. We should be proud, as a nation, that NASA comes to the UK to obtain such components.

Space is happening in the north-east, particularly at NETPark, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland), but also quite close to my constituency; many of my constituents work there, too. It is home to three of our catapults: the Satellite Applications Catapult, the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, and the Compound Semiconductors Applications Catapult. It also houses a number of companies. Filtronic makes mission-critical electronic components in the satellite supply chain; Lockheed Martin is working with Northumbria University on the North East Space Skills and Technology Centre; and Octric at Newton Aycliffe is the Government owned semiconductor manufacturing facility.

Interestingly, Durham University business school is also working on the legal and ethical aspects of space exploitation, as we put a framework around how we can globally work together in space. There are wider economic benefits in our region. Currently, the sector contributes £130 million to our local economy; 1,300 people are employed in about 48 businesses. But the north-east of England space cluster hopes to grow to 10,000 employees over the next few years.

Our regional strengths are in space manufacturing, earth observance, climate intelligence and connectivity. Having listened to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), I think there are great similarities between the strengths in the north-east of England and in Northern Ireland—clearly, the satellite communications and technologies are similar; perhaps our shared history in the aerospace and defence sectors has enabled us to develop those.

However, there are gaps in this growing cluster and things we could do to enhance it. I have spoken a bit about the strength in our local universities, which provide early-stage research, and in the businesses. But there is a gap in the middle—there always is. Our catapult centres can help with that, but in the UK many sectors have suffered from having developed technologies but then not progressed them through the so-called valley of death, so that they are then exploited elsewhere. If we want to take advantage of our great opportunity for financial investment, identified by the hon. Member for Wyre Forest—it could be the engine that really drives the growth of the 48 primarily smaller businesses in the north-east of England—then we need the Government to work with industry to de-risk and accelerate those technology investments. I hope that the Government will invest, particularly in those catapult centres at NETPark, while supporting small businesses as they develop those technologies as well.

Space is happening in the north-east of England. It is one part of the UK’s space economy. It will certainly be important for the future of the economy of north-east England and vital for our defence and aerospace industries, too.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

We now move on to the Front-Bench speakers. I call Victoria Collins, for the Liberal Democrats.