Space Policy

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention; I am sure the Government as a whole are grateful for the intervention he made earlier at Question Time. I was in the Chamber to hear it; if I remember correctly, I now know, as I did not at the time—and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is with me on this—that nitrogen is the commonest gas. But the noble Lord, Lord Winston, makes a more important point. We have a very strong university sector. We have enormous strengths in science in the university sector and we want to make sure we maintain them. It would not be right for me, in responding to this Statement, to go through all the Government wish to do to improve the teaching of science in our schools. However, I shall certainly make the comments of the noble Lord available to my colleagues in the Department for Education.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I hope I will not surprise the Minister too much if I say that I share his disappointment at the attitude being taken by the Commission towards the Galileo project. It is, to put it mildly, short-sighted, but it does lead me to a rather broader question: what military intelligence and security implications arise out of the Statement he has just repeated?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think that I would prefer to write to the noble Lord on that issue.