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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much the Government has spent on developing a sovereign Global Navigation Satellite System since 2018; and what the breakdown of that spending is.

The 18 month UK Global Navigation Satellite System Programme successfully concluded its work to develop outline proposals for a conventional satellite navigation system in September. £92m was originally allocated for the UK GNSS Programme and work has concluded successfully under budget. Much of the work was covered by Non-Disclosure Agreements and, for reasons of both commercial and national security sensitivities, it is not possible to offer a detailed breakdown of that spending for both inside and outside the UK.

Work completed by the UK Space Agency so far has developed cutting edge British expertise in areas such as spacecraft and antenna design, satellite and ground control systems, systems engineering and simulation, which have wider applications across the space sector, in addition to supporting specialist UK jobs and industrial GNSS capability.

The new Space Based PNT Programme will carry forward this work to consider newer, more innovative ideas of delivering global ‘sat nav’ and secure satellite services to meet public, government and industry needs.