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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the UK will participate in (a) Galileo, (b) Copernicus, and (c) other EU space programmes after the UK leaves the EU.

The Government’s intention is for the UK to continue to participate in EU space programmes and our role within the European Space Agency will not change when we leave the EU.

The terms the European Commission are prepared to offer for UK participation in Galileo fall well short of the minimum we would consider acceptable as set out in our Technical Paper of May 2018. In December 2018, the Prime Minister therefore announced that that we will develop our own Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and will not seek to use Galileo for critical national infrastructure or defence. We continue to assess our participation to the civil outputs of Galileo.

The UK has been a key player in designing and delivering Copernicus’s infrastructure, satellites and instruments. Copernicus is a user-driven, civil programme producing data that is freely available for all to use and we will be seeking to continue to participate in Copernicus after we leave the EU.