Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what assessment the Government has made of the extent to which existing international agreements provide effective means of holding countries responsible for debris generated by their space activities.

The UK is a founding signatory of the UN Outer Space Treaty which asserts that states bear international responsibility for their national activities in outer space. This principle is further developed in the Liability Convention. Building on such treaties, the UK actively supports the development and implementation of international guidelines and norms for safe and sustainable space activities, including through the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) and by championing the implementation of the UN Long-Term Sustainability Guidelines. The government is clear that these international legal and normative frameworks are still relevant and applicable to modern space activities.