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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what department or organisation (1) is responsible for reporting on, and (2) determines the funding to be made available for, innovation in the space industry in the United Kingdom.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) oversees Government’s investment in civil space programmes.

The UK Space Agency, a BEIS executive agency, is responsible for developing and delivering programmes to support innovation in the UK space industry. These include:

• Supporting the UK’s participation in world-class space exploration missions through our leading role in the European Space Agency;
• Fostering the development of innovative new space-enabled products and services through the National Space Innovation Programme; and
• Enabling the UK to build new capabilities to launch small satellites into orbit through the Spaceflight Programme’s investment in launch technology.

UK Research and Innovation also invests in multi-disciplinary research and development across the UK, which supports the exploitation of space technologies and pioneering scientific discovery.

The Ministry of Defence oversees Government’s investment in military space innovation.