Space Industry Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-10-16
Topic: Environment
Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, there is very little mention in the Bill of the environment. I am going to address Amendments 13 and 14, in the name of the Liberal Democrats, which cover some of the same ground to that outlined just now Clearly, there will be environmental implications of launching space vehicles and, indeed, of bringing the rockets on to site. At the moment, the nearest thing to this we are familiar with is when an aircraft wing is moved along the motorway. We are talking here about developing in rural areas, where there will be an obvious change of pace of life for local people. According to industry stakeholders I have discussed this with, the Bill does not sufficiently address health and safety and environmental aspects related to, for example, on-site assembly, maintenance and refurbishment of the launch vehicle and its payload—that is, the satellite. Nor does it address the storage and transport of launch vehicles or the issues of solid boosters and engine and thruster propellants. All these activities involve the handling of dangerous and explosive materials Amendment 13 would ensure that the operator cannot be granted a licence unless they have considered and minimised the impact on the environment. The Minister has made it absolutely clear that both the Scottish and Welsh Governments are very supportive, as is Cornwall Council. These are the areas where the impact is likely to be, at least in the first instance. However, we are legislating for all possible future spaceports, and whatever the supportive nature of the devolved authorities and county councils, one has to think of the impact on local people. Just because it is exciting and being done in rural areas does not mean that we can ignore the impact on the environment. It is already clear that there will be controversy—make no mistake about it, as this is going to be intrusive Amendment 14 concerns specifically the impact that the required high levels of security will have in local areas. Obviously, spaceport activity will be subject to very high levels of security, and rightly so; we would demand that. Let me give noble Lords an example that was brought to my attention. In north Wales, the Llanbedr airfield, which is owned by the Welsh Government, is leased to an organisation that wishes to set up a spaceport. The neighbour to this airfield is Shell Island, an enormous holiday camp that was established in the middle of the last century. It has 80,000 happy campers a year and employs somewhere in the order of 100 people. That is a big business in north Wales. At high tide, the only access to the holiday camp for emergency vehicles is along a path across the airfield. This is a very well-established right of access, but now, for security reasons, there is the potential that Shell Island will be denied the right to that access. In other words, emergency vehicles will not be able to access the holiday camp. This is not only an issue of local discussion and so on but a well-documented problem. This dispute may well be settled satisfactorily, but it illustrates the potential for local clashes of interest and that security issues will be of paramount importance and intrusive Amendment 14 seeks to probe the extent to which the Government have discussed such issues with the emergency services, potential spaceport operators and the devolved Administrations. It would ensure that the operator of any spaceport must take all reasonably practicable steps to allow emergency access for neighbouring properties. The security aspects of establishing a spaceport are glossed over in the Bill and need to be taken seriously at this point in our discussions.