 Well thank you Peter, thank you for that warm introduction. I jetted back last night from Lisbon for this from the Global Innovation Summit where I can tell you the world is really excited about this sector and I was amazed by how many space companies that are all round the world keen to work with the UK and to follow our lead in this field so it's a huge pleasure to be here. Thank You Peter and thank you to the Secure World Foundation for all of your work and to the space agency who I'm lucky enough to be minister- responsible for for all the work you've done. I was following yesterday's events from Lisbon online and it was a fantastic day packed with brilliant sessions. Look I'm here today to make what I hope will be a very important announcement. Ministers often make little announcements. This is not a little one. I hope that what we unveiled today will come to be seen as a moment in UK space policy. I'd like to think in years to come people will say, well that was the space sustainability declaration. It was made at the Science Museum and it triggered a change in regulatory policy in the UK and accelerated UK and global leadership in the regulations for space sustainability. Boy is it overdue and if the UK has a role in the world which I believe we do, it is to be a science and technology superpower, it is to help set the regulatory framework, it is to galvanise global leadership, it's to lean in to global challenges and I can't think of a better sector than this to provide that galvanising global leadership. So I'll come to the announcements in a minute but I wanted first of all just to set the scene. First of all, what a wonderful place to be. Here in this building you will have had a chance in the last 24 hours to have a look and not only have we got Tim Peaks command module, not only have we got the Soyuz spacecraft, we've got Moonrock, we've got the Apollo 10 command module with that incredible reminder of how basic and low-tech the original Apollo missions were. We're basically slingshotting people into space in a kettle and it's just really inspiring I think to see the extraordinary endeavour, the spirit of global ambition of that to me a golden age of 1960s science technology for global good and the spirit of Kennedy. But when you look at those Apollo modules and you look at the technology there's more computing power, many times more computing power in our phones today than there was in the Apollo mission. These were very low-tech operations and I think history will come to judge those Apollo astronauts as the 16th century Portuguese explorers who I was celebrating yesterday in Lisbon. They set off thinking the world was flat and wondering when they would reach the edge. Some giant waterfall and they discovered the world wasn't flat. It's round and so drove that incredible age of exploration and discovery. And you were kind enough Peter to say that I was a venture capitalist. Don't worry, I'm not going to sign you up to some aggressive term sheet this morning. I'm not a proper scientist. I read history and philosophy of science at Cambridge 30 years ago when the climate science was beginning to be clear. And I bring to this job, yes, a passion for the spirit of science, Cientia. I deeply believe that the scientific method, the progress, the process of science, free speech, critical thinking, sharing data, working with people collaboratively is the spirit that the world needs urgently for sustainable development and growth. It's good for civics. It's good for society. But it's also completely fundamental to tackling the global challenges that we face. But I do bring a very commercial background and if we are to be a global science superpower which I think we can be, the real key is how do we connect the city, the finance, the mainstream business reality of this country to our science base. And I would argue that for five or six decades we've really been a science powerhouse in silos with all too little serious innovation, amazing pieces of innovation that too often end up in America and Nasdaq and leaving the country. If we could connect our city of London financing ecosystem to our science and technology base then we really would be a global science superpower and that's what today is really about. But let me just first of all set a little bit of context. First of all we gather at a time of increasingly urgent global challenges. People talk about challenges a lot. It's an easy phrase. It's the urgency I want to just remind us all of. Last year we hosted COP26. The planet is heating up at an unsustainably fast level with very, very serious implications for all of us. And we have to keep global climate rise within 1.5 certainly within 2 degrees fast. This isn't a 100 year challenge. This is a now challenge. This is the next 5, 10, 15 years. And the urgency of that challenge linked to the urgency of doubling food production in the next 20 years doubling global food production on the same land area with half as much water and energy. The challenge of harnessing our oceans and first of all cleaning them up and then harnessing the incredible power of marine technology of blue biotech. That blue on those atlases that we look at, the empty blue area is absolutely key to our sustainability as a planet and to our economic sustainability. Tackling the hotspots that drive migration. We simply cannot allow the people of sub-Saharan Africa to have to leave to walk out of Africa to find prosperity. We have got to lean in and help support sustainable development. We've got to learn the lesson of this pandemic. It's not the first. We've had Zika, Ebola, Zars. They're going to keep coming. And they're going to keep coming in plant health, animal health and human health. And the pandemic is a wake up call that we have got to get our global systems better organised. And the UK has a huge role to play. We can be very proud that we sequenced the COVID vaccine. Amazing, built on a lot of the work we did back in the coalition on genomics. But the real challenge is to make sure we're quicker next time to sequence the next pathogen and to get the genomic sequence to do global clinical trials and to roll the vaccines out. And now on top of all that we have war. War in Europe. I mean, not two hours flight from here. People like us bombed out of their houses by a brutal and savage regime on the continent of Europe. This is urgent, folks. I mean, this is a real crisis. And I hate to depress you, but I'm positive because I think the urgency of this should inspire us all to get to work. And I think like you, we believe that these challenges are solvable. I deeply believe that in the next 20, 30 years we'll be able to bounce our grandchildren on our knees and say you had to be there after an appalling decade here in the UK, a third crash, austerity, a Brexit vote, a civil war, a pandemic and then a war. We woke up and smelled the coffee. We decided to make it a moment where we engage much more deeply globally and internationally. We lent in and invested much more heavily in our science and technology and stepped up to the global plate and became again a leader, the Cold War Defence scenario, but in tackling these global challenges. If we get it right, we can be a hub for global technology transfer, for the sustainable global development, attract billions into the UK as a testbed for these technologies and we can unlock a generation of prosperity, not just in the UK, but give hope to people all around the world. And so when people say to me, what do you mean by science superpower minister? I'll tell you what I mean. Firstly, world class science always, that we do do. We have five of the world's top ten universities. We outrank every other country on science per pound and science per person. We're really good at science. The key is to get it out of the silo into an innovation economy and to tackle global challenges. I mean science, UK tech for global good. Unless we are actually solving global challenges, we won't attract that thirdly global investment. Whole new industries being created. If we get this right, we can attract a lot of investment into the UK. That requires a combination of big companies and small and the real key to tackling those challenges will be SMEs and innovation and creating a fertile environment for them to grow. It means global talent. It means us insisting that Chinese, Russian, young scientists all around the world can come here and learn what good science is. And it means embedding our science and technology in values. I wouldn't want to live in a world with AI with no values, no framework. We're setting out in the UK to try and lead in some of those frameworks. Crucially, it involves harnessing all of that for geopolitical good. I want to suggest to you that no sector lends itself more to the science superpower agenda than space. It goes right to the heart of everything I've just talked about. From understanding the climate change to the science on the poles, to understanding how the oceans work, to understanding how our atmosphere works, to understanding the fragility of this glorious planet in a wider universe, to being the new frontier for science and exploration in the next generation, and in the most beautiful circular closure in terms of our discovery science, we are now seeing the application of our understanding of atomic systems, of how the universe works, the Einsteinian and 1920s physicists, their theories about how atoms work and how structures work are now being applied in quantum computing to drive a whole new generation of systems and processes. And we're beginning to develop a grand and unified theory of the creation of our planet and our system and our life. And as Carl Sagan put it far better than I can, the truth is becoming increasingly apparent that from the DNA in our teeth to the carbon in our toast to the air in our atmosphere, we are creatures of starbursts. And the understanding of the deep connection between our cellular atomic structures and the structure of our universe holds the key, in fact, to our sun-locking sustainability. So I want to put this sector in the context of the really urgent, inspiring global mission that we face as a planet. And it's in that context that as Minister for Science Superpower in the UK, I'm very proud to be able to keep pumping out the message we've made three very big commitments. Firstly, we've decided to move fast from being a service economy with deep science and silos to a science, technology and innovation economy. You can measure that in lots of ways, but one is funding. OECD average of R&D of GDP, 2.4%. Does anyone know what the UK has been at? Okay, anyone know what Israel is at? Switzerland are at 4.6, Switzerland are at 3.8, Germany at 3.4, going to 3.6, the UK is at 1.7, well 1.9 now. We're a service economy doing amazing science in silos with occasional innovation. So we've said we're going to get to 2.4 fast. We're putting an extra 30 billion in in the next five years. The budget for public R&D in the next three years is 34 billion. It's an awesome responsibility as a former venture capitalist. My job is to deploy that, but most importantly to deploy it in a way that attracts the other number, which will get us to 2.4, because 2.4 is public and private, and that number is 100 billion. We need to attract 100 billion in investment into the UK in the next five years. That's across every sector, life science, space, quantum, fusion, compound semiconductors, the 30 R&D clusters. We can totally do it, but that's the number we have to attract. And again, I would argue that the space sector is completely fundamental to that. We're poised at a moment of the hockey stick of huge commercial growth. And that's why I'm really here today to make this announcement. If we get this right, we have an opportunity as the space sector goes from a 50-year paradigm where it's really been dominated by pretty vertical Cold War defence sovereign capabilities China, Russia, America. We now have a commercial space economy beginning to really take off. We're only in the foothills of this, which is very exciting. The real challenge is how do those smaller nations, us, Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Norway, how do we shape this new space economy? How do we come together and make sure that it works commercially, that it attracts the billions that are out there to be attracted, but also that it works for all of us? All of us today rely on the space economy for every function, from a satnav in our cars, to our phones, to our computers, to the plane I flew in last night. I mean, we rely on space every day. I think too many people around the country think the space economy is American billionaires doing tourism for their friends or very sort of mischievous threatening military espionage. I don't think people realise that the space sector is on the front line of everyday commercial reality. So if we get this right, we have a chance, I think, to create that third group of nations all around the world in a space for good, dare I say, a commonwealth of nations who believe that space is the new frontier of our economy and our economic and global sustainability and believe in coming together to make that a reality. You will have seen in our national space strategy that we set out 10 areas where we see the UK over the next 10 years with a real opportunity, and this was one of those key areas. For the reasons that Peter, you said at the beginning, we've been doing this for years. We have a long history and legacy, both of space exploration but also of regulation and leadership in sustainability in space but also in net zero, in ESG finance all around the world. And believe me, I've just come in the last two weeks from the G7, from Brussels, from the European Commission, from the horizon, from yesterday, the Eureka Global Innovation Summit. People around the world look at the Brits as the people who set the standards, put the Union Jack behind good standards, we lead in regulation, they trust us and they know that we're a force for good and that is an incredible opportunity in this sector. So, let me just begin to set the scene on the opportunity for us. If you've been in London back in the early days of that age of discovery, the first Elizabethan era, and you've been in London in 1650, you would have found the Royal Society setting up as a coffeehouse. Quite a coffeehouse. First person who gave a lecture was Sir Christopher Wren. I was lucky enough to give a, well, the less distinguished lecture two weeks ago. Pretty awesome list of people who've spoken. The Royal Society, 350 years later. But it started as a coffeehouse for inspired scientists in 17th century London who believed deeply that science was about to drive an enlightenment, that it would smash the tyranny of the unaccountable churches, the tyranny of disease, of superstition that was holding Europe back in a dark age. And they were right. And they did it, and the Royal Society has been a world leader in setting the standards for science. But if you'd gone down the road to what is today just near St Paul's, you would have found another coffeehouse where Lloyds of London started. And Lloyds of London started insuring and underwriting ships. Of course, the UK, a great maritime mercantilist trading nation. They went on to lead in setting the standards for maritime and of course the international maritime organisation led today 400 years later in London. London is the headquarters of shipping, regulation, finance and insurance. Lloyds went on to do it for the railways. They called them by the way ships of the land, interestingly. They went on to do it for roads. Which is the global leader in automotive standards around the world? It's the UK. We have the AA, we have the RAC. We set the standards from those first cars with their horns popping along country roads. We led in the globalisation of vehicle standards. And of course in satellites, interestingly, we did it as well. Lloyds of London insured the first space satellite in 1965. Not a story we tell often enough. They insured the Intel sat for pre-launch damage. They went on from 1974 to 82 to insure hundreds of launches up to about £100 million each. Interestingly, I didn't realise this until I prepared for this speech. They launched in 1984 the first successful salvage operation of the two Rouge satellites in the shuttle. Five astronauts Lloyds funded it. So insurance has been absolutely fundamental to all of our sectors over the last two or three hundred years and to this one too. But we have a major problem. A really serious problem. So today, as you know, there are 8,000 satellites drifting around up there. 68% increase in the last 12 months. We're at the cusp of a massive explosion of particularly Leo satellites. 42% of the satellites up there are inactive, just drifting around. And the Leo satellites, as you well know, are going up there small. I've been lucky enough in the last nine months to see lots of them. I say to people, how big do you think a satellite is? My children say it's about the size of a house, Daddy. I don't know, it's the size of a fridge. I saw one the other day being by Space Forge in Wales, which is the size of a briefcase with a little solar panel that's going to make compound semiconductors. They're launching on the Virgin launch out of the UK this autumn. So this sector is changing fast. It's becoming smaller, much more agile. And those Leo satellites are now beginning to be the new frontier of the space and communications revolution. And these, of course, are much smaller. 500,000 to a million pound insurance. Much smaller market compared to the Geo satellites, which are 200 million. And if you look over what the insurance industry has been saying in the last few years, huge warnings that this is unsustainable. We cannot go on without a proper regulatory framework. Richard Parr, the co-founder of Assure Space last year, warned that we are heading for a real crisis. And the truth is the regulatory framework is simply not fit for purpose. And when we have the UN regulation in the 60s, a magnificent declaration that we don't want to militarise space, we must have a sort of Antarctic view of high space for good for all. And we have the ITAR regulations in America and are completely not fit for purpose. They're coal war regulations designed to protect American missile technology in the coal war. This is not a regulatory basis that will hold or be sustainable for this next phase of commercial space. So I'm here today to make very clear that we are about to make a big move in the UK to try and set this right and to try and galvanise global leadership using Lloyds of London, using our historic role and to set a global commercial framework for the insurability, the licensing, the regulation of commercial satellites so that we drive down the cost for those who comply to the best standards of sustainability, the best supply chains, the best satellite retrieval systems, the best satellite management systems, the recycling of material. If we set the standards well with industry, we will drive over the next five, ten years a huge investment wave from ESG to commercial satellite sector into the sustainability. We have to mainstream sustainability in our commercial sector. So as the Prince of Wales set out yesterday in a really brilliant and inspiring speech, and I wanted just to put on the record my and our gratitude for his support in this. The Royal Family and he particularly have been leaders in so much of this. His father, the Duke of Edinburgh, was a great supporter of the space sector back in the 60s and I can tell you there is no finer ambassador for British values applied in markets than the Prince of Wales and his leadership in this and his commitment to galvanise people internationally is incredibly important and powerful and he made the reference I think that I've been warned by my officials I shouldn't which is to refer to the current space race as a Wild West. He's right, it is a Wild West, there are no rules, very few rules and if we're not careful that will undermine investment in the sector and I think his commitment to anastrakata is a brilliant and noble idea and I think we should allow that to inspire us. The key is to mainstream that in business. You will have seen that in the last year we've made a lot of big commitments through the space strategy, we're strong members of ESA and I've been in the process of debating and discussing with the ESA team how we increase our role and membership there and we're strong supporters of their space safety programme. This year we'll be launching our first UK satellite launch from Cornwall with Virgin and one of the pieces of that jubilee legacy is to raise awareness across the whole country not just of the launch moment and let's hope T-2-1 leads to a successful launch but the journey to launch, the satellites that are going up the people who have manufactured them, the whole journey through so that a new generation can be inspired by what we're doing and we're deeply committed to the work of the Secure World Foundation in this sector. The four announcements that I'm making today form a package. The first is, I'm announcing a review of the UK regulatory framework for all orbital activities. That's to go alongside our space flight safety and regulatory work led by the Department for Transport and the CAA and let me be very clear, our ambition is to lead in the global regulatory standards for orbital activities. We want it to be industry led, government backed and we want to make the UK, the city of London a pioneer in this new commercial market for sustainable space regulation and licensing and today we're publishing the government response to the call for evidence on insurance and liabilities. Secondly, we're making very clear, we see this as a multilateral international project we want to help lead it, galvanize it and catalyze it but we're not declaring UDI and space regulation quite the opposite we want to make a very clear statement that this will be achieved with the help of the UN, ESA, the World Economic Forum all international bodies, the G7 where I raised it last week. Thirdly, we are absolutely committed to building in some metrics and data and we'll start simply, but some simple, accurate metrics that can give people confidence in space sustainability a kite mark, if you like, something that everyone can begin to see in the next few we're not going to take four or five years, this is the next few months we want to get this going fast, people can start to see is that satellite, is that launch, is that program compliant with the best standards of sustainability everything from retrievability, recyclability, energy sustainability and lastly, we're making an additional investment today five million into the space surveillance and tracking capability to boost that and four million into our debris removal program and that's part of our 40 million UK program in addition to which is our ESA funding which is about 400 million a year and our overall space funding for this next three years is just short of six billion, that's across Bays and the MOD so I hope you can see we're making a serious commitment let me just close by saying on the first piece around the regulatory review we want to move fast and we've already set up a task and finish group we want to hear from the industry, we want to hear from small players in the industry big players, we want to hear from the insurance sector, financing sector we want to make sure that there's legal certainty that drives confidence in the sector and that that will support investment into both the UK but also the broader commercial space particularly the Leo satellite industry and I can confirm very clearly that as part of our regulatory work in the UK harnessing our freedoms post Brexit we're working across government, I chair an interim minister of group and I'm working very closely with Minister Trudie Harrison at the DFT we have weekly meetings to manage the liabilities around launch in the UK and we're setting out a join that framework so this won't be dominated by Whitehall departmentalism this is a UK cross government piece on the second announcement of UK regulatory leadership I want to make very clear this is we want it to be industry led, government backed we want to work with scientists, we want to make sure we lead in the metrics the data, the science of sustainability so for example when satellites are retrieved and burnt up in the upper atmosphere what's the science that telling us about the debris what happens to those components it's not good enough just to burn them in the upper atmosphere and say well job done we need to begin to understand the science and the data around the impact the proper impact holistically across the whole sector and the work that the United Nations office for outer space activities is doing and the guidelines for long term sustainability are fundamental to that so we're trying to work with the best data and science available and this is a big research area for the UK as well on the third announcement we are absolutely determined to make sure we move fast and I'm keen to hear from people how quickly we can begin to establish a basic kite mark something that begins to just nudge and change views across the country and for me success will be when people start to say you have to get your orbital licence in the UK because if you're compliant the costs of insurance go down, the costs of licence go down the UK is making it much easier for small operators, for new operators for Leo satellites and we've set out a very simple framework that will drive confidence into the sector and in particular we want to harness the ESG market you will I'm sure all know there is a wall of money flowing into ESG funds many ESG fund managers have said to me minister how can we begin to deploy some of that into the space sector well the answer is we need to give a lead and to show what ESG compliant space technology, space launch, space orbit programmes look like and if we can do that in a simple way to begin with I think we'll start to unlock some of that ESG funding so I hope you can see how serious we are I hope that this will be the beginning of a rapid change in the regulatory framework for space and that in two or three years people will start to say the Brits have made a lead we must all follow and I hope with one foot in the newly independent UK outside the EU free to regulate but strong members of ESA strong members of the European space community strong members of the global community through the G7 and the UN we can start with Prince Charles' help and others around the world we can start to set a proper commercial viable framework for space regulation that not just drives investment into the sector but drives real consumer confidence and investor confidence that we're making space sustainable and we're making space a vehicle to drive global sustainability it's a great challenge I think it's an opportunity for us and I'm very grateful for all of your leadership and my commitment to you is to make sure we do everything we can to make the market work for you thank you