Written by staff writer.
The second reading of the UK’s proposed Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill took place in the House of Commons in London last week. The Private Member’s Bill presented to parliament by Jonathan Lord MP late last year, will require UK Space Agency-issued licences authorising spaceflight activities to specify the licensee’s indemnity limit.
“This Government fully supports this Private Members’ Bill and is grateful to Jonathan Lord MP for taking it forward,” said the UK’s Aviation Minister Anthony Browne.
The Bill will amend s.12(2) of the Space Industry Act 2018 and make it clear that all spaceflight operator licences must specify a liability limit under s.36 of the 2018 Act. It aligns with current UK government policy and means that operators and the people financing them will not face unlimited liability issues.
The Tory MP and Member for Woking said his proposed Bill would help support a thriving and dynamic space sector. “Industry operators continue to lobby for legislative certainty and have raised that, for spaceflight activities in the UK to be commercially viable, there needs to be a clear mandatory cap on the amount of liability to indemnify,” he told the parliament last week.
“The Bill will provide legislative certainty by amending “may” to “must” in s.12(2) of the 2018 Act so that an operator licence must specify a limit on the amount of the operator’s liability under s.36. The Bill makes a small amendment to s.36(3) of the 2018 Act. The proposed amendments to the 2018 Act will meet a key ask of the space sector on regulatory improvements to assure investors that limits on the amount of an operator’s liability will be included in licences.”
Browne says the UK space sector is worth over GBP17.5 billion and directly employs more than 48,000 people. His support of an indemnity cap reverses a decision to remove the liability cap when the Theresa May led government introduced the 2018 Act. At the time, the domestic space sector criticised this move, saying it would reduce the UK’s ability to compete against other space nations.However, the UK government argued the emerging state of the space industry required flexibility and a light legislative touch. There was also a view that UK taxpayers should not be exposed to potential costs from incidents among commercial space operators. However, the United Kingdom’s stance was at odds with other countries that had an active space sector.
“If you cannot buy insurance, you cannot launch,” the CEO of one UK space business said at the time. Last week, Lord’s Bill was called a “step in the right direction for the UK space industry.”
Lord told parliament that putting a liability cap back in place was a form of risk sharing between the commercial operator and the government. “Other space nations, such as France and the USA, limit liabilities,” he said. “I am particularly mindful of the benefits it will bring to growing and innovative companies.”
It is still relatively early days for the Bill, which needs to progress through the committee stage, report stage, and third reading in the House of Commons before going to the House of Lords for a similar approvals process and finally receiving royal assent.
