Source · Select Committees · Scottish Affairs Committee
Recommendation 23
23
Rejected
Set out structure, publish minutes, and regularly update Parliament on the Cabinet sub-committee for space.
Recommendation
Nonetheless, enhanced cross-departmental collaboration will still be needed to ensure the UK’s space sector operates under a coherent and unified direction. In its response to this report, the UK Government should set out the structure, membership, and remit of the Cabinet sub-committee for space, and confirm when it will hold its first meeting. The UK Government should also commit to publishing the sub-committee’s minutes—including attendance and frequency of meetings. The Government should update the House on the sub-committee’s progress at regular intervals, through a written ministerial statement. (Recommendation, Paragraph 104)
Government Response Summary
The government rejects the recommendation to establish a new Cabinet sub-committee for space, stating that ministers already meet regularly through a Space Ministerial Forum. It also declines to publish meeting schedules, attendance, or minutes for any such forum or committee, citing long-established precedent.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
• The Government remains committed to ensuring that space activity remains coordinated across all interested departments, with multiple levels of governance and lines of communication in place beyond the Cabinet itself. Ministers meet regularly as required to discuss space policy issues, including through meetings of a Space Ministerial Forum of relevant responsible ministers. • The Government has not committed to establishing a new specific Cabinet committee for space. The Prime Minister decides, on the advice of the Cabinet Secretary, the overall structure of the Cabinet committee system, including the creation of any new committees and their terms of reference. A list of the current committees, their terms of reference and the ministers who sit on them is available on gov.uk. Cabinet committees take collective decisions on behalf of Cabinet as relevant to their Terms of Reference. • It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet and its committees, including how often they have met and who attended and their minutes, is not normally shared publicly. We also cannot commit to publishing the meeting schedules and minutes of the Space Ministerial Forum, to enable full and frank discussion of policy issues between ministers.