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Mr. Jamieson: We have been very proactive with industry. We had a Galileo day earlier in the year, when we gave out information to companies and discussed with them what benefits they might accrue. As we move into next year, it will be critical, in terms of the public and the private sector in this country, that we are really proactive and aggressive in ensuring that we get the benefits from some of the contracts and that we go out and seek them out. We must also do the same in relation to new developments in technology and things that we can benefit from as a result of the Galileo system, once it is in place.
Mr. Chope: The Minister gave the impression earlier that the non-military creep was done and dusted as an issue, yet in his memorandum he said that the Government
''will be engaging in lobbying partners to secure these objectives or to join a blocking minority''.
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That implied that the matter was not yet done and dusted. Will he explain to the Committee exactly what the situation is in relation to military creep?
Mr. Jamieson: Discussions have led up to the Transport Council next week. The hon. Gentleman will know that a lot of discussion happens well before we go to Transport Council; it takes place at various levels—finally, at Committee of Permanent Representatives level—before we get to the Council and the agreements have already been reached before then. It would be unusual and extraordinary if one of the countries raised the issue that we are discussing. From all the diplomatic soundings that we have, that is not even a possibility.
Mr. Chope: May I ask another question about the costs? Paragraph 13 of the Minister's memorandum said that
''the PPP concession will provide the anticipated private sector funding of at least two thirds of the deployment costs and an increasing proportion of the operating costs that will rise to the full requirement by 2012.''
However, he did not say what that increasing proportion will be or what the proportion will be in 2012. Will he give the answers on that?
Mr. Jamieson: In an answer to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West I said that the whole financial package is quite complex—although it is not confusing. It would be quite a good idea to set it out in a letter for the Committee. That would help Committee members and myself, and would give us a full and proper understand of just where the expenditures lie and what the proportions are. I will endeavour to produce that as rapidly as possible.
The Chairman: On behalf of the Committee, I am sure we shall all be grateful for that.
Rob Marris: I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his position on keeping Galileo civil and not military. As I understand it from what he said earlier, the Galileo system is purported to be better than the USA GPS. Therefore, can he be sure, and can he assure me, that given that we would be saying to our military, ''You cannot use a satellite positioning system that is better than the one that we are asking you to use'', the United Kingdom and other European Union countries will be able to hold the line on the non-military application?
Mr. Jamieson: What will be available under the lowest level of service—the open service—will still be available for any military in the world to use for the positioning of tanks or troops, just as the American GPS is now. It can be used by NATO, but also by its enemies. The Americans can block the signal to an enemy—generally, in quite narrowly confined geographical areas. However, the system is still open for them to use. What is not available to an enemy is the highly encrypted service. That is why it is important that we keep the system entirely civil. Through NATO, we have the American GPS at our disposal for military purposes; the guidance of missiles to a target is one such application. We will have
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another system that will provide the type of accuracy that we need in the civilian context, which involves entirely different types of application.
Matthew Green: Following on from that question, does the Minister share my concern that the system, which will have huge benefits, could be used by someone to create a navigation system for a missile? How could the system be switched off in an emergency? Who would have control?
Mr. Jamieson: There will be various levels of control of the Galileo system. At the top will be the political level of control, ultimately with the Council of Ministers. Another level will involve the general management control of the contracts; another, the scientists and experts under the Supervisory Authority, which will be able to consider uses that countries make of the system to make sure that those are rigidly within the boundaries. There will be checks all the way through the system. As I said earlier, using the system for military purposes beyond those for which the present open GPS is used would need unanimity from all the member states. The checks are in place.
We are still in discussions about such issues. We have come a long way in our discussions, and the UK has been a leader in making sure that the system is very tight. We will, in the coming year, carry on looking at the way in which it rolls out to ensure absolutely that at not only the political but the user level the system cannot be used for the sort of military purposes that we do not want it used for.
Mr. Chope: The Minister will know that at the moment it is predicted that 22.5 per cent. of the revenue will come from the public regulated systems. The UK Government are not proposing to use any of those, which is encouraging to those of us concerned about the increasing of the police state. However, if other countries in Europe want to extend the ambit of their police states—and there are obviously quite a lot of them—will they pay for the full costs of that, or will other users cross-subsidise? We should bear in mind the main justification for those systems—although we talk about maritime safety, we know that only about 6 per cent. of their use will be for maritime purposes.
Mr. Jamieson: The figures given by the hon. Gentleman are approximately right. I do not want to be in a police state as he imagines it, but I certainly want to be in a state where the police have at their disposal excellent technology that could spot and track the sort of people who are enemies of the state. I have no problem with that whatsoever.
I would have a problem with the tracking of every individual in this country; I would not want that. However, certain people are enemies of our state—some are external to the country and some are serious criminals. I certainly want the police to have the best facilities at their disposal—some of the crooks will surely have them, and I want our police to have them as well.
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It is right that the public regulated service should be paid for by its users and not by everybody. At the moment, we have not anticipated any use for it, although some other countries have. As it has an extra cost, I think it absolutely right that countries should pay for the cost of the system that is provided to them.
Matthew Green: I do not think that the Minister quite understood where I was going with my previous question. People such as terrorists may use GPS in civilian form for terrorist purposes. That would not have been checked out before by the Council of Ministers or the bodies that the Minister mentioned. What reassurance is given, in the likelihood of such a use being found, that the system can be switched off in the way that the Americans can switch off sections of theirs?
Mr. Jamieson: Such people would not be able to get access to the highly encrypted services. If inappropriate use were made of the open parts of the GPS, as it stands, or Galileo, we could jam the system in a small, geographical locale. It is not a matter of switching the whole satellite off, because that would affect all users, but we could jam it in certain circumstances. I leave the hon. Gentleman to imagine what those circumstances might be in the United Kingdom. Preventing such access is perfectly possible with GPS at the moment, and it will be possible with Galileo in future. People will not be able to get into the highly encrypted systems if we do not want them to.
The Chairman: Members, we have completed the hour of questioning. It is at the discretion of the Chairman to extend the period of questioning if he is convinced that that would shorten the debate, and if hon. Members choose to go down that path. At least two Members want to ask questions. I am in the Committee's hands: is it the wish of Members to move to the debate section?
Hon. Members: Yes.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Committee takes note of European Union documents Nos. 9941/04, 11834/04 and 13300/04 and the unnumbered Explanatory Memorandum dated 26th May 2004 from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, relating to the European satellite radionavigation programme (Galileo); endorses the Government's support for the draft Conclusions on the deployment and operational phases of the European Global Navigation Satellite System programmes for the Transport Council on 10th December 2004; and supports the Government's wider aims in seeking a lead role in the Galileo programme.—[Mr. Jamieson.]
3 pm
Mr. Chope: Thank you for the way in which you have conducted the Committee so far, Mr. Hancock.
I praise the Minister for having answered succinctly most of the questions put to him. That does not necessarily mean that he has allayed the concerns that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West and I have about the costs of the system and whether we really need it; the Minister certainly has not allayed my concerns.
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We will have to take the Minister's word on military creep. We will see whether he can deliver. It is obvious that the cost has been creeping upwards and continues to do so. I look forward to receiving the Minister's memorandum on precisely what safeguards there are in relation to public sector costs and preventing the burden on taxpayers from rising beyond the £500 million that has apparently already been committed on their behalf.
There is concern about the implementation date. If this great new system will improve the quality of everybody's lives, ensure that people can be rescued at sea when that was not possible before and so on, why has the implementation date slipped, probably to 2012? That is significantly later than the date by which most countries are thinking of implementing road user charging, especially for lorries. It is unlikely that countries that have delayed until 2012 will want to invest in satellite technology that is untested, as Galileo will be; they will prefer to go for GPS, which is tried and tested.
The lorry road user charge is of great significance to the road haulage industry in this country, and the industry is concerned about the continuing delays. I hope that the Minister can assure us that there is no question of the Government delaying the lorry road user charge so that the industry can use Galileo technology rather than GPS. The consequence of that would be that hauliers from the continent could take advantage of the regime in this country for even longer than they already have done, to the detriment of UK haulier competitiveness.
I am glad that the Minister agrees that the costs and benefits have to be defined more robustly. As he will know, today is ''value for money day'' —the day when the shadow Chancellor has emphasised the importance of value for money, saying that it is at the core of the debate about public services, taxation and what we get for our expenditure. It is significant that the Minister is in the middle on the issue. The Liberal Democrat spokesman is gung-ho—he says, ''Let's spend as much public money as possible; don't let's worry about the consequences or whether it is good value.'' The Minister, to his credit, is cautious. We Conservative Members are extremely concerned. We see what has happened so far in the Galileo project and we have strong suspicions that it is driven by French hostility to the United States—that the French want to undermine NATO's dominance through GPS technology and to use the Galileo satellite system for their own military applications.
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