Britain is losing its independent space agency, with the government announcing that the agency is to be absorbed into the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology as part of its “Plan for Change to cut red tape and make Whitehall more agile and efficient”. Dr Simeon Barber, one of Britain’s most eminent space researchers, has described the move as “a backwards step”, and warns that it could disrupt Britain’s space research and industry just as its importance is growing worldwide.
Ironically, in the name of another Whitehall efficiency drive, Keir Starmer’s government is absorbing an independent agency into an unwieldy government department, one whose focus and ambitions will be far more divided than Britain’s answer to NASA.
With satellite services underpinning 18 per cent of the UK economy, this is a time to invest in our independent space capabilities, not to make marginal savings in staffing costs. Britain has not had an independent space launch since a single launch (from Australia) in 1971 — as with energy, food, cyber and defence, orbital capabilities are going to be a critical feature of securing real terms national sovereignty in the coming century.
“Cutting red tape” is an obsession that is pursued by successive British governments with a fervour only slightly less intense than that which they dedicate to creating it in the first place. From the outside, it is obvious that administrative reorganisation is always costly and complex, and should not be embarked upon lightly. Yet for those caught in the merry-go-round of electoral cycles, the appearance of frantic activity and reform represents an overwhelming temptation. Any sense of long term thinking or strategic objectives is swiftly sacrificed to expediency.
Time and time again, Britain fails to act with sufficient speed and on a grand enough scale
Certain truisms about bureaucracy have proliferated into our press and politics without serious thought or examination. Pundits and politicians both love to rail against public sector paychecks and “unaccountable quangos”. Yet how many people, when they think of quangos, have in mind the British space agency? Complex and long-term projects require dedicated organisation and staff, including numerous administrators. “Duplication” and “waste” are both inevitable, and subjective.
Time and time again, Britain fails to act with sufficient speed and on a grand enough scale, employing half-measures, or simply self-immolating on the basis of short-term or sheerly political objectives. The most egregious example of this in recent years is the ongoing hollowing out of the Foreign Office. In 2019, it was reported that the FCDO had lost over 1,000 staff over 30 years, with diplomats suggesting that it had led to Britain misreading rapidly emerging situations like the Arab Spring and the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine. This supposedly “back-office” staff reduction was accompanied by the all-too visible abandoning of the World Service, which lost its connection to the FCDO, and departed its grand offices in Bush House to take refuge in the BBC mothership. Broadcast services were cut across multiple countries, and Britain’s voice in the world was stifled. As if this was not bad enough, Olly Robbins, permanent under-secretary of the FCDO, informed MPs that the department expects cuts of as much as a quarter by the end of this parliament.
What can one say about the monumental folly of a British ruling class that has shortened our reach, blinded our eyes and cut out our tongue in the name of efficiency? Efficiency is not an end in itself; it is a hollow deity, who answers no prayers and offers no thanks, however much blood you shed on its altar. It is an idol that we must topple before it is too late — Easter Island, by the end, was very efficient indeed.
