UK to develop its own non-EU satellite network

The funding represents a severing of ties with the EU's Galileo project

The UK government has announced funding plans for a new satellite network to rival the European Union's Galileo project.

The news comes after the EU decided to move Galileo's back-up site out of the UK to Spain. Two months later, Chancellor Philip Hammond warned that Britain could build its own network if it were shut out of the EU project.

With the news that the UK will have no say in Galileo post-Brexit, the government is to allocate £92 million to design a British alternative. The money will come from the £3 billion fund, announced in last year's budget, to prepare the country for Brexit.

Theresa May told EU leaders that while she wanted the UK to remain involved in Galileo, she would not accept the country being "shut out from security discussions and contracts".

She added, "Unless we receive assurance that we can collaborate on a close basis in the future - like the close security partners we aspire to be - we are clear that we will withdraw UK support for Galileo and pursue our own sovereign satellite system.

"And this is not an idle threat to achieve our negotiating objectives."

The EU recently said that the UK could continue to use Galileo's open signal, but that the armed forces could be denied access to the encrypted version.

In May an EU official told The Guardian, "They [the UK] want to have privileged access to the security elements of PRS (the encrypted navigation system for government-authorised users) and to be able to continue manufacturing the security modules which would mean that after Brexit the UK, as a third country, would have the possibility to turn off the signal for the EU.

"It also means they are asking for information and the possibility to produce the security modules that would give them information that currently not all member states have."

Last month CBI Director-General Carolyn Fairbairn told Farnborough Airshow attendees that collaboration is vital for the aerospace industry.

"All of this is vital not just for the UK, but for the whole continent of Europe. As one CEO here today put it to me last week, aerospace is a team sport.

"Without collaboration - at scale - all parts of Europe will be weakened in the global race," she said.