HL Deb 25 April 1984 vol 451 cc9-20

3.1 p.m.

Lord Shackleton rose to move, That this House takes note of the report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology on Remote Sensing and Digital Mapping (1st Report, 1983–84, H.L.98).

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the last of a series of reports by the Select Committee on Science and Technology. I will not say that it is the most important but, in some ways, it is the most difficult one to debate, because the language is of a kind that is almost all its own. I shall therefore have to confine my remarks to some extent to explaining what our study was all about and why we undertook it. I shall leave it to several of my distinguished noble colleagues who were members of the committee, and who probably understood the subject rather better than I as the chairman, to go into detail. None the less, this is not the first occasion on which I have had to address your Lordships about matters connected with the Ordnance Survey and, since the Ordnance Survey is very much involved in the question of digital mapping, I should like to explain how it was that we came to study these particular subjects.

First, remote sensing was identified by the Advisory Board for the Research Councils in their 1982 Forward Look as one of six areas for special effort. We were also attracted by space technology, of which remote sensing is a part. I stress that it is only a part and it is not exclusively space technology. But it was the Royal Society which, above all, pressed us to consider digital mapping at the same time. Although we were a little doubtful in the early stages as to whether these two subjects, which seemed superficially so different, could be taken together, the advice proved in the end to have been very wise. Indeed it is fundamental to the recommendations in our report, if we are to get the maximum benefit and save the most money by not having too much wasted effort. Remote sensing and digital mapping are both means of collecting geographical information and handling it by means of digital computers, and we concluded that their development should be complementary.

Before going on briefly to touch on some of the recommendations of the committee—I realise that we shall be having an interruption—perhaps I may take this opportunity to apologise to your Lordships. My papers are in a somewhat disorderly state, because my office happens to be next to the Libyan Embassy and I have not been able to use remote sensing devices to see what I have there. But I should like to comment very briefly on the remote sensing side and the main thrust of our report was to concentrate on applica-tions, rather than on technology. Of course, both are important but we were impressed by the need to concentrate more on applications in the future. So far, remote sensing has been technology led—and this is perhaps not surprising.

I recommend noble Lords who wish to go more deeply into this matter to look at the first chapter of the report, where there is what I describe as a child's guide. I said that we must have a child's guide, at least for the benefit of the chairman of the committee, and I hope that it will be of value to others. I should like to take one bouquet from a colleague and friend of mine who is a professor, and who has found this report useful as an introduction to students in this subject, because it is to a considerable extent intelligible.

But in remote sensing worldwide interest at present is mainly in sensing from space and this is what we chose to look at for the most part. In essence, this kind of remote sensing is an extension of aerial photography, which is, of course, included in remote sensing. Your Lordships will remember the remarkable achievements of photographic reconnaissance during the war, with the discovery of the Peenemunde rocket research establishment and many others.

For many years, aircraft have been used to photograph the earth, but now there are new scanning devices. This is where we are getting into the more difficult—indeed, almost magical—area to some people, because in addition to cameras it is possible to view the earth by means of radiation which is invisible to the human eye. This extends enormously our field of vision, if I may call it that.

Scanners can observe the surface of the earth, the sea and the atmosphere using infra red light, microwave radar or a combination of selected wave bands, including visible light. They are mounted on satellites as well as aircraft. Satellites, of course, provide a much wider field of view. They also provide regular repeated coverage and, therefore, the opportunity to detect change comparatively easily. We are all familiar with the satellite pictures used in weather forecasting, but this is only one example of remote sensing.

These new techniques mean that the amount, the quality and the scale of data available to man have increased dramatically. They open up new horizons for science, the exploitation of natural resources, environmental monitoring and, I need hardly say, defence. Our committee was not concerned with the defence aspect but of course in the background is the enormous effort by all the countries in this field on the defence applications.

May I give some examples, which may or may not be familiar to your Lordships? We can now understand to a much greater extent than before wave patterns across the oceans and follow the movement of warm and cold currents. Satellites several hundred miles above the sea can detect sea surface temperatures to within half a degree centigrade. We can identify geological formations from the lineaments of the geologists—and the noble Lord, Lord Energlyn, who I hope is taking part in this debate, will be familiar with this—which will enable one to make informed and ultimately accurate guesses as to promising areas for mineral prospecting. For instance, there have been examples in Western Australia of important mineral deposits being found in this way.

More important perhaps in the long run is that we can monitor the distribution, health and production of agricultural crops worldwide—an application that is obviously valuable, not least to brokers in the world commodity markets. We can also gather precise information about ice conditions in the Arctic or the movement of locusts in the Sahara.

Not only is it possible to see wider areas and new perspectives; it is also possible to observe more detail and make more use of the data which have been gathered. Whereas the human eye can observe only a few shades of grey, computers can enhance the information by differentiating the data stored at up to 1,024 different grey levels; and then, by devices such as contrast stretching and density slicing—there is a full glossary of these terms in the report—the differences are made apparent to the user, differences which otherwise would not be observable. And automated analysis and automated cartography make it easier to sort and manipulate, and permit consistent and repeatable treatment of the data over periods of time. I could make the list of applications very long. I should mention that some of these applications are being made in Britain. In particular, the Macaulay Institute of the Grampian Regional Council have been pioneers in the development of this information for mapping areas of bracken and snow in the Highlands.

On the other hand, there is need for a word of caution. The committee were told by several witnesses that remote sensing had suffered from being oversold in the early 1970s and that it had not lived up to the expectations of some people. The situation was not unlike one's first introduction to computers. An initial reluctance to believe that computers can do anything is followed by an alarming confidence that computers can do everything. Only time and experience show just what computers can and cannot do. The same is true of remote sensing.

We have now reached the point where it is possible to say with certainty what some, indeed many, of the applications will be. What is needed is greater attention to these applications. The emphasis of research and development in remote sensing has so far been on technological development, but the committee recommend that the emphasis should now shift towards applications. As we said in paragraph 5.17.2: Successful development requires balance between both strands of development, and too much effort proportionately has gone into developing data collection platforms and too little into the systems for making the data useful"— and, incidentally, providing so much data that it is impossible to make use of all of it. The problem of remote sensing data compression is going to confront the world. It is time, both in our national effort and in Europe, to put this right and also to put more emphasis on education and training in the disciplines which will want to exploit remote sensing.

Before I sit down, I want to say a few words about some of our recommendations, but now I must say something about digital mapping. Digital mapping involves two separate functions. First, it is the term given to the production of maps by computer based or digital techniques. We are talking about digital computers. Thus, all the map detail is entered in a computer's memory so that it can be printed out automatically, as required, in conventional map form. This has many advantages. For instance, maps can be updated easily. Almost automatically any map becomes gradually a little out of date. Maps can be printed for special purposes, with just the detail which is needed for those purposes, or their area of coverage and scale can be adjusted so that the point you are searching is not, as is usually the case, on the crack between two different maps. Those of your Lordships who occasionally go walking know how often this happens. Extra details, such as water mains or telephone cables, can be superimposed on Ordnance Survey maps to assist the public utilities. The major work of the British Ordnance Survey is on these large-scale maps. This is unique in the world. The value of digitising and having a map which can be used as a planning tool, by being manipulated in the computer to display hypothetical layouts, is very great indeed.

Secondly, by extension of the first function, digital mapping includes the use of any map data held in a computer, even though these are not reproduced in map form. Such data can, for instance, be integrated with census information as a local government management tool or with medical reports as a pointer to geographically or occupationally related diseases. They can be reproduced as three dimensional terrain models or townscapes. Those of your Lordships who have visited the establishment at EASAMS in Camberley will have seen the excellent terrain work that is done there. They can result in non-graphical output such as statistical tables.

It is in the handling of spatially related or specially referenced data that the most exciting prospects and major growth can be expected. Experience of what digital mapping can offer is liable to change the use to which maps and map data are put, at first slowly and then faster, and to have a snowball effect on the demand from users. The trend is unmistakable. But the development of digital mapping in the United Kingdom depends on the extent of digital coverage by the Ordnance Survey and the Ordnance Survey for Northern Ireland. The initial digitisation of map data is a long and laborious process with a high one-off cost. Nevertheless, it must be done speedily because it is the most economic path to follow, and it must be done, in our opinion, by the Ordnance Surveys rather than independently by a number of different organisations duplicating the National Archive and wasting resources by digitising to different standards.

I should now like to touch very briefly upon our recommendations. First, on the Ordnance Survey, we recommended that the large-scale maps—that is, anything up to 1:10,000—should be completed by 1993. It will cost a great deal of money, but it will be cheap in the long run because it is the only way in which we can prevent large numbers of authorities from doing their own digitisation for their own purposes in a very uneconomic way. Turning to small-scale maps, we reckon that these ought to be completed by 1987. I should mention that these two recommendations were published in the Serpell Committee Report which was published several years ago, upon which we have still not yet had a proper reply from the Government or a decision as to the procedures to be followed.

Since I have mentioned that the Ordnance Survey ought to do this, I should like to make it clear that taking into account Government policy—we approached this in a completely non-party political way in our report—we reckon that there is great scope for work by some of the great private companies which already have experience in and have invested money in this field. I am thinking of such firms as Hunting and others. But there is still a need to strengthen the basic organisation. It is our view that the research and development capacity of the Ordnance Survey to improve digitisation and achieve the data structure most appropriate to user needs should be strengthened. We also, in passing, though Lot unimportantly, refer to the importance of some research and development on the part of the hydrographer in the marine field.

Let me turn, again all too briefly, to the recommen-dations on remote sensing, about which I should like to make a general remark. This is a fledging industry with a world-wide potential. Our committee gave support to the Government's long-term strategy with regard to Government expenditure now and private sector development later, but we emphasised the public sector interest and the inability of the industry to stand on its own two feet yet, unless considerable Government money is made available. They are finding the same problem as they seek to develop their space activities and their remote sensing activities in the United States—the problem of handing it over to private enterprise at a time when it is not yet profitable to do so. Again, there are firms such as Hunting and Logica who feel able to take on some of the burden and have indeed criticised. One at least—Hunting—said that we did not give enough prospect to remote sensing and digital mapping by private firms. I looked into this aspect and found that there were more than a dozen recommendations on the subject—but at this moment the thrust must be towards the Government.

In the space sector work, our future will lie largely in co-operation through the European Space Agency. There will still be a need for some bilateral projects, especially with the Americans and Canadians. We have to face up to the possibility that there will be a growth of proprietary satellite data. Therefore we have said that, one way or the other, although we cannot afford or expect to follow the courageous and determined efforts of the French, Americans, Indians and Japanese, nonetheless we must have some kind of activity in space, and it will be in the development of certain equipment (particularly radar), the development of software, and especially through co-operation with the European Space Agency.

One question I should like to ask the Government is: when do they expect a decision on co-operation in ERS-1—that is, Earth Resource Satellite 1—which is the oceanographic satellite due to go up in 1987? It is vital that Britain should participate in what is admittedly an expensive but a co-operative project. There is some concern as to whether that will take place and I shall be grateful if the Government can tell us something about that.

In any case, cheap and readily available data cannot be relied upon in the future and the United Kingdom must have something to offer, if only as a bargaining counter. One area which we identified as being of great importance and real prospect was in the radar field.

A major recommendation was the setting up of a communications network which is essential for the distribution of data and the development of applica-tions. We took as our model the Starlink network. The Government have shown interest and we should like to encourage this. Incidentally, most of the letters that we have received since the publication of the report have provided some very valuable and sometimes well-informed criticism, although generally accepting the report's thrust.

I should like to quote what Logica said, because they are one of the most progressive firms in this area. The writer stated: I am in agreement with your recommendation that a data dissemination network should be set up. However, I doubt that Starlink is a very good model".

Here we have to consider whether we want a network of a low rating, which will basically be on telephone wires, or a network that will carry a much greater amount of material. It may be that there should be a design study, and no doubt there is one and British Telecom are looking into this aspect. I gather that a Minister has even suggested that the network could be run by industry. This is an interesting suggestion, taking into account the philosophy of the present Government, and one that should be examined. There would need to be a commitment by the Government as a customer in this.

Other recommendations—and I do not have time to go through them all—which again I hope the Government will examine include the utilisation of this information by setting up a form of geographical information centres. The suggestion that the Government should set up a committee to examine this proposal rather than try to establish a centre straight away is, we believe, the right way to proceed. They have such centres in France and in the United States, and we shall need them here. It is important to realise that the information that will be available, and which will be of great value to mankind, will be very much of a multi-disciplinary nature. It will not all be just physics and astronomy or meteorology. It is interesting that the chairman of the Imperial College of Science's remote sensing centre (and the noble Lord is due to speak later) is part-physiologist. A multi-disciplinary approach is necessary.

Another area which concerned us was the weakness in the education field at the moment, as compared with other countries. There is a Master of Science course at University College, and a number of universities, such as Nottingham, are having short courses which are made available not just to British students but also to students from other parts of the world. One of the most important values of remote sensing and these new techniques will be to the underdeveloped world. Again, a criticism of the report has been that we have not made enough of this. There is no doubt that the future profit to this country will be in selling equipment abroad and in helping the underdeveloped world. Therefore, education is quite fundamental to this.

I believe it would be right to take this opportunity to express appreciation of the generosity of the United States of America through their open skies policy. The amount of information they have made available from their Landsat satellites and others has been of very great value to the rest of the world. Now that there are proposals to transfer this to the private sector—admittedly, probably heavily subsidised—this is something that we will have to take into account in our own planning. Again, it strengthens the need for us being active in this area.

One particular proposition on which I know America is looking for help from the rest of the world concerns a second polar orbiting satellite. I hope that the Government will take into account the necessity of providing some kind of co-operation, even if it is only instrumentation of a kind that we have provided for other meteorological satellites.

Finally, I should like to mention that not least of the values of remote sensing has been that of identifying people at sea and elsewhere who are in distress, and in the saving of human life. There is already a very considerable economic advantage being gained from some of these applications. In particular, there is an interesting list of advantages which have been achieved. Large sums of money have been saved. There was the example of a fleet of 15 oil tankers which were guided by satellite data to optimise their navigation of Gulf Stream currents in the eastern seaboard of the United States to make fuel savings equivalent to 945,000 dollars annually. There is a whole list of these direct advantages.

For the time being, it will be the Government to whom we will look to give a lead in this. We have identified the National Remote Sensing Centre at Farnborough as being the centre of these activities. We have made recommendations of a kind which I will not detail now but which some of my colleagues will be able to identify, and on which I hope the Government will take action. We have not made any very expensive proposals but at least there will need to be a minimum degree of Government activity. Above all, we must regard this as being an international field in which we must co-operate internationally and in which we must also play our part if we are to get the benefits. I beg to move.

Moved, That this House takes note of the Report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology on Remote Sensing and Digital Mapping.—(Lord Shackleton.)

3.28 p.m.

Lord Sherfield

My Lords, I rise to support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. He has introduced it in a wide-ranging speech, for which the House will be grateful. I shall refer to only three or four aspects of the report. No doubt, in addition to what the Minister may have to say in winding up this debate, the Government will in due course communicate to the House their considered reply to the committee's recommendations.

My first point, and one of considerable concern, is the scale of the resources allocated for the next three years to the British remote sensing programme. As the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said, the committee recommends that the major effort in this field should be directed to the applications of remote sensing and to greater co-operation with the user agencies. Our evidence showed that the momentum for development will eventually be supplied by market forces; but at this stage potential users are spread worldwide and many are themselves still unaware of their prospective interest. In parenthesis, I might say that some of the uses of this new technology are unexpected, to say the least. I recently came across a report of one of these in a Californian newspaper—in this case involving the use of Landsat data. It said that the American organisation, "Ducks Unlimited", and several American agencies, have reached an agreement that will protect and restore United States waterfowl nesting areas, and that to this end, It will spend as much money as is needed to interpret informa-tion sent down from the recently orbited Landsat 5". I am sure that this rather offbeat information will be of interest to the many conservationists and naturalists in this House.

The committee reached the conclusion that the main emphasis now has to be placed on removing the constraints to development, creating experience and market awareness, and, where necessary, giving selective support to British ventures wishing to enter the international market; for there are likely to be customers in many overseas territories. Since such proposals require some entity to take the initiative and get things moving, the committee identified the National Remote Sensing Programme Board, acting principally through the National Remote Sensing Centre. Such a programme obviously requires additional resources if it is to be effectively carried out.

But take a look at, Scientific Opportunities and the Science Budget 1983, and what do we find? In general the science budget, although there has been an increase in it for 1983, has been restored only to the level of support for science in real terms which existed in 1973–74–10 years ago. But even that is misleading, because the value of commissioned research by Government departments has fallen substantially (in the case of the Natural Environment Research Council alone by 12 per cent. of its total income) and, through the financial pressure applied by the University Grants Committee, the value of university research is estimated to have fallen by more than 11 per cent. The university science base has thus been seriously eroded, and the dual support system further undermined.

In the remote sensing field—mainly again the province of the Natural Environment Research Council—the Advisory Board for the Research Councils proposed a significant increase in its remote sensing activities in co-operation with the other research councils and the universities. After the promulgation of the science budget the only reference to remote sensing in the paper is that the existing capital support for remote sensing in the Natural Environment Research Council will have to be cut back.

Can the Minister confirm that these facts and figures are correct? If so, does he not agree that it makes the Government's claim to be promoting the national capability in advanced technology rather a hollow one? The whole of this ABRC report makes depressing reading. It begins with a bang and, after the Government have finished with it, ends in a whimper. It is standard practice to blame the Treasury for this sort of thing, but I shall not criticise my old department for doing what it conceives to be its duty. It is the Government as a whole who have to decide on the resources to be committed to science and technology.

On a specific point, the Select Committee recommended that the United Kingdom's membership of the European Space Agency should carry the main thrust of the country's effort in space; and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, alluded to that. Can the Minister confirm that the Government remain firmly committed to full participation in this agency and to the Earth Resources Satellite 1 programme?

My second point is a rather similar one, in relation to digital mapping. I came fresh to the problems of the Ordnance Survey, of which I knew little. I was considerably disturbed by what emerged about Government policy towards it. In the first place, the Ordnance Survey is organisationally in a weak position as an extra-departmental body supervised, hitherto rather spasmodically, by a junior Minister in the Department of the Environment. It was, and still is, out on a limb. Thus, three years back it was subjected to an across-the-board cut of 20 per cent. in staff without apparently any attempt to assess its current load of work and its special needs and functions in a rapidly changing environment.

Secondly, it has been the subject of the wide-ranging Serpell report, whose recommendations, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said, have not, after three years, been effectively dealt with; while a misconceived attempt to hive off some part of its production into a trading fund distracted the Ordnance Survey from its main task. Thirdly, in the face of this need to adapt to new technology, especially in the field of digital cartography, its research capability is grotesquely small in relation to that of the comparable institutions in France and the United States and, indeed, that of our own Military Survey. It is perfectly understandable therefore, with its timetable for the larger scale mapping of the United Kingdom beginning to slip, that the Ordnance Survey lacked enthusiasm for accelerating the process of digitisation in general, for digitising smaller scale maps and, in particular, for extending its interest into the field of remote sensing.

I do not blame the Ordnance Survey for these deficiencies. It seems to me that it has been placed in a very difficult position, and it is naturally concerned about its ability to maintain the national archive for which it is responsible. I make two comments on this situation. First, I was encouraged by the evidence given by the Under-Secretary of State at the Department of the Environment on 2nd November last, which showed not merely an understanding of the position, but a desire to remedy it.

Secondly, the Ordnance Survey programme has fallen so far behind what is desirable, both in carrying out its traditional task and in moving into new applications—notably digitisation of small scale maps—that there is a requirement for additional resources in men and money to claw back some of the time and achievement that has been lost. Part of this expenditure can reasonably be called capital expenditure. I will not enlarge on the account by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, of our recommen-dations on all this, but I hope that the Minister is not going to tell us this afternoon that there is no money for this important requirement, either.

Personally, I was impressed by the need to push on with the digitisation of the 1:50,000 scale maps. I recall a remark made to me by the head of the American Defence Mapping Agency that for them the whole future lies with digitisation.

My last point is common to both remote sensing and digital cartography. It is the need to give more attention to the compilation of the data base, and the rapid transmission of information in digital form. Just as digitisation of small-scale maps is developing in this country in random fashion, so individual transmission networks are being introduced in a piecemeal way. Co-ordination, followed by action, is needed here and to this end we have recommended the creation of a computer-based communications system for the transmission of digital data.

This should have a two-fold advantage. First, efficiency, and secondly, the building up of a user community through which applications can be developed. It is pertinent that, for these reasons, much effort in the United States is being put into the improvement of data links and data transmission between the satellites, the National Centre for Atmospheric Research and the universities. The committee did not try to give a specification for such a network, which is a matter for expert study and advice, but we clearly identified the need for it. Obviously this, too, cannot be achieved without drawing on some additional human and financial resources.

One further observation. At the conclusion of his evidence to the committee, the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry, gave us a homily on the overriding importance of market forces as the criterion of Government policy in the field of remote sensing. I dare say that I am as convinced as Mr. Kenneth Baker of the importance of the free play of markets in general as a factor in commercial policy. But, as I indicated earlier, the whole weight of our evidence was that in the case of both remote sensing and digital mapping, whose applications are new and unfamiliar, the market was fragmented and needed stimulation and co-ordination. We also had indications that the industry is beginning to be responsive to all this and is aware of the need for the private sector to stand on its own feet—but this will take time, here and in the United States. For the lack of some central impetus I fear that our competitors, less influenced by doctrinaire considerations than ourselves, will once more forge ahead of us.

The Minister also indicated that remote sensing was not very high up on the list of Government priorities. This opinion conflicts with the view held by the research councils and the Royal Society on whose list of priorities remote sensing stands high. This seems a quite important difference of opinion, which needs resolution.

Thirdly, I would like to comment—it will have to be a very brief comment—on the impressions which I derived from our visits to France and the United States. The French, with true Gallic high technology abandon, have poured resources into their earth resources satellite "Spot" which is designed to improve the resolution of the image at least two-fold in comparison with the Landsat satellite series. If successful, this will make the French information much more valuable for the study of earth resources. It may also make possible the application of satellite information to cartography, and this would open up an important new field.

In the United States our visits to the main organisations concerned with our subjects, notably the Academy of Sciences and, forgive the acronyms, NASA and NOAA, the Geological Survey and the Defence Mapping Agency, were supplemented by an interesting session with members of the House and Senate Committees on Science and Technology, by whom we were most hospitably received. I believe that this contact was a valuable as well as an agreeable one. Many noble Lords will be aware of the desire of the Reagan Administration to turn over the remote sensing and meteorological satellites to the private sector. Shortly after our visit, as our American colleagues predicted, the Congress passed a Bill preventing the transfer of the meteorological satellites from the public domain. This has had the immense advantage for the rest of the world that, under the open skies policy, this invaluable meteorological information will continue to be freely available.

On the other hand, the future of the Landsat programme is unclear. Legislation has been promoted in the Congress, but is unlikely to come to anything before the election. Bids have been invited for the Landsat operation, but it is doubtful whether without the weather satellites this is yet commercially viable—for much the same reasons, I think, as prevail in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile Landsat 4A, now, I think, numbered 5, was successfully launched last month. Landsat 4, which failed for technical reasons, has been coaxed back into partial activity, and it looks as if one more Landsat will be launched next year. Failing congressional action, that may spell the end of the programme, though my guess is that it will be continued in one form or another. The United States will not want to fall behind others in the acquisition and provision of earth resources data and the rest of the world will certainly hope that this information will continue to be as freely available as it has been in the past.

My strong impression, and it was reinforced in the course of another visit to Washington last month, is that the United States agencies would like to collabo-rate more closely and extensively with us. As I said earlier, the committee fully endorse our membership of the European Space Agency as our main effort in the space programme, but they also think that it is wise to supplement ESA membership. Bilateral or trilateral arrangements are much easier and simpler to conclude and to administer, and the United States and Canada are our natural partners in this field. But, of course, collaborative arrangements depend on mutual advantage. If there are inadequate resources behind our programme, we shall have little worthwhile to offer. In that event we shall continue to fall behind other countries in this field of endeavour, not only the United States and France, but Canada and India as well. I believe that the House would welcome the Minister's comments on this aspect of the problem.