The influential UK House of Commons science and technology committee has called for a full UK space programme and more aggressive development of UK spaceports, saying that Tim Peake’s imminent return from the International Space Station on June 18 should spark a new national drive to develop native capabilities.

However, lack of detail and recent changes in policy on the UK spaceport project may be hindering progress, the committee and some spaceport contenders say.

Britain’s last space programme, based on the Black Arrow rocket (pictured above), was cancelled in 1971. Just two satellite launches went ahead—Orba and Prospero, with the former failing to make it into orbit due to an error with the second stage—leaving the UK as the only space-capable nation to date with an exactly 50 percent successful mission record.

Nicola Blackwood MP, committee chair, said on Tuesday: “The UK has, so far, only taken small steps towards launching a national space programme that would enable our innovative space and satellite industries to get the ‘flight heritage’ they need. Now is the time to take a confident leap towards that goal.”

She also criticised the government’s spaceport plans, which despite much publicity have yet to include details of the legislation or regulation required to start development. She specifically commented on the exclusion of vertical rocketry in favour of horizontal spaceplane facilities, saying “The Government’s technical requirements for the spaceport have [...] narrow parameters [that] risk limiting the use, and value, of the spaceport to the space and satellite industry. The Government must urgently set out the rationale, and evidence, for its spaceport proposals.”

At the end of May, the Department of Transport (DfT) told the UK spaceport contenders, which are mostly in Scotland, that it was no longer planning to award permission to a single site, choosing rather to adopt a licensing and regulatory approach that could apply to multiple sites. The nascent UK spaceport industry has had mixed reactions.

A spokesperson for the Glasgow Prestwick Spaceport development, which has been lobbying for this change, told Ars: “We couldn’t agree more with the UK Government Science and Technology Committee’s comments. The space industry in the UK is vast and is already growing at speed. With the right policy environment the industry’s potential could be exponential. That is why we were delighted to see the move towards a licensing regime for spaceports in the UK.”

However, other spaceport candidates are more cautious. Mark Godsell, of Spaceport Newquay, told Ars: “In reality all locations are awaiting the legislation to both allow licensing of any suitable location to be a spaceport plus the clarification of the status of space planes and their passengers."

But without clarity on what would actually be flying, he said, development of multiple sites would be hard. “Everyone is waiting now for the first paying passengers on either Virgin Galactic or Xcor—but it's not really very clear how long that will be. Xcor appears to be focusing on its other businesses and we have no idea how many test flights Virgin Galactic will need to fly."

He also noted that the lack of focus on a single site could slow progress. “The aim of one chosen location, through bidding, would have created a single ready-to-go and well-funded spaceport with all the associated industries developing around it,” he said. “The new approach is likely to mean several smaller spaceports, sharing business and investment and really only offering service as and when the vehicles are actually flying. It has benefited the areas that would have lost the bid but the bid winner has lost out by not being the main focus and all what that would have brought.”

We'll bring more news on the UK space programme as it develops.

Rupert Goodwins started out as an engineer working for Clive Sinclair, Alan Sugar, and some other 1980s startups. He is now a technology journalist who's written and broadcast about the digital world for more than thirty years. You can follow him on Twitter at @rupertg.