Brexit: Science and Research Funding
Baroness Afshar Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Henley
It is not happening, and I think that we will get a deal that will be in the interests of the United Kingdom, because it is in the interests of the EU as well.
Baroness Afshar (CB)
My Lords, are the Government aware that this is already happening? I declare an interest as a member of the University of York, where already researchers who were invaluable in the Dorothy Hodgkin programme have left because they could not renew their visas and found that it was much easier to find a similar job in Europe. It is a matter of great regret, and the loss to this country is going to be considerable. Would the Government please reconsider?
Lord Henley
My Lords, we believe that EU students, researchers and staff and our own universities make a very important contribution to the United Kingdom. We believe that we have a very strong science sector, as I made clear earlier, and we want that contribution to continue. Given the quality of our higher education sector, which has something of the order of 10 universities in the top 100 world universities, we are confident that it will.