Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee
Debate between Rachel Reeves and Stephen Doughty
Rachel Reeves
The hon. Lady has made an important point about clarity, which I do not think I put across sufficiently in my statement. The industry representatives who gave evidence to our Committee said that they would need two to five years to prepare for any changes in the regime and the trading arrangements with the rest of the European Union, and of course we do not have those two to five years: we have just over a year and a half until the end of the transition period. That is of great concern to the hon. Lady’s constituents, and to patients and businesses across the UK.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Both the EU and the pharmaceutical industry contribute significant sums to medical research and development in the UK. I am thinking particularly of Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences, which does fantastic cancer research, and also—in my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on HIV & AIDS—of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative facility, which has fantastic EU funding for its search for an HIV vaccine. Is my hon. Friend worried about the impact on facilities such as those?
Rachel Reeves
I am worried about those issues. My hon. Friend knows full well that we have benefited disproportionately from Horizon 2020: 13% of the funds have come to this country, reflecting our fantastic research base in Cardiff, in Leeds and across the UK. It is welcome that the Government have guaranteed those funds until 2020, but there have been no guarantees beyond that. As my hon. Friend knows, research does not work on two or three-year horizons; it works on 10 or 20-year horizons. We need clarity, and the certainty that we will receive that investment in key research on matters such as the HIV vaccine that my hon. Friend mentioned.