Viscount Camrose

Scale-up businesses are a critical part of the UK’s economy, driving innovation and economic growth. The work of the ScaleUp Institute and its partners in continuing to nurture the health of our scale-up ecosystems is as important as ever.

This Government will work closely with the Scaleup Institute and the private sector more broadly to create the right conditions for businesses to scale-up.

Ministers will support the work of the ScaleUp Institute though various mechanisms such as attendance at key events and engaging representatives from their organisation and membership as part of Government policy making.

The government is determined to develop the skilled workforce that the UK needs across the whole economy, including in space. That is why it is creating Skills England and will bring forward a comprehensive strategy for post-16 education to break down barriers to opportunity, support the development of a skilled workforce, and drive economic growth through our industrial strategy. Decisions about sector specific workforce action plans will be taken in due course.

As part of the Government’s response to the Nurse Landscape Review, the Department of Science Innovation and Technology and UK Research and Innovation Metascience Unit was established in late 2023 with an initial £10m commitment from Financial Year 2024-25 to support a range of activity from research grants to in-house experiments on UKRI’s processes. The Metascience Unit recently launched their first funding call, with up to £2m co-funding from US-based foundation Open Philanthropy, bringing the total call size to £5m.

The modular acceleration programme is a two-year programme designed to accelerate the supply and support the delivery of individual modules of Higher Technical Qualifications ahead of the launch of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement. During academic years 2023/24 and 2024/25, 25 providers will deliver up to 108 modules to learners.

Delivery of the first modules began in April 2024, with the bulk of modules being delivered from September 2024. Activities to raise demand and support recruitment to modules will continue as the programme enters its second academic year.

All departments agreed their Spending Review settlements ahead of Autumn Budget. As you would expect, some technical details took longer to be worked through but the overall numbers were agreed within the expected timeframes. Details of the Settlements were announced by the Chancellor as part of her Budget speech yesterday, and are now available to be viewed online.