Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It was striking how little the Chancellor had to say about science and innovation in the Budget. Nearly 60,000 people are employed in the Cambridge cluster, and Cambridge is home to over 1,500 tech companies with a combined annual revenue of about £13 billion. This Government’s record on science is erratic. Investment in research and development is only at 0.49% of GDP—below the OECD average of 0.67% and well below the EU target of 3%. That means that the UK comes last in the EU 27 and eighth in the G8 in terms of R and D spending as a proportion of GDP. The annual funding shortfalls resulting from the 2010 flat-cash settlement for the resource science budget meant a £1 billion loss to the UK research base over the lifetime of the previous Parliament.

There was some relief when the Government committed to protecting the science resource budget in real terms over the course of this Parliament, but £1.5 billion of this funding has been reserved for a new global challenges fund—a new funding commitment tucked within existing science resource funding. I would welcome clarification of how this will impact on current scientific research. It should be noted that funding for innovation and wider research sits outside the ring-fenced science budget. This funding supports companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, in translating their research into products.

Like many others, I was very disappointed by the Government’s decision to bin research grants for companies and replace them with loans. This will have a significant impact on key early-stage enterprises, which have explained that they will struggle to secure investment if they have a hefty loan on the books. Sadly, the Government did not listen. They should, because, as I have said on previous occasions, Cambridge’s future success is not assured. Last week, new data from the Office for National Statistics showed that house prices in Cambridge have risen faster since 2010 than anywhere else in the country. If people cannot live in the city, they are then forced to live outside, and that is why local transport matters so much.

I turn to the devolution deal—so-called. Let us be clear: Cambridge and the area around us need the freedoms to make the investments needed to tackle the housing and transport challenges we face. That was why Cambridgeshire councils, business and universities came together to create the Case for Cambridge—a thoughtful and sensible set of proposals put to Government last year. However, instead of responding positively to that locally agreed and developed proposal, the Government came back very late in the day with a completely different solution, and basically said, “You’ve got three weeks to take it or leave it.” Unsurprisingly, the reaction has been furious. The local enterprise partnership has rejected it, individual business leaders have rejected it, the city council has rejected it, and today Cambridgeshire County Council rejected it. This is no way to deal with the huge and urgent challenge that faces one of the most successful parts of the country: it puts that very success at risk. I hope that those involved in this process—ultimately it is Treasury-led—will reflect on what has happened and reopen discussions in good faith with Cambridgeshire. Cambridgeshire needs a deal, but it needs a deal for Cambridgeshire, not for the Treasury.