Horizon 2020

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The important thing to stress is that the EU has not yet determined Horizon Europe and the most important sticking point remains the budget. It is the Government’s commitment to have an association agreement to ensure that scientists and all within that area going forward are able to participate fully and are able to get full value for money, just as the EU will get full value from us through such an association agreement.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend may be anticipating that Horizon Europe’s budget, as it is discussed in the year ahead of us, may well be less than €100 billion. There are many stories suggesting that it will be in the region of €88 billion to €90 billion. The question then is whether in the course of the months ahead we should be seeking participation in Horizon Europe on the basis that the funds that we provide—I think we have provided about 11% of the funds of Horizon 2020—would be additional to what the European Union commits from its own budget, thereby getting Horizon Europe potentially back to €100 billion in total.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My noble friend is absolutely right. We have been a vital participant in the Horizon programmes and their predecessor framework programmes. There is no doubt that going forward our participation will make them work better, and the negotiations must therefore deliver against that objective.