Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the effect of the state aid provisions of the UK-Japan Free Trade Agreement on UK compliance with EU state aid laws.

The Government has a clear ambition for the UK to be a global science superpower and this is reaffirmed in the UK Research and Development Roadmap. The UK is open to participation in certain EU programmes provided we can reach a fair and balanced deal, and negotiations are ongoing.

The UK reached a substantive agreement on the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership on 11 September 2020. This contains subsidy commitments which are appropriate for an FTA and have a bearing on UK subsidies only insofar as they may have an effect on trade with Japan.