Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what the evidential basis is for the calculation that the increase in his Department’s R&D budget to £13.9 billion is a rise by 8.5% in real terms.

DSIT’s capital budget in 2024/25 was £13.3bn, with £12.5bn allocated for investment in R&D. As outlined in the Autumn Budget 2024, DSIT’s R&D allocation has risen to £13.9bn in 2025/26, a £1.4bn cash-terms uplift.

Using the latest OBR GDP deflator estimate for 2025/26 of 2.4 per cent (Autumn Budget 2024), this equates to a real-terms increase of 8.5%.