Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans he has to encourage R&D investment in highly-skilled pharmaceutical manufacturing in the UK.

The UK Government will invest £14.9 billion in R&D this year, bringing investment to its highest level in four decades. This is a major step towards our commitment to increase total public and private R&D investment to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027.

Through the Manufacturing Made Smarter Challenge, the government will invest £147 million (matched by a minimum of £147 million from industry) to transform the UK’s manufacturing capabilities through the development and adoption of industrial digital technologies. The Challenge will support businesses to implement new tech to boost their manufacturing productivity, helping them reach new customers, create thousands of new highly skilled jobs, slash carbon emissions and reduce prices for customers.

The Government has also recently launched the Medicines and Diagnostics Manufacturing Transformation Fund (MDMTF), a £20 million fund offering capital grants to businesses, incentivising them to place internationally mobile high value manufacturing investments in the UK. The MDMTF will increase the production of medicines and diagnostic equipment in the UK. In doing so, it seeks also to support companies in adopting new technologies which boost productivity, drive down costs and which have less impact on the environment.

The Government will also publish a Life Sciences Vision later this year which will set out our ambition for supporting growth of the life sciences sector, including in manufacturing.