Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to the Office for National Statistics data entitled Business Enterprise Research and Development UK: 2021, published on 22 November 2022, what assessment she has made of trends in the total expenditure on research and development in companies with 250 employees and over between 2018 and 2019.

Table 7 of the ONS BERD release included figures for R&D performed by businesses by total company employment size bands. This included the following estimates:

Comparable estimates for companies with 0 to 249 employees rose more quickly over the same period. The ONS figures provide the current best estimate of R&D expenditure at the total UK level which have been validated against other available data. However, there is less data for validation and increased uncertainty in the estimates below the total BERD figures. The Government looks forward to further improvements from the ONS in how the BERD statistics are compiled in future releases.