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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what comparative assessment he has made of the procurement rules for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and those under UK's Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

In designing ARIA, we have considered international comparators including the Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the US. DARPA benefits from autonomy and flexibility outside the standard government contracting and granting standards. Flexibility is a core element of the DARPA model, and its history of success in the US.

ARIA is not intended to replicate DARPA - but DARPA has flexibilities that will benefit ARIA in the UK context.