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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what progress his Department has made on launching the Innovation Accelerator in the Glasgow city region, as announced in the Levelling Up White Paper; and if his Department will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Glasgow city region Innovation Accelerator on Inverclyde constituency.

Innovation Accelerators are a pilot approach to supporting three UK city regions, including Glasgow, to become major, globally competitive centres for research and innovation.

In Glasgow, a locally led partnership convened by the Glasgow City Region, involving leaders in local government, business and R&D institutions, supported by UK Government and R&D funders, is making good progress in developing a plan to boost innovation and attract new R&D investment.

Funding for Innovation Accelerators will run for the duration of the Spending Review and we will put in place a monitoring and evaluation framework to assess their impact