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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policy on the award of Innovate UK Smart funding for Type 1 diabetes research of the outcome of the EU referendum.

Innovate UK has simplified the way it provides support to innovative businesses - through a new sector focus with two broad competitions in each sector per year. It also runs open programmes available to all businesses irrespective of the technology or sector in which they operate. Innovate UK’s first such competition opened in June 2016 and applications are now being processed. In the last 5 years, through the former Smart programme, Innovate UK committed around £553,000 into research for Type 1 diabetes, although technologies have also been supported which relate to the management and prevention of Type 2 diabetes. The outcome of the EU referendum is not expected to impact on the delivery of these programmes.