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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to support investment in science research at universities within West Yorkshire.

The Government is fully committed to maintaining the UK’s world-leading science, research and higher education base.

As of October 2016, there were a total of 443 active Research Council grants awarded to universities in the West Yorkshire area – as defined by the Leeds City Region LEP. The total value of the grants comes to £279 million split over four organisations: Leeds Metropolitan University; University of Bradford; University of Huddersfield and University of Leeds.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) provided £55.5 million in 2016/17 to five universities in West Yorkshire: University of Leeds; University of Huddersfield; University of Bradford; Leeds Beckett University and Leeds Trinity University. This funding was allocated on the basis of the research quality, and the business and charity income of these universities. HEFCE provided a further £6.3 million to these universities in that year to support knowledge exchange activities.