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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the Government remains committed to spending £6bn over three years on its own global science fund if it cannot rejoin the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.

Our preference remains association to EU programmes and we continue to do everything we can to secure this, however we cannot wait indefinitely; the EU’s delays are creating significant uncertainty for our R&D communities.

The 2021 Spending Review confirmed that if we are unable to associate, the funding allocated to Horizon association will go to other UK Government-funded R&D programmes instead, including those to support international research & innovation partnerships.