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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the Comparison of ONS business enterprise research and development statistics with HMRC research and development tax credit statistics, published in September 2022, demonstrating a revised method of calculating private R&D investment, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the loss of ERDF funding on leveraging private sector investment in every region of the UK.

The Government welcomes the independent Office for National Statistics (ONS) ongoing efforts to improve the accuracy of its research and development (R&D) investment data. The ONS will publish new total R&D investment numbers up to 2020, plus private R&D investment up to 2021, on 17 November 2022.

The Government has established the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) as a successor to EU structural funds (European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund). Decisions on how it will be used will be taken locally. Funding for UKSPF will ramp up to £1.5 billion per year by March 2025. This upholds the Government’s commitment to match EU structural fund receipts.