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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of Professor Mariana Mazzucato's recent evaluation of innovation-led growth and strategic public investment.

Government does not tend to undertake assessments or comment on independent work such as that undertaken by Professor Mazzucato.

Innovation is about new ideas, new ways of doing things, new goods and services and new technologies that are central to driving productivity and a key driver of our modern Industrial Strategy.

Our Industrial Strategy will enable the UK to work more productively and boost earning power of people, businesses and places and the nation as a whole. To support UK priorities in key areas of innovation we will invest a further £725m in a second wave of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, turning our research into global industrial and commercial leads. We will ensure that the UK is the best pace for innovators and through our Grand Challenges we will invite business, academia and civil society to work together to innovate and develop new technologies.

We have committed to raise investment in R&D to 2.4% of GDP by 2027; we will invest an additional £2.3bn in 2021, raising total public investment in R&D to approximately £12.5bn. Increasing public R&D spending as a share of GDP each year and making a total increase of £7bn over five years. This will be the biggest ever increase in public funding R&D.