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

To ask Her Majesty's Government when they intend to publish their plan to spread research and development funding across all nations and regions of the UK; whether that plan will seek to address the imbalance of research and development spending between London and the South East and other regions and nations; and how that plan will link with other Government policies aimed at supporting the levelling up agenda.

The 2021 Spending Review set out the government’s plan to increase public R&D spending from £14.9bn in 2021/22 to £20 billion per annum by 2024/25. The substantial uplift to research and science funding will not only allow the UK to build on our core strengths but will also provide opportunities to grow research and innovation investment across the entire country as part of the Government’s approach to levelling up the UK economy. Further details of how this funding will be allocated will be announced in due course.

The Government’s Innovation Strategy, published in July, outlined our thinking on how to grow innovation clusters and ensure that research and innovation benefits the economy and society across the UK. The forthcoming Levelling Up White Paper will take a comprehensive place-based approach to economic growth and will set out more detail on how Government will support levelling up through R&D.

The Government is taking steps to increase the transparency of how places benefit from R&D funding. UKRI are publishing detailed breakdowns of their funding data at a regional level annually – the latest available data is on UKRI's website.