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

To ask Her Majesty's Government why their Levelling Up the United Kingdom white paper, published on 2 February, includes the creation of three “innovation accelerators” in England and Scotland, but none in Wales; and what assessment they made of levels of past spending on research and development in the nations of the UK when they made this decision.

The Government is committed to increasing research and innovation capacity across the UK.

Innovation Accelerators are a new pilot approach to supporting three UK city regions to become major, globally competitive centres for research and innovation. They will be locally led partnerships involving leaders in local government, business and R&D institutions.

The three city regions selected for the pilots demonstrate R&D strengths, robust private and public innovation governance, and strong local leadership which makes them strong candidates for testing this new approach.

If the Innovation Accelerator pilots prove successful, we will consider how the lessons learned can be applied to benefit other places in the UK.