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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the implications of the School of Advanced Study’s proposals to close the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute of Latin American Studies (1) for the Commonwealth community, and (2) for the UK’s post-Brexit relations with Latin America; what representations they are making to the School of Advanced Study about the implications of these proposals; and what plans they have, if any, to provide support to help maintain these institutes.

Universities are independent, autonomous organisations and are therefore responsible for their decisions relating to research priorities and which activities to support. We would expect universities to regularly review and develop their strategic research priorities, and that this may result in some internal restructuring to better support these priorities.