Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 11 March 2024 to Question 17194 on Artificial Intelligence: Migrant Workers, when the new dedicated visa scheme will be operational.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The new Future Technology Research & Innovation (Government Authorised Exchange) visa scheme is expected to go live on 4 April 2024, which the Home Office announced in their Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules laid in Parliament on 14 March. This visa scheme will allow sponsored researchers and interns to come to the UK to work in eligible organisation in the areas of the Government’s five critical technologies (AI, engineering biology, future telecommunications, semiconductors, and quantum technologies).
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of ending government support for the UK Recovery programme on the UK's preparedness for future pandemics.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funded the RECOVERY trial in March 2020, initially for 18 months, before progressively extending the study to March 2024. It was a highly successful trial that, by recruiting patients at a faster rate than any previous trial, was able to rapidly identify the first drugs that reduce COVID-19 mortality. At the end of an NIHR award, including any extensions, researchers can apply through a competitive process for new funding.
The NIHR continues to fund research into infectious diseases, which could be utilised in the event of another pandemic. For example, the NIHR has allocated £2.9 million to Imperial College London and Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust to adapt their COVID-19 trial for severe flu patients. The NIHR is open to applications on any health and care-related topic.
More widely, the UK Biological Security Strategy, published in June 2023, reaffirms our ambition to scale up discovery, development, and manufacturing of therapeutics and vaccines within 100 days of a pandemic being declared. This aligns with our ongoing work to ensure a flexible and capabilities-based approach to pandemic preparedness, which will see emergency planners develop and maintain a generic suite of adaptable response capabilities across the Government. This will enable an approach that can be flexibly deployed to meet the demands of any future pandemic, and support a whole-system response.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how much funding her Department has provided to research projects based in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) the East Midlands in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In the 12 months to start of January 2024, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) awarded:
These figures include a range of investments made via UKRI’s Research Councils and Innovate UK, but the figure excludes formula-based block grants deployed through universities which will also have gone to research projects in this region.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to help support research into cell and gene therapy in Scotland.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The UK is a world-leader in the development and manufacture of cell and gene therapies thanks to government investment in innovation and skills, including through the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGTC).
DSIT also invested £10 million - alongside £10 million from Scottish Enterprise – to support a new Oligonucleotide Manufacturing Innovation Centre of Excellence in Glasgow.
The Vaccine Taskforce provided funding for a state-of-the art CGTC facility in Braintree to accelerate the development and manufacturing of advanced therapies at clinical and commercial scale.
My department also supported CGTC to establish apprenticeships and training programmes to upskill people across the UK.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the economic impact of (a) investment made and (b) financial support provided by her Department in Darlington constituency in the last four years.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
UK Research and Innovation spend in Darlington in financial year 2020-21 (the latest available data) was £0.55 million. The interactive innovation clusters map, available at https://www.innovationclusters.dsit.gov.uk/, provides further information about clusters in Darlington.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to encourage innovation in (a) the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, (b) the DVLA, (c) HS2 Ltd. and (d) National Highways.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The UK Government has an overarching goal of making the UK a global hub for innovation, placing innovation at the centre of everything the nation does. We can see this within our Public Bodies:
The MCA is committed to supporting innovation in maritime. This includes:
- Taking an enabling approach to regulation of innovative future maritime technologies,
- Implementation of the UK Concierge Service and the My MCA technology platform supporting customers and the UK economy, and
- Empowering and supporting staff to explore innovative ways of working, including digital technology, to make best use of resources.
The DVLA builds its new software and services using the very latest methodologies and technologies. Examples include:
- It is a fast adopter of cutting edge features offered by public cloud infrastructure so it can deliver quicker, safer and serve greater numbers of customers than ever before.
- The DVLA’s in-house TechLab research emerging technologies, including how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can assist in building software to support motorists though their interactions with DVLA.
- The DVLA has used these innovations most recently in the development of its driver and vehicles account. When fully rolled out, the account will fundamentally change how the DVLA operates, allowing individuals to authenticate, register and return to DVLA services, view and manage their details, set notification preferences (including reminders) and seamlessly link to the services they need.
HS2 Ltd is at the forefront of innovation within the construction industry and has an obligation to incentivise innovation across the supply chain under the Development Agreement.
Innovation across the programme has made HS2 more efficient with hundreds of millions saved through an accelerator programme to fast-track technology and ideas into the supply chain. Since its launch in September 2020, the accelerator has supported 25 SMEs, raised £220 million in investment, funding and contracts, and helped to create 418 new STEM jobs. Two of the SMEs supported through the accelerator have recently been through an acquisition on the basis of their success.
D. National Highways
National Highways have an innovation and modernisation fund. The Department has provided £216m to NH for this fund during RIS2 (covering the period 2020-2025).
They will use it to research and develop emerging technologies which have the potential to revolutionise what it means to travel on our roads. They will also use this fund to produce new requirements and guidance for proven concepts, enabling the widespread adoption of innovations to modernise the road network. The fund is split across 5 themes:
- Design, construction, and maintenance
- Connected and autonomous vehicles
- Customer mobility
- Energy and environment
- Operations
The Department expect a similar approach to be continued in RIS3 (covering the period 2025-30) which is currently in development.
Asked by: Damian Collins (Conservative - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many times the Sports Concussion Research Forum has met as of 13 March 2024; what priority areas for research it has (a) identified and (b) taken steps to deliver; and what (i) guidance and (ii) findings it has presented to (A) her Department and (B) other bodies for which she is responsible.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Evidence-based sports research is an important component in ensuring that sport is made as safe as possible for all participants. To that end, DCMS established a Sports Concussion Research Forum in July 2022, chaired by the Medical Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation. This brings together key academic experts with experience of traumatic brain injury, neurology and concussion to identify the priority research questions for the sporting sector.
The Research Forum has met five times since its inception and is now formulating a report to identify those priority research questions, with the report expected to be completed in 2024.
The Government remains committed to working with sports stakeholders to build on the positive work that is already taking place to mitigate the causes and effects of concussion in sport.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will (a) make an assessment of the effectiveness of clinical research practices in Singapore and (b) use that assessment to improve clinical research in the UK.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As leaders in research, science and innovation, the United Kingdom works closely with Singapore across priorities that will drive economic growth and positive societal impact. Our Prime Ministers issued a Joint Declaration on the Singapore-United Kingdom Strategic Partnership in September 2023, which includes research, science, innovation, and technology as one of five priority pillars for the partnership. We will continue to identify opportunities to learn from countries around the world, including Singapore.
We are focussed on improving clinical research in the UK based on barriers and enablers that have been identified through multiple fora and stakeholders. The vision for the Future of Clinical Research Delivery and the Government response to the O’Shaughnessy review set out our plans to speed up clinical trials, and make it easier for revolutionary healthcare treatments to get to National Health Service patients through research.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what her policy is on producing reports into the online activity of academics on UKRI boards.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Secretary of State is a staunch believer in free speech and would not authorise a sweeping collection of the views of academics.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the use of the capsule sponge test to detect oesophageal cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England commissioned an evaluation to assess the impact of the capsule sponge test in secondary care, for patients on a routine reflux pathway. The evaluation report was completed in September 2023 and the national pilot will conclude in March 2024.
On 26 February 2024, NHS England published the results of the capsule sponge test pilot for secondary care routine reflux and Barrett’s surveillance cohort, which began in January 2021, and launched at 30 hospitals across England. The pilot tested over 8,500 patients with the capsule sponge test. Evaluation of a cohort of patients showed almost eight out of 10 patients, who completed a test, were discharged without the need for further testing, freeing up endoscopy capacity for higher risk patients and those referred for urgent tests for oesophageal cancer. Patients with positive results from the capsule sponge test who were referred on for an endoscopy had the highest prevalence of Barrett’s oesophagus, at 27.2%, compared to zero patients with negative results who completed an endoscopy.
NHS England has not committed to national uptake of capsule sponge, but will continue to support integrated care boards (ICBs) and local systems to deliver in their area. The evaluation report was published and shared with local National Health Service systems including Cancer Alliances, NHS providers, and ICBs to support with local service provision. The evaluation findings should be interpreted and used locally, based on need.
NHS England is continuing to explore other capsule sponge use cases, including in primary and community care settings jointly funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research and Cancer Research UK. Separately to this, the CYTOPRIME2 project is funded through the NHS Cancer Programme’s Innovation Open Call and is assessing the feasibility and safety of using capsule sponge in a primary care setting, and evaluating key outcome metrics.