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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to box 3.6 on page 172 of the Levelling Up White Paper, whether the expectation for his Department to spend at least £7 in every £10 outside the Greater South East will be met by (a) UKRI, (b) Research England, (c) the Research Councils, (d) Innovate UK, (e) ARIA and (f) other individual bodies.

BEIS will aim for the regions and nations outside the Greater South East to receive at least 55% of its research and development (R&D) funding by 2024/25.

To support this BEIS will make levelling up one of the objectives of its R&D investment strategy to ensure its £39.8bn settlement between 2022/23–2024/25 boosts R&D and economic growth across the whole of the UK.

In some areas like Net Zero, BEIS expects at least £7 in every £10 it invests will be invested outside the Greater South East over the spending review period.