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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what funding his Department has allocated to nuclear fusion research to 29 March 2019.

The UK’s publicly funded fusion research is led by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

UKAEA receives grant funding for fusion research from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (£26.1m in 2017/18 and £27.0m in 2018/19). This includes the UK’s share of costs for the Joint European Torus (JET), based in Oxfordshire. The remainder of costs for JET are provided by the Euratom Research and Training Programme. UK Research Council funding is provided from the BEIS budget.

In December 2017 the Government announced an £86m investment to establish a National Fusion Technology Platform, aimed at supporting UK industry in obtaining contracts for international nuclear fusion projects. BEIS has also allocated funding for an upgrade to the domestic fusion project, MAST (£2.5m 17/18).

The UK is a world leader in nuclear R&D and the Government is committed to maintaining and building on our excellence in this important field.