Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps he is taking to help ensure that research facilities owned by companies whose headquarters are in other EU member states or which are based in such states remain in the UK.

The UK remains a great place to do business. Annual figures published by the Department for International Trade in August 2016 confirm that the UK remains the number one investment destination in Europe; and the top European destination for investment from emerging markets. The figures show that Britain has benefitted from record-breaking inward investment by foreign companies. Across the country, 2,213 inward investment projects were secured in 2015 to 2016, an 11% increase on the previous year.

With our world-class research base, a highly skilled workforce, world-leading scientific capabilities and a competitive tax environment that includes R&D tax credits and Patent Box, we are determined that the UK should remain the best place in Europe to innovate, locate and grow a business. The UK is a global leader in science and innovation, winning 13 science Nobel Prizes since 2000 and with more Nobel Prizes per capita than US, France, Germany, Russia or Japan; it is ranked third in the Global Innovation Index and is home to 3 of the world’s top 10 universities. Following the vote to leave the EU, we remain determined to maintain the global competitiveness of the UK research base and business environment. To maintain confidence in the UK’s participation in EU funded research collaborations, the Government announced on 13th August, that HM Treasury will underwrite, for the life of the project, all competitively won EU research funding applied for before our departure from the EU.