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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to prioritise science and research in the levelling up agenda in (a) Newport West constituency, (b) Wales and (c) the UK.

We recognise the need to take a comprehensive place-based approach to economic growth, that responds to the varying needs of places. We will publish a detailed approach for levelling up through R&D as part of the forthcoming Levelling Up White Paper.

Ahead of then, UKRI’s Strength in Places Fund (SIPF) is the first major national competitive R&D fund that takes a place-based approach contributing to the Government’s wider levelling up ambitions. In June 2020, BEIS announced an award of £25m to the CS Connected project in the first wave of SIPF, to develop South Wales’ compound semiconductor cluster. Project partners are from across the region including Newport. This summer, BEIS announced a £22m award to the media.cymru project to develop Cardiff’s media cluster.