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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the research and development sector is adequately prioritised in the Government's plans for recovery in response to the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government holds research and development as a high priority, and we continue to believe our world-leading excellence in science will be key to ensuring the UK’s prosperity and productivity in the long term and to tackling the immediate challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response to the outbreak, BEIS and DfE?have set out?to universities and the wider research community early considerations and advice to help the sector deal with some immediate priorities. A joint BEIS/DfE Ministerial Taskforce on the sustainability of university research has been set up to identify and assess impacts and to consider approaches to help manage these over the?coming months.