Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the UK-US trade deal on the (a) science and (b) technology sectors.

The UK-US Economic Prosperity Deal (EPD) includes a number of provisions that will in future benefit UK science and technology sectors. These include, for example, provisions on future negotiations on significantly preferential tariff treatment for pharmaceutical products, and an ambitious set of digital trade provisions.

Given detailed negotiations on these provisions have not yet concluded, it is not possible to undertake an impact assessment at this point.

As the Prime Minister has said, the Economic Prosperity Deal “opens the way to a future UK-US technology partnership through which our science-rich nations will collaborate in key areas of advanced technology”.