Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support research-intensive companies in the battery sector.

Last year we announced a record £211m funding uplift for the Faraday Battery Challenge, which began in 2017 and supports world-class scientific technology development and manufacturing scale-up capability for batteries in the UK. This new funding brings the overall budget for the Challenge to £541m.

Projects funded so far are improving the lifespan, range, and charging rate of batteries, as well as battery reuse, remanufacture and recycling.