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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he had with EU counterparts on securing the UK’s participation in the Horizon Europe programme.

The UK stands ready to formalise our participation in Horizon Europe and other Union programmes, but disappointingly there have been persistent delays from the EU. Our participation in these programmes should be a “win-win” for everyone and further delays will benefit neither the UK nor EU.

Most recently, this issue was discussed at a meeting of the joint Specialised Committee on Participation in Union Programmes on Tuesday 21st December 2021.

It was important that this Specialised Committee meet to discuss the major outstanding issue of UK association and the treatment of UK participants in the meantime. We were pleased to meet but are disappointed that delays persist, and the Commission has still not provided clarity on when this will be resolved. We will continue to press on this.

We have always been clear that our priority is to support the UK’s research and development sector and we will continue to do this in all future scenarios.