Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Callanan on 14 December 2021 (HL Deb col 205) that an obligation on the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) would "have regard to its projects contributing to our climate change targets and environmental goals", why the ARIA framework agreement, published on 17 February, does not include their aforementioned commitment; and when they plan to edit the framework agreement to include it.

I thank the noble Lord for raising this matter. The ARIA Framework Agreement will be updated as soon as possible to include this commitment, without prejudice to ARIA’s freedom to have maximum autonomy over its research and project choices.