Universities: Research and Development

Our world-leading universities and the research that they do are crucial to economic growth. On average, every £1 of public research and development investment generates £8 in economic benefits for the UK over the longer term. That is why this Government are investing £86 billion over the spending review period—the largest ever investment in R&D made by any Government—to support our best and brightest researchers, boost jobs and growth, and back the long-term success of the UK.

I thank the Secretary of State for her answer. The UK’s universities do indeed produce world-class research, but I would suggest that we are still missing too many opportunities in commercialisation. The Government’s proof of concept fund is really quite inadequate—from the figures, it is 30 times oversubscribed—and equity and intellectual property arrangements are laborious and deter both investors and entrepreneurs. Will the Secretary of State commit to expanding that proof of concept funding and reforming those barriers that hold back university spin-outs?

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that we do not lack in great ideas or great start-ups in this country. We need to support them better to scale up, and that is what the Government are doing across a range of sectors. The hon. Gentleman can look at the actions we are taking on UK pension schemes, to get them to invest more in UK companies, and in the Treasury and across the board. I am sure there is more we can do, but it is absolutely at the top of our agenda.

The Business and Trade Committee recently visited the remarkable new Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, and the key issue that came up was the balance between research funding going to post-doctorates and to PhD students. It is a complicated, niche issue, but would the Minister arrange for me, UK Research and Innovation and the appropriate people to meet, to try to resolve this long-running issue?

I absolutely will arrange for my hon. Friend to meet the relevant Minister and UKRI to make sure we get this right, because we have to do more to back our world-leading researchers and then turn that research into innovation and future growth. That is the first part of the journey, and we want to—and will—get it right.