To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of (a) the proportion of private sector investment which is outside of the Golden Triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London and (b) how that has increased or decreased over the last decade.
Answered on
3 February 2022
Business expenditure on R&D (BERD) demonstrates the amount of R&D performed by UK businesses, and is the nearest for private sector investment. In 2020, the regions of Greater London, the East of England, and South East of England accounted for 55% of total UK BERD. Since 2010, BERD outside these regions has ranged from 45% - 49%, peaking at 49% in 2016.
The Levelling Up White Paper sets out how we will maximise the contribution of innovation to levelling up. This includes a new goal that domestic public investment in R&D outside the Greater South East will increase by at least one third over the Spending Review period and at least 40 percent by 2030, with that additional government funding seeking to leverage at least twice as much private sector investment over the long term to stimulate innovation and productivity growth.
BEIS has published a R&D spatial data tool (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/access-research-and-development-spatial-data) which allows users to access, visualise and compare indicators that show the scale of R&D systems at a subregional level over time. This includes metrics that proxy for private R&D and innovation and can be reviewed for all UK regions.