‘Keep door open to overseas scientists’

SCIENTISTS and experts from overseas must be allowed to continue to come to the UK after Brexit, MPs have said.

Meanwhile, the Government should fully commit to making up any shortfall in research funding as a result of the break from Brussels, according to the Commons Science and Technology Committee.

The committee said the Government’s industrial strategy should have gone further in acknowledging the way the process of leaving the European Union would shape the country’s economic future.

The cross-party group welcomed the £2bn a year promised by Theresa May for research and development, but said the extra cash should be a “down payment” on the way to public and private funding reaching 3% of GDP.

Committee chairman Stephen Metcalfe said: “Brexit will present opportunities and risks for our economy and for the science and innovation that supports it.

“A regulatory regime that is well-crafted and tuned to our post-Brexit international research and trading relationships - both with Europe and globally - will be essential.

“The Government has an opportunity to do more to strengthen the links between the industrial strategy and Brexit as the exit negotiations now get under way.

“That will be vitally important for keeping the Government’s industrial strategy relevant and hooked-up to the opportunities presented by the evolving Brexit negotiations.”

The report welcomed measures - such as the new T-Level to boost science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills.

But it added: “While increasing the STEM skills of our children and students will help meet the needs of the workplace in future, it is also important to make use of existing STEM skills wherever they can be found, including from overseas.”

The MPs also called for ministers to give a “firm commitment to EU researchers working and studying in the UK that they will continue to have a secure position here post-Brexit”.

As part of the industrial strategy, the Prime Minister announced increases in government investment worth £2bn per year by 2020 for research and development (R&D).

Tory MP Mr Metcalfe said: “The Government has significantly increased science funding, which will put us in a better position post-Brexit to attract skilled researchers and collaborative science projects.”