Life Sciences Businesses - Question

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords am 2:57 pm ar 26 Chwefror 2024.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Lord Johnson of Lainston Lord Johnson of Lainston Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) 2:57, 26 Chwefror 2024

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for that question, and I congratulate her on the astonishing amount of work that she has done to promote the sector. I am happy to have further discussions on the technical focus of the spending and getting the right level of capital into the scale-ups. As I say, it runs from a range of university spin-outs through to the development and commercialisation of those ideas. We then have to locate funds in the UK, and, at the highest level, we need more liquidity in our stock market for the very large venture opportunities. That circles back to the Mansion House compact and the Edinburgh reforms, which the Chancellor has been absolutely right to focus on. I hope the Government will announce in the near future the result of the LIFTS competition, which is a £250 million fund specifically designed to kick-start investment from defined contribution pension savers into this industry, which will have an important impact.