Kerry McCarthy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2016-04-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the merits of public grant funded research on the environment, food and farming.

George Eustice

Evidence from assessments of the impact of research undertaken by Research Councils and through the 2014 Research Excellence Framework strongly indicates that research (which may be funded from a range of sources) has many benefits in helping to achieve positive outcomes for the environment and for food and farming. Defra has not however, undertaken any systematic evaluation of the merits of public grant funded research in these areas.