HMRC's R&D tax credit data fails to measure success

摘要

At the end of September, HMRC published its annual data showing the number of companies claiming research and development (R&D) tax credits and the cost to the Exchequer of providing this support. In doing so, it underlined the woeful inadequacy of the figures. This annual survey should be giving us valuable insight into the state of business R&D in the UK, but it fails to do so. We are in the middle of the biggest public health and economic crisis of our generation. R&D will quite literally be the solution to the pandemic, supporting everything from helping businesses to reopen safely to the vaccine itself. Protecting private sector investment in R&D will also be critical to economic recovery when it comes. .