EU uncertainty is a threat to UK science, says Miliband

Doubts about the UK’s continued membership of the European Union are confounding the positive effect that science and engineering could have on living standards, the Labour leader Ed Miliband has said.

In a letter to the Campaign for Science and Engineering, Miliband said that low levels of investment and productivity in the area, relative to those of other advanced economies, were exacerbated by the Conservative party’s commitment to a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU within two years of the general election.

Miliband also said there was a lack of long-term planning for investment in research and infrastructure, and that growth in many areas was threatened by “a looming shortfall of more than 400,000 engineers in the next decade”.