[hogFeast]

The UK has had an issue with early-stage financing for nearly a century (the Macmillan Gap). There are numerous examples of these schemes working in the UK and without: in East Asia, ICFC, Scottish Enterprise, some programs in the EU...there is no real question that this can work (this isn't replacing venture capital btw, this is just...not what this is for, the idea that this wouldn't work though is also totally incorrect, you could have believed it in the 80s, not now).

Equally, the UK has a gap in research funding. The private sector has had, literally, decades to close it. The gap is closed in many other economies by the govt, so this is a reasonable solution. The govt has also done a huge amount to involve the private sector, most of the approach has been about the private sector but this is targeted on an area where it is basically understood there is market failure.

There are always risks around politics, this has happened to an extent with Scottish Enterprise and the new SIB, but this problem isn't going to solve itself, and the path to oversight is relatively straightforward. Saying that has to be corruption just makes no sense when any funding is going to be under the same constraints as most other govt funding (I have no idea why people FOI is public scrutiny, it isn't, FOI would not help you uncover corruption to any degree...that isn't what it is for or how it is used, if you believe that the govt is corrupt, defund all services, that is it...that is the only logical conclusion that can be drawn from that belief, we have FOI and it isn't stopping corruption...so defund it all).