Should UKRI reforms be managed to protect the UK's international scientific standing?

A clear if not overwhelming win for Yes: 25 of 41 votes backed shielding UKRI's reforms from damaging Britain's scientific standing abroad, a 22-point margin that reads as solid endorsement of the select committee's warning rather than a rout.

The generational picture is where the story sits. Voters in their 55-64 bracket broke 73% for Yes, and those 25-34 leaned Yes too, but the 35-44 cohort inverted completely — four of five said No, the only slice of the electorate to reject the premise outright. That is a curious dip in an otherwise ascending curve of support by age, and with the Cern funding row as the immediate trigger, it hints at a mid-career scepticism about diplomatic framing that older and younger voters didn't share.

Gender told a quieter story: men (67% Yes) and women (60% Yes) landed close together, suggesting this was not a fault line drawn by sex but by career stage, perhaps reflecting where people sit relative to international collaboration and funding pipelines. The result echoes the post-Brexit anxiety over Britain's science relationship with the EU that has run through debates on Horizon association and research funding ever since 2016.

A majority verdict, then, but one with a hole in the middle of the age distribution that the topline hides.