Last week the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy returned £1.6billion of funds to the Treasury, which had previously been allocated for association to the EU's Horizon Europe programme or for domestic alternatives. Professor Mike Edmunds, the President of the Royal Astronomical Society, has now raised this issue in a letter to Rt Hon Michelle Donelan MP, the new Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. His letter sets out our concerns about what this means for the UK's future relationship with Horizon, and for government support for science more generally.