The UK FEL Forum welcomes the announcement by the UK Government on December 17th 2014 of a £30 m funding contribution to the Euro XFEL project in Hamburg, Germany. This is a great boost to UK X-ray science and hopefully will help the UK to secure a level of access needed for the national science requirements to 2020 and beyond. Whilst crucial details of the funding and the nature of the agreements reached with XFEL remain to be clarified we take this as a very positive step that demonstrates the UK Government commitment to new Photon Science.