Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Fourth sitting)
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debateThe Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
Chi Onwurah
It is a pleasure, to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins, and to return to our deliberations on the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill.
Both amendments concern the diversity and characteristics of the members of the board of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency. We have heard repeatedly in our deliberations that the board has a significant amount of power and autonomy. In our view, it suffers from lack of oversight, which the amendments are designed to address.
Amendment 7 would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the collective experience of ARIA’s members in the devolved nations when using the power of appointment. The Labour party believes that science can be an engine of progress for society, and that it needs to be by and for everyone, not a private cashpoint for the few. It is essential that everyone in each region of the UK benefits from the creation of ARIA.
The Government have made many levelling-up promises over the past 18 months, just as they have made many promises to support science, but it is reported that they are now on track to miss the R&D target spend of 2.4% of GDP, following the cuts to international science spend, which were debated in the Chamber this morning, and the failure to provide support to medical research charities during the pandemic, forcing them to make sweeping cuts. The Royal Society has said that the Government’s actions, such as the cuts to overseas development aid and science, and the lack of clarity until the last moment about Horizon European science funding are undermining the ambition for the UK to be a science power. We do not want the people of this country to be short-changed by the Bill, when it comes to the levelling-up agenda.
Levelling up is not possible without utilising the skills and experience of all those who have extensive knowledge of scientific research and knowledge in each nation of the United Kingdom. Each of the devolved nations possesses subtle and significant differences in their research landscapes. Our amendment would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the relevant experience of ARIA members when making appointments. We cannot expect ARIA to function effectively for every area of the Union, if its key decision makers and knowledge base are restricted to one narrow region of England. I am sure the Minister agrees.
Labour recognises that, as does UK Research and Innovation. In November 2020, UKRI chairman Sir John Kingman told the Select Committee on Science and Technology:
“We have structures that involve regular consultation with the devolved Administrations and the funding agencies in the devolved Administrations.”
He also told the Committee that this good working relationship was in contradiction to the decision not to have board-level regional representation. He said:
“It was decided at the time that there should not be representatives of the devolved countries on the board. In practice, I would say that there are two members of the current board.”
As we see, UKRI has had to struggle against the lack of representation on its board, so let us make it official and clear from the beginning that ARIA is a national body. Research and development is a vital driver of growth, and we must utilise ARIA in each region and nation to unlock new markets and create jobs. We all want significant improvement in the way in which the benefits of research and development are shared across our nation, and we want those who contribute to it to come from all areas of our nation. I therefore hope the Minister welcomes amendment 7, which would ensure that.
In the evidence sessions, we heard about the importance of public service in attracting good people to the ARIA board. Tabitha Goldstaub, the co-founder of CognitionX and the chair of the AI Council, said:
“The most important thing is that I just kept hearing time and again from the community I spoke to, similarly to what the gentleman from DARPA said, that this is a time to serve. People really want to find a place to do research that saves people’s lives, especially in the AI eco-system.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 52, Q50.]
That desire to serve should be reflected by ensuring that we have people from across our nation serving. That is why we are proposing amendment 7.
Amendment 8 would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the diversity of the board members, including the representation of those with protected characteristics. The points that we are raising here were discussed in a previous debate on the SNP amendment grouped with one of our amendments, so I will not reiterate them, but I expect it to be recognised that science has a diversity problem. We want ARIA not to exacerbate that but to send a clear message against it. We are not looking to set specific quotas for ARIA, but we want to send a clear message to the scientific community and ARIA’s chief executive and chair, whoever they may be, that diversity is essential to successful scientific research. High-risk, high-reward research should not exclude women or representatives from across our nations and regions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)
Amendment 7 concerns the Secretary of State’s appointment of ARIA’s non-executive members. I have spoken to many experts, scientists and researchers about the creation of ARIA over the past six months, and one thing that has been made crystal clear to me is how important finding the right people will be to ARIA’s success. That point was reiterated to this Committee in the evidence session last Wednesday. The importance of finding the right people extends to ARIA’s non-executive members, and Professor Bond offered a valuable perspective on that. He was clear that we need a balance on the board and that it should include radical thinkers and those with different backgrounds in academia and industry. I was struck by his advice that we should have a board that was,, in his words “small” and “slightly unusual”. That is an important point.
We are looking to foster a culture that takes big bets and pursues transformational ideas. We have heard over and again how rare are the people who can do that. The difficulty in finding the mix of people to best support that activity means that we should impose as few constraints as possible and cast the net as widely as we can. That is a strong argument against placing inflexible legislative constraints on the background and experience of the limited number of people we are looking for before we have been begun that process.
We will conduct robust appointment processes that will follow the governance code for public appointments. That code includes principles of fairness, merit, diversity and integrity, which speak to the intention of the amendment.
Amanda Solloway
I can confirm that we are looking for incredible people; I have made that clear.
There is another area where we are in danger of over-engineering ARIA: in governance arrangements. Although I share the belief of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central that a well-balanced board will be important for ARIA, I also believe that there are sufficient incentives and processes to support that without any further legislative constraint. For that reason, I encourage the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for her response. Will she say whether there are any factors that the Secretary of State should consider when making these appointments? For example, schedule 9 to the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 establishes that the Secretary of State must consider the collective experience of the UKRI board when making appointments. Are there no factors that should be considered in the case of ARIA?
Amanda Solloway
As I said, we will have a really robust appointment process. All those things will be taken into account to get that incredibly special person that we need to lead ARIA.
Amendment 8 also concerns the appointment by the Secretary of State of ARIA’s non-executive members. As I have said, I strongly believe that we should impose as few constraints as possible and cast the net as widely as we can in finding ARIA’s members. There is a real risk that placing inflexible legislative constraints on the background and experience of that limited number of people we are looking for will hamper our ability to find the right person.
I do, however, recognise that it is important for ARIA to be fully connected to the outstanding R&D activity in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That will require ARIA to build strong partnerships with institutions and businesses in all four nations. I echo comments from elsewhere about the fundamental importance of relationship building to this activity, but it is not necessarily possible to legislate for that. In the recruitment for the CEO and chair, we will work with the devolved Administrations and stakeholders across the United Kingdom to broaden the search for potential candidates, to encourage geographic diversity from the outset of these discussions. That approach, seeking as far as possible to ensure that the pool of people considered for positions in ARIA is representative of the geographic diversity of the UK, is the right one. ARIA would ultimately not be served by extensive and specific requirements that limit the options. I therefore cannot accept the amendment.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for her response. We are hearing again that ARIA is not to be subject to regulation or oversight, regardless of what form that takes. The flexibility of which the Minister speaks can be seen by others as cronyism or the opportunity to ensure cronyism. The public are sick of mates being appointed without oversight. As I said in my intervention, other boards, such as the UKRI board, are required to consider the experience of the board before making further appointments. Would the Minister consider it acceptable if the entire board came from, say, Cornwall, which is not very representative, or had expertise only in nanotechnology? Cornwall is a very nice place and nanotechnology is an excellent scientific subject, but we heard from witnesses about the importance of having diversity of thought, background and experiences.
Chi Onwurah
The hon. Member makes an interesting point, and it would be excellent if we understood better how the board would collectively exercise responsibility. When we talk about a board exercising collective responsibility, that is absolutely true. That is right, and it is what happens in the private sector. I would be interested to know whether the reporting requirements on private sector boards will apply in this case, but this is public money. It is £800 million of public money—taxpayers’ money. Particularly as we come out of a pandemic and recession, there are many worthy recipients of that money. Is the hon. Member truly saying that it should be spent and directed by people who have no accountability and cannot be removed? The Secretary of State is responsible for their getting the money, but will have no ability to remove them, no matter how unfit they prove themselves to be. On the basis that the amendments offer the Secretary of State further powers to ensure the fitness of the board, I hope that the Minister will accept them.
Amanda Solloway
Amendment 11 would extend the right of the Secretary of State to refuse an executive member appointment to include refusal of consent where a person is
“unable or unfit to carry out the functions of the office.”
It is important that the Secretary of State’s refusal rights are limited to where it is necessary and expedient on national security grounds. The freedom for the chair to hire the executive leadership team is a key feature of ARIA’s independence from Government. The Secretary of State will hire a top-quality non-executive team who have the experience and expertise to oversee ARIA. We should trust their judgment to hire an exemplary set of executive members. I remind the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central that the Secretary of State will appoint the inaugural chief executive officer and will set the tone for the quality of the future executive member hired by the chair, and I hope she will withdraw her amendment on that basis.
I will now move to amendment 12, building on my comments with respect to amendment 11. Once appointed, the terms of employment for executive members’ contracts are determined by the chair, with the consent of the Secretary of State, and only after consulting other non-executive members. They are expected to include standard provisions that would allow the chair to remove an executive member from office if that person is deemed unfit or unable to carry out the functions of the office.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for her earlier comments. Can she clarify what she means when she says, “They are expected to include standard provisions”? Is she saying that they will include the explicit provision for the CEO and the chair to remove members, and under what criteria or circumstances?
Amanda Solloway
To reiterate, and building on my previous comments, contracts are determined by the chair. The contracts that people will have are to be negotiated. Furthermore, in extremis, the Secretary of State may remove the chair and other non-executive members if he or she is particularly concerned by the quality of executive members recruited by the chair. It is for those reasons that the amendment is not necessary, and I hope the hon. Lady will not press it.
Kirsty Blackman
We have asked an awful lot of questions about the appointment of the CEO and chair. Does the Minister understand that her answers have not given us comfort? To say that the roles will be appointed by the chair and the chief executive does not help us a huge amount, because we are not very happy about the process of appointing those people, so for them to be able to appoint other people does not help us in any way, shape or form. Having more safeguards in place would give us comfort that those people will be fit to do the job.
Amanda Solloway
On amendment 13, the framework document to be agreed between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and ARIA, which will complement the Bill, will commit ARIA to the code of conduct for board members of public bodies, which sets out the personal and professional standards expected from board members, and forms part of individual members’ terms and conditions of appointment.
The code of conduct includes, for example, the obligation to declare publicly any private financial or non-financial interests that may, or may be perceived to, conflict with one’s public duty. I believe that that principle-led, non-legislative approach is appropriate. Indeed, it is the standard approach taken by many other arm’s length Government bodies, including UKRI. That approach allows ARIA to manage conflict of interest risks in a flexible way that is best suited to its operations.
I agree wholeheartedly with what Dr Peter Highnam said last week about what we should be looking for in the CEO to build the right ARIA culture:
“Honour in public service is top of the list.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 39, Q32.]
We will instil that sentiment in ARIA from the outset, starting with the recruitment of the chair and the CEO. We also have an additional assurance, in that the Bill includes a reserved power to introduce additional procedure, in law, should that be necessary once ARIA is operational. I believe that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central should take great comfort in the reserved power set out in paragraph 11, and I ask her to withdraw the amendment.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for her response. I take most comfort from her unequivocal statement that honour in public service is a key characteristic that will be looked for in the chief executive officer of ARIA, because I had not heard such a strong statement about the need for honour, or even for public service, in ARIA’s mission. I take more comfort from that than from the confirmation that ARIA board members will be subject to existing rules about conflicts of interest. As we have heard, those rules are not sufficient. For example, in one of the recent scandals it was found that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care owned shares in a company that had received a significant contract from his Department, and there were questions about whether the requirements for declarations of public interest had been met.
We in the Opposition have said a number of times that ARIA is an organisation that will necessarily give rise to important conflicts of interest, so it needs more detailed procedures and processes. I do not want to detain the Committee, however, and I hope that the Minister will look at the issue in the future. I will not push the matter to a vote, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Stephen Flynn
Absolutely; my colleague is spot on. As I said, this is not new, and the example she has provided is another clear indication of this UK Government’s failure to take cognisance of Scotland’s needs. If the Minister wishes to stand up and tell me that Scotland will get its fair share and we will get a Barnett sum spent in Scotland, I will be more than happy to withdraw my amendment; otherwise, I will push it to a vote to ensure that Scotland’s needs are met.
Amanda Solloway
I shall turn first to amendments 14 and 30. The objective behind them is really important; we have spoken extensively about the need for ARIA’s funding to reach beyond the usual suspects. In my view, that applies to where that funding goes as much as to the formality of the research setting. That also reflects the wider Government priority. The R&D places strategy, due to be published this summer, represents a key part of our ambitions for R&D and innovation. It builds on the approach set out in the R&D roadmap.
The purpose of the places strategy is to ensure that R&D benefits the economy and society in the nations, regions and local areas across the United Kingdom, contributing to the Government’s wider levelling-up ambitions. I would like to make one key point about ARIA: as discussed previously, many of the details of ARIA’s operation will be set out more fully in a future framework document. I suggest that that document is the appropriate place for stipulations on the content of ARIA’s annual report.
It is extremely likely that ARIA will be required to provide in that report the type of geographical information sought in the amendments, but it would be beneficial to consider that in the round, alongside the other information that we might require ARIA to include in the report. The most appropriate and helpful information for ARIA, or Government bodies generally, to provide may also change in the future. To include specifics on the face of the Bill is impractical in that respect, as that would be inflexible.
On amendments 16, 17 and 18, ARIA will seek transformative scientific and technological breakthroughs, the outputs of which will have benefits across the United Kingdom. For example, a leap forward to driverless technology could create economic benefit to improve the quality of life across the UK. The attraction of the ARPA model is that its funding is laser-focused on achieving transformative outcomes. While £800 million up to 2024-25 is a meaningful amount of funding, it is a small proportion of the R&D spend. For those reasons, I urge the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central to withdraw her amendment.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for her response. I am pleased to hear that she believes that the information requested in amendment 14 is likely to be included in the reporting requirements of ARIA. On that basis, I am—well, “happy” is not the right word, but I will withdraw amendment 14. I do so also on the basis that she understands its importance.
I feel, however, that in her response to amendments 16, 17 and 18, the Minister has had it both ways: she is saying that the benefits will be felt across the nation but that a requirement to have regard for the benefits across the nations and regions of the UK is too much. Its borders may move, but the geographical reality of our United Kingdom as a country of nations and regions will, I hope, remain, and so a requirement to have regard to the benefit across the nations and regions seems eminently sensible—indeed, it is a minimal requirement. I would like to press amendment 16 to a vote later, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 14.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Chi Onwurah
I rise briefly to speak in support of the amendment. As the Bill stands, ARIA will not be subject to freedom of information requests. If there is no requirement to report on gender balance and the gender pay gap, will we have any understanding of the way in which ARIA is reflecting the gender diversity that we hope to see in the organisation?
Amanda Solloway
Again, I draw hon. Members’ attention to the existing obligations under the public sector equality duty and the Equality Act 2010, to which ARIA will be subject. Under the public sector equality duty, ARIA must, in carrying out all its functions, have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct; advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it; and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.
This is a strong statutory duty that will apply to the recruitment and remuneration of ARIA staff. Should ARIA have 250 employees, there would also be a requirement to publish its gender pay gap information, based on the point at which the data becomes statistically significant and supports a good analysis.
I believe this specific duty is sufficient for ARIA, as indeed it is for all other employers. I do not think that any further provision in the Bill is required and I hope the hon. Member will withdraw the amendment.
Kirsty Blackman
I understand that there are public sector duties in relation to this issue, but ARIA could easily fulfil all those by employing only men—it could just pay them all at whatever level because they would all be men. It would fulfil its duties in that regard because there would be no gender pay gap, but it would be incredibly important for us to know that ARIA had only fulfilled its duties by taking that step, because it is public money that is being spent.
While Scotland is still part of the Union we want to be able to scrutinise how the money is spent. It is important that we have information on whether there is a gender pay gap in ARIA, whether or not it has 250 employees. Again, it is a public sector organisation spending public money but exempt from public procurement regulations and exempt from FOI. That means we are not able to adequately scrutinise the money spent, to ensure that there is diversity and fairness, making sure that women are not only in the lower roles in the organisations, but are starting at or being promoted to higher roles.
What the Minister said was not strong enough for me; I would like for her to have reassured us that the MOU will have that duty written into it. I would like to push the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Amanda Solloway
I welcome the detailed discussion that schedule 1 has attracted. It is to be expected since the schedule sets out ARIA’s governance arrangements, including the make-up of the board and how members and staff are appointed and removed. There are elements of schedule 1 that are standard to most statutory corporations and that mirror the measures on UKRI in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. Those include the paragraphs about ARIA determining its own procedures, the delegation of functions by ARIA, and the preparation and laying before Parliament of audited accounts and annual reports.
I reiterate that ARIA will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny in the same way as other statutory corporations, both by Select Committees, including the Science and Technology Committee—I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and the hon. Member for Brent Central will contribute to that fully—and by the National Audit Office, which is expected to report in detail on ARIA for discussion at the Public Accounts Committee. With reference to this morning’s discussion, it is therefore clearly the case that ARIA will be held to account.
As with the rest of the Bill, in schedule 1 I have been very mindful of the need to strike a balance between providing ARIA with the independence to operate freely and ensuring sufficient Government and parliamentary oversight to protect the use of public funds. I also emphasise that the creation of ARIA has been welcomed by the UK research and innovation community, and I again point to the integrity of that community.
I will explain the rationale behind the key paragraphs that are specific to ARIA and that have not yet been discussed in relation to the amendments proposed to schedule 1, starting with those on membership. Paragraph 2 sets out ARIA’s membership. Its executive members must include the chief executive officer and chief financial officer, and between two and five other members. As we heard from Professor Philip Bond last week, that number reflects the need for ARIA to be a nimble agency, with agile decision-making structures.
ARIA’s non-executive members must include the chair, the Government chief scientific adviser and other members appointed by the Secretary of State. The Government chief scientific adviser will provide technical expertise and a helpful and effective link between ARIA’s activities and those of Government, while limiting any direct interference from Ministers. Non-executive members must comprise the majority of ARIA’s board, which is a matter of good governance.
Paragraph 3 sets out that the first chief executive officer will be appointed by the Secretary of State, ensuring that the initial leadership sets the right foundation for ARIA. Thereafter, executive appointments will be made by the chair, such that ARIA can maintain its independence from Government.
Paragraph 4 sets out that the chief executive officer must be appointed for a fixed term for a maximum of five years, and that a person cannot be appointed as CEO more than twice. That approach will ensure strong leadership, energy and renewal at CEO level, and we have seen that successful approach produce results for DARPA.
As is standard for statutory corporations, paragraph 14 states that ARIA must prepare annual accounts that must be sent to the Secretary of State and the Comptroller and Auditor General. The CAG must examine, certify and report on statements of accounts and send a copy of the report and certified statement to the Secretary of State, who in turn must lay copies before Parliament. As the Committee will be aware, the NAO is also able to conduct value-for-money examinations of ARIA, as per the National Audit Act 1983. The laying of annual accounts and reports before Parliament, combined with the NAO examination represent an opportunity to scrutinise ARIA’s activity and its use of public funds, as is standard for public bodies.
I would like to take this opportunity to address a point raised by the Secretary of State on Second Reading which left some ambiguity. He said that there was a commitment in the Bill to audit ARIA’s procurement activities. Any procurement spending will of course be included in ARIA’s accounts and be subject to audit in the normal way, according to paragraph 14, but we have made a further non-legislative commitment to explore how ARIA’s procurement activities specifically might be audited and reported on as a counterbalance to the exemption that the Bill gives ARIA from obligations on a “contracting authority” under the public contracts regulations. That is not within the Bill, as the Secretary of State’s comment could be taken to imply, but will none the less be an additional commitment to transparency and good governance for ARIA.
Schedule 1 contains provisions where necessary for ARIA to be able to operate as a statutory corporation and it is therefore essential that it remains part of the Bill.
Kirsty Blackman
I just want to add a couple of things. The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock gave us what he thinks the mission for ARIA is. Unfortunately, everybody I have heard speak has a different idea of what the mission for ARIA is.
I thought the statement of policy intent was really useful in telling us the mechanics of how ARIA will work. It is really useful in saying why it is set up in a particular way, but it does not actually tell us what the point of it is. Reading through the Bill, I realised not just that ARIA does not have a mission, but that it does not have a direction. Is ARIA about funding scientific things that are not otherwise funded? Is it about increasing productivity, which is mentioned too? Is it about economic growth? Is it about improving the lives of people who live in the UK or elsewhere? Is it about solving scientific problems? I do not know which of those things it is about.
Even if the Government are unwilling to accept the amendments that we have tabled—they should accept them, because, as I have explained, £200 million a year on solving climate change is not a bad thing, even though I think we should be spending significantly more than that—they should be clear about the point of ARIA. How are we are measuring performance? How do we know whether it has succeeded? Do we know that it has succeeded if it has spent lots of money? Do we know that it has succeeded if it has funded lots of projects? Do we know that it has succeeded if it has made a difference to the level of productivity within science, research and development in the UK, or to productivity in the UK in general? Is it succeeding if it is coming up with technologies that will improve lives?
We do not know what we are measuring ARIA against, so the Government will presumably—as they do with most things, and as most Governments do—say that ARIA is a success, whatever happens. However, I want to know what criteria it is being measured against, so that we can actually judge it. If it is what the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock suggested—if ARIA is to fund scientific projects on the edge, regardless of whether that is of an ellipse or a circle—that is fine, because then we can judge it against that. However, I am not clear that that is the Government’s intention.
Amanda Solloway
We heard from some incredibly experienced witnesses last week, with much discussion focused on the question of prescribing ARIA a research focus. Inevitably, cases were made both for and against such an approach. The case made for the approach often referred to DARPA and DARPA-like agencies, but I remind the Committee that ARIA is not DARPA, ARPA-E or ARPA-H. Although we have learned some incredibly valuable things from those agencies, my primary consideration as we develop ARIA has been that it is the right approach for the UK’s R&D system.
Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser said to us last week—[Interruption.]
Amanda Solloway
Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser said to us last week:
“The needs of the country—the priorities that the Government and Ministers set to solve particular challenges for the nation—fall very much within the UKRI remit”.––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 8, Q4.]
Achieving net zero remains one of this Government’s top priorities—demonstrated by the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan—as it is for parties across the House. However, we should continue to successfully mobilise the structures we have in place to respond to the Government’s priorities, including through the industrial strategy challenge fund’s eight clean growth challenges.
We should use ARIA to do something different. Otherwise, I believe we are at risk of causing confusion and duplication of responsibilities. A key difference will be creating a space in the R&D funding system to give autonomy to visionary people. ARIA’s leaders will invite and scrutinise a range of proposals, each of which is defined by a single cohesive and coherent programme objective. That could be a measure towards achieving net zero, or it could be in any other field. ARIA will select the most talented programme managers with the most exceptional idea, and give them the opportunity to discover the next transformational breakthrough.
As we heard in evidence from Nesta and UKRI last week, ARIA is about conducting research in a different way, through new funding mechanisms and giving autonomy to experts. It is not about research in any one field. I agree that is the right approach. It is for that reason that I cannot accept the amendments. I hope the hon. Members will withdraw their amendments. Finally, if ARIA is successful, who knows: we could be saying, “Beam me up, Scotty!”
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for her comments, particularly for that final reference, the spirit of which I wholeheartedly agree with. However, I do not find her arguments against the amendment compelling, and I would like to push it to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Amanda Solloway
Clause 2 sets out ARIA’s functions. As described in the policy statement published on 19 March, ARIA is expected to facilitate a programme manager model. Programme managers lead research programmes designed around highly ambitious scientific or technological visions. Within their overarching programme, programme managers will distribute funding across a range of projects. Individual projects might vary in size, length and scientific discipline, and may be conducted by different institutions or collaborative groups. The projects are not stand-alone, but rather contribute to the overall aims of the programme.
An important feature of clause 2 is ARIA’s power to commission or support others to conduct research, to develop and exploit scientific knowledge, or to collect, share, publish and advance scientific knowledge. While ARIA is expected to perform some research in-house, a significant proportion of its activities are likely to take place externally. For example, programme managers are expected to commission individual research projects from experts across the public and private sectors.
It is vital that ARIA is able to support others contributing to its ambitious programme goals in a flexible way. Subsections (2) and (4) set out the ways in which in exercising its functions ARIA may support others. They should be read in conjunction with supplementary powers, which are set out in paragraph 17 of schedule 1. For example, ARIA may provide financial support through a range of innovative funding mechanisms. That may include making grants, loans and investments in companies or other entities, or any other payment, such as prizes.
A diversity of funding approaches has been integral to the ARPA model’s success in the US—we heard from Dr Peter Highnam—and it will encourage ARIA to experiment even more. However, we will balance experimentation with the need to safeguard public funding. The provision of financial support by ARIA is subject to any conditions that are attached to grant funding given by the Secretary of State to ARIA in clause 4, to which I am sure we will return shortly.
Finally, science is an international endeavour. Accordingly, ARIA will be able to fund, conduct, commission and support research internationally. Sir Adrian Smith and Sir Jim McDonald were clear about the importance of ARIA participating in international research in last week’s evidence session. Clause 2(5) and (6) state that ARIA’s activities are not restricted to the United Kingdom, but in exercising its functions ARIA must have regard to the desirability of doing so for the benefit of the United Kingdom, through economic growth or a benefit promoting scientific innovation and invention, or improving quality of life.
Clause 2 and the functions really get to the heart of the value that ARIA will add to our UK research and development system, and equip it for the exciting role that it will play. I recommend that it stand part of the Bill.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for her comments. It is clear from this afternoon’s debate that clause 2 does not set out what ARIA will do or achieve, or what its real function will be, but we will not oppose it standing part.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Michael Tomlinson.)