Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 14th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, we remain disappointed that the Government failed to accept the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendation to omit Clause 8, which provides a very broad power to be carried out with minimal parliamentary scrutiny. I am not surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has retabled the amendment, although I suspect that the Government will not change their approach this evening.

I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Davies of Brixton and Lord Stansgate for tabling their Amendments 10 and 11, which would ensure that there is better understanding of ARIA’s work as it progresses toward the magic 10-year mark. We agree with the thrust of both those amendments. On Amendment 10, it is important that lessons can be learned and any required changes enacted to ensure that ARIA’s funds are continually put to the best possible use. Amendment 11 would give Parliament a loose oversight role, which feels incredibly important, given its almost complete lack of involvement once the body has been established. I noted that when he was in his place earlier, the Minister described the arrangements that the Government are proposing as “robust”. I gently say that they are anything but.

We hope that the Government see some merit in these proposals. It is not clear that the provision needs to be statutory—I accept that—but can the Minister give a clear commitment about interim or periodic reviews beyond the publication of annual reports, which are the absolute minimum that we should expect, and opportunities for Members of this House and the other place to discuss and debate them?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I want to start by addressing the comments on the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report on this Bill. As noble Lords will know, the Government made significant changes to the Bill in Committee to respond to the DPRRC’s recommendations. We have taken its report extremely seriously and shown that we are willing to engage with, and act on, its recommendations.

Regarding the committee’s other recent report, on the delegation of power more generally, we would submit that the changes we have made to this Bill are a clear demonstration of the relationship between the legislature and the Executive operating as it should and of legislative proposals submitted and amended in response to scrutiny. Certainly, what we are proposing for ARIA is a world away from some legislation made in the context of Brexit or the pandemic, which is the focus of the committee’s concern in its report.

We have carefully considered the committee’s recommendation with regard to Clause 8. In our view, the power to dissolve ARIA through regulations made under this clause, which would be omitted by Amendment 9 in the name of noble Lord, Lord Fox, remains an important part of the Bill. We have decided not to accept the recommendation in this instance because there is both a strong policy rationale and a clear precedent for this delegation of power.

As was said in Committee, the power can be exercised only 10 years after the Bill receives Royal Assent, and it is therefore an indication of the Government’s long-term commitment to ARIA. I think there is broad agreement that this patience will be essential if ARIA is to pursue successfully the most ambitious research and innovation. It goes to the heart of what ARIA is about. It must have the opportunity to prove itself before it is judged, and this has been recognised by many R&D stakeholders.

In Committee, my noble friend Lord Callanan referred to the precedent for this delegation of power. Under powers contained in the Public Bodies Act, several bodies established in primary legislation have been dissolved by statutory instrument. Again, if noble Lords will permit me, I will refer to the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, which was created by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 and was abolished using powers from the Public Bodies Act in 2013. The Public Bodies Act gave Ministers broad delegated powers not just to abolish bodies but also to merge them and change their governance structure and functions. That goes far beyond the power in Clause 8. As we do not know the context in 10 or more years’ time, when this power might be exercised, it is right that it is applicable in a range of scenarios.

On consultation, there is a broad requirement for the Secretary of State to consult those they think appropriate. I suggest that Parliament and Select Committees will be included among these stakeholders, and that the Secretary of State will think it appropriate and necessary to consult them. We do not believe that there is no opportunity for parliamentarians to be involved in those discussions. I hope I have managed to convince noble Lords of the seriousness with which we take the DPPRC’s recommendations, the careful consideration we have given to its view of Clause 8 and the very good reasons I think there are for departing from its recommendation in this instance, and retaining it. I hope noble Lords are convinced and that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, feels able to withdraw his amendment.

The power in Clause 8 shares with Amendments 10 and 11 a recognition of the experimental nature of ARIA, which has been highlighted by many in the R&D community. These amendments speak to our desire to extract the greatest possible benefit from our £800 million investment in this new agency. We hope those will be both direct benefits from the research and innovation it funds and indirect benefits in terms of learning that can be applied to R&D funding in the UK more generally. I hope that learning will be a dynamic process, and while I sympathise completely with the intent behind these amendments, I hope I can reassure noble Lords that there are already more than adequate arrangements in place for public bodies such as ARIA to be formally reviewed. I do not think anything further is necessary.

Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, introduces a review of various aspects of ARIA’s operations, including whether it has fulfilled its functions and achieved value for money. Both of these are core considerations of the National Audit Office. The regularity of ARIA’s spending—whether it is in line with its functions—will be part of the annual assessment and certification of ARIA’s accounts, and the NAO will be able to conduct value-for-money examinations of ARIA as per the National Audit Act in the usual way. I hope the noble Viscount will agree that a further review mechanism on these points is not needed.

I turn to the second two elements of this amendment, which deal with the geographical spread of grants and ARIA’s transparency arrangements. I stand by my noble friend’s earlier commitment that ARIA will proactively publish information on its regional funding annually and, in the interests of transparency, make information publicly available on all delivery partners, supported through the full range of its funding mechanisms. I hope this reassures the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, that there are already arrangements in place to cover all these important points he has raised and that he does not feel it necessary to press his amendment further.

Amendment 10 is very specific to ARIA. As I have said before, I do not think a one-off formal report is the right way to envisage these lessons being learned. It should be a dynamic process: some important points may become apparent relatively quickly while some advantages or disadvantages of the ARIA model may not emerge even within the six years outlined in this amendment. We have discussed the need for patience, and I believe that means we must resist, as far as possible, the temptation to poke and prod and investigate this new organisation. Clearly, there is a balance to strike here, but it is my contention that the default position must be to let it be and gather these learnings in the most light-touch way we can.

In his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, has allowed an entire year for the review to be conducted and published. That indicates a significant intervention in ARIA’s activities and a degree of close scrutiny that I do not think is a natural companion to risk-taking and high ambition. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, also expressed concern about 10 years being a long time without scrutiny. There are a number of avenues for scrutiny—as a public body, ARIA will be subject to tailored reviews of its governance and effectiveness. It will need to bid for new funding in coming years and evidence its effectiveness and impact at that point. I hope the noble Lord will accept my assurances that it is absolutely our intention to learn from ARIA to the benefit of the wider R&D system, and that he will not press his amendment, on the grounds that such a structured and formalised obligation may not be the most appropriate way to do so.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, which, I am afraid, amounted to a very polite raspberry to the DPRRC. She used very polite phrases such as “carefully considered”, but the fact is that the Government are intent on ignoring one of the major recommendations of the committee—namely, that the powers in Clause 8 are inappropriate.

The Minister talked about a clear precedent, and I referred to the precedent that the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, cited in Committee. But when the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council was abolished, it was done by the super-affirmative procedure, and the Government have not even offered to use that in this case. This is rather different to that situation; this is effectively abolishing the whole substance of what the Bill is about: ARIA itself. I do not think there could be anything more radical than a Henry VIII power that does that.

I am afraid that I do not really regard what the Minister said as a full response to the DPRRC, and I am certainly not persuaded by the Government’s position. But this is part of a longer, long-running argument between the Executive and Parliament. Clearly, the DPRRC, which I support very strongly, wants much greater parliamentary involvement and oversight in decisions such as this. It believes that, where possible, primary legislation is the appropriate instrument, not secondary legislation. Does the Minister want me to give way?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I could come back on the specific point he made about the Public Bodies Act. This Act was developed in the context of widespread public body reform. It was therefore appropriate that the super-affirmative procedure was applied. In the context of much broader powers, it was right that their use was subject to this higher level of parliamentary scrutiny. In contrast, the power in Clause 8 is much more narrowly defined, such that ARIA can only be dissolved—it cannot be merged, or have its functions or governance changed. That is a significant difference between the two.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, that is a significant difference between us. Merging is one thing, but total abolition is another. Perhaps the Minister could have offered the super-affirmative procedure in those circumstances. As I say, this is part of a long-running argument. The Executive are determined to hang on to their Henry VIII powers. I hope that Parliament will continue to press for fewer Henry VIII powers, much greater use of primary legislation, where appropriate, less use of skeleton Bills, and so on. This is a very broad landscape that we are debating. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I have signed and I support Amendments 12, 13 and 14. As someone immersed in issues relating to AI, machine learning and the application of algorithms to decision-making over the years, I, too, support Protect Pure Maths in its campaign to protect pure maths and advance the mathematical sciences in the UK—and these amendments, tabled by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, reflect that.

The campaign points out that pure maths has been a great British success story, with Alan Turing, Andrew Wiles and Roger Penrose, the Nobel Prize winner—and, of course, more recently Hannah Fry has popularised mathematics. Stephen Hawking was a great exemplar, too. However, despite its value to society, maths does not always receive the funding and support that it warrants. Giving new funding to AI, for instance, risks overlooking the fundamental importance of maths to technology.

As Protect Pure Maths says, the 2004 BEIS guidelines on research and development, updated in 2010, currently limit the definition of science and research and development for tax purposes to the systematic study of the nature and behaviour of the physical and material universe. We should ensure that the ARIA Bill does not make the same mistake, and that the focus and capacity of the Bill’s provisions also explicitly include the mathematical sciences, including pure maths. Maths needs to be explicitly included as a part of scientific knowledge and research, and I very much hope that the Government accept these amendments.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, for tabling Amendments 12 to 14, and those who contributed to the debate. We recognise the fundamental importance of pure and applied maths to other sciences, and as the focus of scientific inquiry in its own right. It is right that we take the opportunity to note that importance here.

The noble and gallant Lord gave a number of potent examples of the importance of mathematical contributions to scientific innovation. Much like, we hope, the projects and advances that will be supported by ARIA, breakthroughs in mathematics can lead to unexpected leaps of progress in separate fields or find application in solving intractable and seemingly unrelated problems in other areas of science. As we just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who rightly reminded us, the UK has been home to many outstanding mathematicians of global significance, from Isaac Newton to Andrew Wiles.

However, I emphasise to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, that the drafting of the clause that they have sought to amend follows existing powers in the Science and Technology Act 1965, and the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. It is important that it does so. Research into mathematics, including pure mathematics, has been funded in the UK using those powers for over five decades. Maths research is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council—one of the research councils that make up UKRI. The EPSRC spends more than £200 million on this theme, which includes research into maths in areas from number theory to topology and artificial intelligence. It is clear that maths is included in the definition of sciences as currently included in the Bill.

The 2004 guidance referenced by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, predates the Higher Education and Research Act, which makes it clear that maths is included in the definition of science as drafted in the Bill. There is no need to particularise the interpretation through these amendments. Indeed, it would clearly be undesirable to seek to list exhaustively every possible field of scientific inquiry within the Bill. Departing from the existing embedded way these powers to fund research, including in mathematics, are drawn would be unhelpful.

ARIA’s programme managers will set ambitious programme-level goals. Although we do not often expect programme-level goals to lie within pure mathematics, it is right to highlight that ARIA might need to draw on pure and applied maths to achieve those goals, given their importance within the new fields noble Lords highlighted. It is right that ARIA may fund research in those areas.

We are confident that any activities of this nature that ARIA will seek to pursue are covered by its functions, and that the results of scientific research will encompass the results of mathematical inquiry that might be needed by ARIA. ARIA’s supplementary powers provide further reassurance. When exercising its functions, such as funding a programme with a specific scientific objective, ARIA’s supplementary powers allow it to do whatever is necessary in support of that. It is therefore the case that any mathematical endeavours that ARIA needed to draw on for a programme—for example, in support of a particular objective for machine learning—could be funded under its supplementary powers as well.

On that basis, although the noble and gallant Lord and the noble Viscount have raised important points, I hope they will be satisfied that there is no need for their amendments and feel able not to press them.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and all those who spoke to this. Quite clearly, there is a difference of view between the Government and those of us who have spoken to them about how we should treat mathematical sciences in the present age. It is a pity that it has not been possible for the Government to agree to the amendment, but, in view of the late hour, I shall withdraw it.