Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Noakes

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th November 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments relate to ARIA’s supplementary funding powers—its ability to borrow and form and participate in partnerships and joint ventures. I will begin by clarifying some of the controls and rules that would govern ARIA exercising these powers and I hope I can find enough reassurance for my noble friend Lady Noakes here. She always starts a debate with a great deal of knowledge, so we always pay attention.

ARIA could only ever make use of a financial mechanism, such as borrowing, for the purpose of exercising its functions—to conduct scientific research and exploit and advance scientific knowledge. Any such activity would also be subject to conditions attached to grant funding provided by the Secretary of State under Clause 4. Any borrowing would also meet the stringent requirements and controls of HMT’s Managing Public Money, which sets conditions to ensure value for money. It would be agreed with Her Majesty’s Treasury in advance. This is part of a suite of non-legislative controls that exist on borrowing.

I also highlight that UKRI has the power to borrow. Mirroring that approach, it is reasonable for ARIA to have this full financial toolkit, as it may be appropriate for it to use in certain future circumstances. For example, one possible scenario in which borrowing may be useful would be if ARIA were to own a controlling stake in a subsidiary, which while partially government owned, aims to act with autonomy. Such an entity may want to borrow if purchasing a large capital asset, in order to resolve cash flow issues if an upfront payment were required.

On ARIA’s power to participate in partnerships and joint ventures, using this power ARIA could take an equity stake in a company forming around a new technology. This could provide a clear benefit in cases where the company is creating assets of strategic importance to the UK. On this point, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that the National Security and Investment Act does indeed apply to all ARIA’s activities.

In another scenario, ARIA’s taking an equity stake in a company may help to crowd-in private sector interest, bringing in greater funding totals, lowering financial exposure and creating a clear pathway for the commercialisation of a technology. It is fundamental to the design of ARIA that it is able to innovate with different methods of funding high-risk research.

As I have made clear, appropriate checks are in place to ensure the Government can agree the details of any future borrowing activity, and the ability to engage in joint ventures will be an integral feature of ARIA’s full financial toolkit. I therefore see no reason the mechanisms available to ARIA should be limited through the Bill and I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, not only for her kind words but for pointing out the reputational risk in addition to the financial risk. As an accountant, I tend to think of financial risk before anything else.

I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that I did not say that I was against joint ventures and partnerships; I said that they were fine and that it was just a question of the degree to which, through those mechanisms, additional liabilities could be taken on that would then end up on the public sector balance sheet. Often joint ventures and partnerships are structured in such a way that, through those vehicles, access to additional borrowing of various kinds, or quasi-borrowing, can then end up coming back. Those are the reasons why I was probing in relation to joint ventures and partnerships. I accept that in many types of arrangement they are a natural way to do business in this area.

I thank my noble friend the Minister for what she said. I think she said that conditions could be attached to grant funding—indeed, there is a sentence on that in the Explanatory Notes for whatever clause relates to grant funding, which I cannot remember at the moment—but no other details were provided on how that works. Is that prospective? Is it done every time that money is paid over? I do not understand how it will work. Once ARIA has got hold of the money and does not need any more grant funding at that point in time, what powers do the Government have over its further borrowing after that?

My noble friend also talked about managing public money. I do not have an encyclopaedic knowledge of that, but from memory I could not see how that related to the issue I was really raising—whether you can borrow money without Treasury consent, which is what is implied by the statute, with it ending up on the public balance sheet.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Perhaps I could come back on that point. Any borrowing will be agreed with HMT in advance and will comply with the terms of managing public money, which requires that public sector organisations may borrow from the private sector only if the transaction delivers better value for money for the Exchequer as a whole.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

I think I understand what my noble friend is saying. It is then about seeing how managing public money bites on ARIA, which has an unconstrained power to borrow. I would like to think about that further, and perhaps my noble friend could explain alongside that how conditions attaching to grant funding work in practice. Who says what to whom, and when? Perhaps then I can understand the mechanics of that. I am sure that, if the Government have thought this through, she will be able to give me a comprehensive answer on how we are not letting ARIA go out into the world and bust the public sector borrowing requirement—even more than it is already bust. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Is that not the point?

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

No.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Noakes

Committee stage
Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I have received a message from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, who wishes to speak.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

Could my noble friend the Minister explain why, in Clause 1, which we know will be applied largely to the medical professions—we are therefore dealing with patient safety—it is adequate for medical professions if

“a specified regulator of the specified regulated profession has made a determination that the overseas qualifications … demonstrate substantially the same knowledge and skills”,

but, somehow, a different standard is implied when the much more mundane activity of auditing is involved? I do not quite understand how the Minister can have one view of the medical professions and another of what happens in the accounting profession. Can she explain that contradiction?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I do not agree that that is a contradiction. This would have the effect of weakening the standards in audit reform, which we are keen to prevent—so I do not agree with the premise of my noble friend’s question.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Noakes

Committee stage
Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Perhaps I can clarify what I said earlier. The Privy Council is the intermediary between independent regulators and the Government; it is essential to maintaining regulators’ independence, such that regulators are able to deliver their duties impartially. There is no relationship between the council and the Bill.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for their contributions, an awful lot of which were on my amendment. Some important issues were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, none of which have been very satisfactorily dealt with by the Minister.

I turn to my amendment. I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for his support and accept his challenge to look at the positioning of my amendment if I decide to take it forward at a later stage. The Minister talked as if compensatory measures were just sitting in every regulator’s toolbox to deal with every situation that could possibly arise, but the truth is that compensatory measures will have been designed for the sort of applicants who have already been coming to the UK for assessment, and they are not going to cause any problem. We do not even need this Bill for those applicants.

We are most likely to encounter problems when other forms of overseas applicant arise, with less traditional professional qualifications and/or experience. It is that which is likely to cause the burdens on the individual regulated professions to cope with things that they are not already coping with. The question posed by my amendment was about how we avoid unreasonable burdens being placed on those regulators and, in particular, on existing members of those professional bodies who fund the regulators.

To be honest, I do not think that the Minister answered that question at all. There is a very real problem there. I can see that we are not going to progress it any further today, but I recommend to my Front Bench that all the issues raised in this debate are looked at again before we get to Report because there are some big unanswered questions arising from this debate.

National Security and Investment Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Noakes

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts for their amendments, which, I believe with good intention, seek to bring further clarity to the status of acquisitions that have been notified to the Secretary of State after the end of the 30 working- day review period. In particular, they seek to provide that acquisitions notified to the Secretary of State are deemed to be cleared following the review period if the Secretary of State does not issue a call-in notice within that period. Both worry, as other noble Lords have, that such a transaction might be stranded in a so-called no man’s land. Amendment 43, from my noble friend Lady Noakes, would apply to both mandatory and voluntary notifications, whereas Amendment 67 from my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts would apply just to voluntary notifications.

I think we are all agreed it is essential that businesses and investors have the clarity and certainty they need from this regime. That is exactly why we have included statutory timescales for cases—those covered by mandatory notification as well as voluntary notification —to be screened by the investment security unit. That is also why the Secretary of State is already required to give a call-in notice or issue a notification of no further action before the end of the review period in response to both voluntary and mandatory notification. He has no other option, and I hope that noble Lords are reassured by this. The Government consider that this is the right approach as it imposes a legal requirement on the Secretary of State to take a positive action to provide certainty one way or another. I do not believe that the default approval system suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, would add to that certainty.

The Government do not think it would be in anyone’s interest to leave the situation ambiguous as to whether an acquisition has been cleared or requires further scrutiny, so I am pleased to be able to reassure my noble friends of the Bill’s functioning on these matters. Many of the businesses the Government have spoken to about the new regime have emphasised they would not wish to proceed with completing an acquisition without unequivocal confidence that they are cleared to do so. As such, it is not clear to me that my noble friends’ amendments would provide greater confidence in the business and investment communities.

For these reasons, I cannot accept the amendment, and I hope that my noble friend Lady Noakes will withdraw it.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on this group of amendments, especially my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbots, who explained the interaction with Clause 2(2) and (4), and his Amendment 67, which I had not appreciated.

Apart from my Front Bench, we are agreed that there is a problem here. My noble friend the Minister explained why a time limit is put in the Bill. We understand that, but the Bill still does not give the certainty required: it does not deal with the position if the Secretary of State does not actually do something. We think the investment community is entitled to that certainty. One possibility is the default approval mechanism that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, referred to. We cannot just take it that because the investment community would like the certainty of a positive approval, we should let this Bill off from the ambiguity over what happens if the Secretary of State does nothing.

I shall read carefully what my noble friend has said in Hansard, but she should be aware that we will need to return to this on Report, because she has not satisfactorily dealt with the problem we have put to her. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.