Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, a number of points have been raised in this group of amendments. I hope when he replies my noble friend the Minister will not lose sight of the extremely pertinent questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, about the ability of research councils to form partnerships and to do so without having to seek permission.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very good, sharp little debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response. Given his previous background in your Lordships’ House as a spokesman on behalf of the Department of Health, presumably he will speak with a bit more direct experience than would otherwise be expected. It must be very clear that, whereas in the first two groups of amendments we were talking about the mechanics and he was able to guide us away from any suggestion that the Bill might be amended, he is now firmly up against the fact that the culture is sorted here, but the mechanics are not. We will have to look very hard at the points made, with some force, by all those who have spoken.

We have signed up to most of the amendments in this grouping and support the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Willis and Lord Sharkey. They made it absolutely clear that what we are talking about is completely different from desirable changes. It is about ensuring that the huge success we have seen in the development of research—particularly medical research, but it applies to other research councils—is wired into the structure. We must have an assurance from the Minister that that will be the case.

What was not said, but is available for those who have read the briefings, is that the current situation is also of concern to charities. They feel that they have been slightly taken for granted. If there had not been the change proposed here for UKRI they would probably have come forward with suggestions that they should have been brought in at this stage, if they had not been before, to the Medical Research Council and others. That is not a new initiative; it has been a bit of sand in the oyster for some time. It would be appropriate to do as they suggest. We have already been reminded that the Nurse review made it clear that charities felt that, given,

“the overlap in their interests with the Research Councils, it is important that strong contacts are developed and maintained between the Councils and the charitable sector”.

Indeed, Sir Paul, in the final section of his report, says:

“To facilitate such interactions and to ensure that proper knowledge and understanding of the entire UK research endeavour is maintained, I recommend particular care is paid to ensuring there are strong interactions between the charitable research sector and the Research Councils”.


That is a coded phrase, but it is fairly clear that his intention would be that charities, which make so much of a difference to what we are doing and bringing in patients—they have been doing this for so long and have so much experience to offer—should be hard-wired into what we are about.

Our Amendment 486A is subsidiary in a sense because the primary purpose of these amendments is to make sure that charities are involved going forward. One amendment, which we support, suggests that the mechanics of this should be done by continuing the arrangement that those charities which currently fund jointly with research councils should be able to do so and there should be nothing in the Bill to prevent that. We suggest that, in looking at this, the Government might also look at the question of making sure that the UKRI has that capacity as well and there is no problem in any legal framework about it. We support these amendments.