Engineering Biology (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, for steering our Select Committee so thoughtfully through this inquiry and for her introduction to this debate. I wonder whether the power outage in Spain and Portugal has extended to the Moses Room, but I can at least just about see what I have written in front me.

I, too, pay tribute to our excellent staff. Our brilliant policy analyst, Thomas Hornigold, who is present here today, seems to relish each new challenge that we give him. He not only becomes an expert on the subject; he is able to simplify it for those of us who are not experts and spot the key elements that we need to consider. Like the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, I, too, thank our impressive witnesses.

This is a case study of one area where the UK has been at the forefront in the past but where we seem to be missing the opportunity to scale up. This inquiry has led to our current, wider inquiry on what the UK must do if it is to scale up from innovation—particularly in our universities—to SMEs and, crucially, to large-scale businesses here in the UK. As the noble Lord, Lord Mair, said, we know that this has long been a concern, but it is always worth looking at how, in current circumstances, this can best be addressed. We have had some successes in the past: we fostered the pharmaceutical industry and we kept the automotive industry in earlier years. We have also faced different economic and global challenges, which means we must always analyse how best to steer through whatever our current challenges or opportunities might be.

The global position we now find ourselves in—suddenly needing to be far more resilient than we were before, as our major ally veers off course—means that this is even more important. It also presents a vital opportunity. Right now, US academia—which has, in the past, been so strong, so well-funded, so closely linked to venture capital and so well able to get ideas scaled up—is under bizarre threat from the new President. It is extraordinary to see Harvard needing to fight back against government overreach, and chilling to see the threats from the US Government that its research funding will be cut if it does not fall into line.

We must be at the forefront of attracting talent here. Can the noble Lord tell me if there is a cogent plan for this? I do not simply want to hear a list of what we already have. We know that this is totally inadequate for this, with our visa rules, health charges, salary requirements and so on. This is a time to welcome young scientists and technicians who see the US Government as a block in their path for at least the next few years—possibly a decade or more. The US in the past has benefited hugely from the inflow of such talent; we need to do the same.

Will we see the Home Office, even under such a sentient Minister as Yvette Cooper, pushing back now, simply to keep immigration numbers down? This would be the act of national self-harm to which the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, referred. I hope that the Minister is engaging persuasively with the Home Office over the upcoming immigration White Paper.

We have here a leading-edge new technology with potentially wide application, one that the Government said that they prioritised, saying that it has huge growth potential for the UK. The noble Baronesses, Lady Willis and Lady Neuberger, the noble Lords, Lord Tarassenko, Lord Freyberg and Lord Lucas, and others all made this very clear. To semi-quote the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, maybe this one is an “obtainium”. The UK has historically had strengths in this area.

However, we also heard that the rest of the world is catching up and indeed overtaking us. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, noted, even the Minister identified to us that the window of opportunity is small and closing. It needs investment. We received a report today from Perspective Economics that underlines what we found. It identifies that the UK is

“at risk of losing out to better-resourced international markets”.

It finds that there is already a trend of innovative British firms moving their manufacturing operations to countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden and Portugal, where scale-up infrastructure and support are, it reports, more accessible.

The response the Government gave to our report has many instances of “wait and see”—in particular, wait for the industrial strategy. It is very welcome that the Government are about to publish an industrial strategy. It is astonishing to me that the previous Government so often prided themselves on not having such a strategy. We had one in the coalition, out of which the catapults came, for example, and investment in the Crick Institute and in areas where the UK had an advantage, even though the then Chancellor defined this as a period of austerity after the 2008 financial crash.

Some subsequent Conservative Business Secretaries, such as Greg Clark, did develop an industrial strategy—but most of his colleagues refused to do this. However, it is not so much about picking winners but trying to work out where the strengths and weaknesses of our economy are today, where we potentially have advantages, and how to move those areas forward, making plans and working out where we should best focus resources. It is also of course about addressing risks and benefits, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett, Lady Neuberger, Lady Young and Lady Freeman, have mentioned.

When will this new industrial strategy be launched? We must hope that it is not all things to everyone. I heard one Minister last week apparently describing certain aspects of it—which I must say made my heart sink—like an election manifesto, with something for everybody. Yet in that same speech, there was absolutely no mention of visas for talented people to come here. Above all, where does the critical scale-up funding come from? Innovate UK can provide some early-stage, small-scale funding, as we saw, but this does not address the need for substantial long-term funding, which has been a feature of the United States, for example.

We noted that the decline in the UK’s capital markets does not help. We concluded that financial reforms, to which noble Lords have referred, including those announced in the Chancellor’s Mansion House speech, which aim to address the limited availability of scale-up funding in the UK, should be rapidly progressed, lest we see even more of an exodus of capital. The noble Lord, Lord Mair, pointed to the limits, though, even here. Clearly, there might be slightly less of that exodus, as Trump takes a scythe to the global economy. As the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, pointed out, this could also be a key opportunity.

I recall that we established the Green Investment Bank in the coalition days, only for it to be sold off later. What kind of strategic thinking was that? Then the wheel is reinvented. We concluded in our report that the National Wealth Fund and the British Business Bank ought to be helpful here, but that their mandates would need to be expanded, they would need specialist investors and they would need to move at speed and to take risks.

There are, of course, immediate political attacks when something seems not to be working. What should we collectively make of this? Just as reform in the health service is so often resisted, risks need to be taken here, and projects given time to develop—and some will not succeed.

We also felt that much more could be done through public procurement, a point clearly made by Angela McLean, which has been referred to this afternoon. We hope the Government will seriously address this.

Regulation was another area that came up in our study. I welcome the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, in terms of speeding up regulation and what he has laid out today. However, I am, in turn, shocked by what my noble friend Lady Bowles said about IP. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, and the Minister, can take that away and act on it.

In conclusion, bioengineering has such potential. We need to move fast and effectively if the UK is to benefit from it, but there are clearly huge challenges. I therefore look forward to the Minister’s response to both our report and this debate.

Science and Technology: Economy

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, for securing this debate and for opening it so comprehensively. I declare my higher education interests. The Minister has rightly been welcomed to his position, and he has a major strategic task. He will need to reach right across government if science and technology are indeed to be at the heart of the Government’s industrial strategy and plan for growth.

I was a Minister in the coalition Government, latterly in DfID. Vince Cable as Business Minister developed an industrial strategy, ably supported by David Willetts—now the noble Lord, Lord Willetts—and others, analysing the UK’s strengths and weaknesses. They established catapults in promising areas and committed funds, for example, to the globally significant Francis Crick Institute, despite the post-2008 financial constraints. Universities were supported. We brought the aid budget up to 0.7% of GNI, with a proportion for research relevant to developing countries.

Chris Whitty, then DfID’s chief scientific officer, took me to Oxford and Cambridge to hear about ODA-supported research. In Cambridge, I learned about work in Vietnam that sought to improve the productivity of small-scale pig farmers and at the same time to reduce the co-living of humans and animals, risky markets and the use of bat droppings for fertiliser. Pandemics that cross species were already worrying scientists, post the SARS and MERS outbreaks, anticipating “disease X”, which was to hit us a few years later with massive effects on our society and economy.

In Oxford, I visited the Jenner Institute and learned about its vaccine work, so relevant then to the west African Ebola outbreak. Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green, in their superbly readable book Vaxxers, noted the contribution that ODA money made to their work which was the groundwork for their Covid vaccine. Then what happened? Aid was cut, DfID was in effect abolished with no consultation, Boris Johnson spoke of cashpoints in the sky. Was that joined-up government? I think not. That was compounded by the huge damage done to our scientific and university sectors by Brexit, the failure to remain in the Horizon scheme and the barriers to continental students and researchers coming to the UK, barriers which persist.

The UK has certainly had an exceptional scientific and technological base, but that cannot simply be assumed to continue despite batterings. The new Government propose an industrial strategy again with science and technology at its heart, and that is very welcome. Science and technology have long underpinned economic development, such as in the Industrial Revolution, the chemical revolution which enabled Germany and the US to power ahead, and the green technology revolution which is right now powering China and needs to power us as well.

The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, effectively laid out the range of our strengths in science and technology, and we will hear more today about that promise but also that universities are under threat and that the UK’s growth depends on investment, skills, the removal of barriers and a willingness to take risks and to allow those risks to be taken plus assistance in scale-up, as the noble Lord, Lord Markham, said. Governments promise to be joined up. The Minister has a special responsibility to seek this in this Government. He will know how damaging it can be when one part of government fails to see the impact of its actions on another. I look forward to his response.

Science and Technology Superpower (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I am also a new member of the committee—I joined after this inquiry. I declare my unpaid interest as a council member of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. This is a vital report, extremely effectively and comprehensively introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown.

In the 2021 integrated review, the Government claimed that so-called “Global Britain” was a science “superpower”. By the time that this apparently once-in-a-generation review had to be refreshed, only two years later, the Government simply said that we had a “strategic advantage” in science and technology, if we specialised—Patrick Vallance had probably corrected the original claim. However, in neither review was the vital Horizon programme even mentioned. Despite scientists urging association, the problem at first was our potentially breaking international law in relation to Northern Ireland. Then it was whether Horizon was value for money; the Prime Minister was apparently sceptical about its value.

The head of one of our higher education institutions told me that before we left Horizon he would get many inquiries about potential collaboration from EU scientists he did not know. Those approaches have completely dried up. Scientists report that they are muddling through, with UKRI temporarily helping to fill gaps, but that is not sustainable long term. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, emphasised, we cannot be a science superpower without that international collaboration. The Royal Society argues that an international approach is vital and that,

“association to Horizon Europe, Euratom, and Copernicus are crucial,”

The Nurse review says that it is “essential” that we rejoin Horizon.

There are many advantages to a multi-country programme over a merely national one. Problems and solutions cross international boundaries—for example, climate change or the pandemic. Funding and access to research infrastructure is increased, with further opportunities to commercialise research. Skills and expertise can be pooled. Can the Minister update us on Horizon and not simply give us warm words, which is what we have been hearing so far?

Sustained UK support for science remains vital. The report is right to emphasise the need for an industrial strategy. Out of an analysis on the coalition of the strengths and weaknesses of the UK economy came the catapults and, for example, significant investment in the Crick Institute as the largest biomedical centre in Europe. This Government seem strangely proud of not having an industrial strategy, and that just seems bizarre.

When ODA was suddenly cut from 0.7% of GNI to 0.5%, and then focused on supporting refugees, no one in Government seemed aware of how much had gone to supporting research, and it was suddenly removed. Thus investment in the Jenner Institute on the Ebola vaccine helped to pave the way for the Covid vaccine. We did well in this sector due to earlier investment. ODA money, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, indeed helped to build our international reputation in science.

The Government now talk of,

“shaping the global science and technology landscape through strategic international engagement, diplomacy and partnerships”.

That is double-speak right now. The Royal Society states that, if the UK wants to be a world leader in this area, it also needs to be world-leading in its approach to researcher mobility. The Nurse review points to immigration policy hindering wider objectives for research. Now we hear that masters students should not bring dependants with them. What does that do for our universities, for families and particularly for women?

Therefore, my questions to the Minister in his new department, welcome as it is, are: will it start advocating effectively in Cabinet for those in science and higher education? Should immigration policy remain in the Home Office? What is taking the Government so long to sign up to Horizon, and how will they put right the damage that has already been done?