Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Earl of Selborne and Lord Bhattacharyya

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome government Amendment 183, which addresses the issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has just referred to. As chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, I can confirm that we were indeed concerned at the original proposals, some months back now, that Innovate UK should be put together with Research England into a research council, because it was clearly absolutely essential that the business community should have confidence that it had Innovate UK very much at its disposal as its organisation, and it was not somehow going to be subsumed by the research councils to be the commercial arm of Research Councils UK.

I accept that the concerns expressed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Brown and Lady Young, have validity, but I recognise that the government amendments, particularly paragraphs (a) and (b) in Amendment 183, requiring arrangements to have regard to,

“persons engaged in business activities”,

and,

“the need to promote innovation by persons carrying on business”,

go a very long way from where we were some months ago. I, for one, am content to accept these as meeting most of my original concerns.

[Lord Bhattacharyya (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as declared in the register, and specifically to my chairmanship of WMG at the University of Warwick. I should also mention that I served as a member of Sir Paul Nurse’s review of the UK research and innovation landscape that put all this together.

As peace appears to be breaking out today, I hope that those who laboured for so long in the salt mines of Committee will allow me a few brief words on Amendments 166, 173 and 183. All three will help Innovate UK promote partnerships between business and academia. I can tell your Lordships that that can be a tough job. When I started WMG, we encountered a lot of opposition. Academics are protective of their independence from commerce. However, engineers like making an impact—the bigger, the better—so their curiosity won out in the end.

We know that academic traditions can obstruct business collaboration. For example, grant application writing is a highly prized skill in universities, for a very good reason: critical assessment of research proposals is vital to academic debate. Businesses see this rather differently, especially if they are expected to disclose commercially sensitive knowledge. The Technology Strategy Board was created to address this cultural gap. We debated it here for about four years before it was formed because there were arguments on whether government should intervene and pick winners and many other arguments at that time. But we won and the Technology Strategy Board was created. Of course, this body is now Innovate UK.

Change is constant, so Innovate UK needs leaders who understand the way business and science are changing, as well as the flexibility to create the right partnerships. Amendment 166 would ensure this. Today, every business is multidisciplinary. If you make cars, you need programmers, cryptographers and medical researchers, as well as metallurgists and engineers. Bringing Innovate UK and the research councils under the same roof makes both scientific and commercial sense. Amendments 173 and 183 will ensure both business and scientific knowledge in Innovate UK’s leadership, allowing it to build flexible partnerships with business.

Innovate UK’s role is to act as a catalyst for business collaboration and partnership with academia. However, although flexibility is needed, Innovate UK should not be a bank. It has neither the resources nor the skill set. Instead, it should use its commercial expertise to create incentives to encourage businesses to invest in innovation. Its role is that of a matchmaker, not a moneylender. Its role has to be to improve productivity in this country via scientific research. The amendments in this group will help Innovate UK deliver on that vital task. More generally, the amendments proposed elsewhere today will do the same for UKRI as a whole.