EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Broers Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB) [V]]

It is a privilege to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wharton of Yarm, on his appropriate and concise maiden speech.

If the UK is to remain a major industrial nation, we will have to sustain our competitiveness in the advancement of some, if not all, of the hard technologies that underpin medicine, agriculture, transport, information technology, communications, control systems and power generation. Progress in hard technologies is driven by international competition; it is rare that single nations or companies possess everything that is necessary.

Modern communications allow collaboration across international borders, and this capability must be harnessed to be competitive. Success almost always relies on the exchange of people. The easiest way to transfer new ideas is through exchange between the people who come up with the ideas and those who use them. The closer the collaboration, the better. Our nearest neighbours are in Europe, and we have enjoyed working with them to sustain, for example, our aerospace, automobile and IT and communications industries.

Erasmus has been a major force for good in these exchanges of researchers; it is two-way and includes not only students but university staff and those undertaking vocational and continuing education. Its loss is potentially very dangerous, as mentioned by many others in this debate, and the Turing scheme as presently proposed will not be an adequate replacement. If our advancement of these crucial technologies is to succeed, the Turing scheme will have to be either expanded to include two-way exchange and this broader group of people or complemented by other schemes that do this. It should be noted that students coming to the UK will produce income that will offset the cost of sending our students abroad.

Beyond Brexit (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Broers Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I compliment the European Union Committee and my noble friend Lord Boswell on this report. I agree with all that it says, but I suggest that it should have said more, especially about the continued participation of the UK in the new European education, science and innovation programmes. These programmes include Erasmus, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and Horizon Europe and those of the European Research Council and the European Research Infrastructure Consortium. In this report the words “Erasmus” and “Horizon” appear only in footnotes and in a diagram, although reference is made to the European Union Committee’s comprehensive report published in February 2019 on Erasmus and Horizon. Overall, however, this report does not give them the prominence they deserve.

Our future competitiveness as a modern nation will depend to a huge extent on the skills of our citizens in all spheres of endeavour, and our economic survival will rely on the application of modern advances in engineering and science. It seems we have successfully negotiated our continuance in Horizon 2020 through to its conclusion in 2021, but the situation with Horizon Europe remains unclear. That programme has a budget of €100 billion and even more important than the money will be our involvement in the partnerships that it would provide. Modern advances in science, and especially in innovation, can be made only through collaboration. It is an inherently global activity and success is strongly influenced by proximity, so a large fraction of our collaborations have been with our European neighbours. Our engineers and scientists know each other. There is a lot of mutual admiration and successful collaboration. Let us make sure that that continues. Many pages of the report are devoted to the specialist committees and their importance, but I could not find any committee devoted specifically to our collaboration on education, science and engineering whose members are engineers and scientists. Will the Minister assure us that the Government are committed to doing all they can to preserve as many of our educational and scientific collaborations with Europe as possible?

Domestic Infrastructure: Chinese Ownership

Lord Broers Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

In the case of Huawei, we have set up unparalleled arrangements in this country. As the noble Lord will know, we have set up at Banbury a centre to evaluate Huawei’s strategy and the equipment it is developing. That board is overseen by the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, so we have a deep insight into what Huawei is up to and can take mitigating action in certain circumstances. As I have said, in certain circumstances we can ban it from taking part. But we want to make use of the latest technology and, as my noble friend said, Huawei is a world beater and it would not be in the national interest to ban it totally. We are looking at whether we have the legal structure right for the future in protecting national security, but I think we have the balance about right.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, a word of caution on nuclear power—the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, mentioned it. Does the Minister agree with me that we need to collaborate with the Chinese in building our nuclear plants? The Chinese are now world leaders. They have been the first to build an EPR, such as we are building at Hinkley Point, and they have also been the first to build the American AP1000. Specifically, collaboration with China General Nuclear, CGN, will be key to our success at Hinkley Point, Sizewell and Bradwell and in qualifying CGN’s own HPR1000, especially in the light of the withdrawal of the Japanese. I declare my interest as a member of the parliamentary group led by Ian Liddell-Grainger MP that visited the EPR reactor in Taishan in November. I would like to say—

[Noble Lords]

Question!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Broers]

CGN has a remarkable safety record in nuclear power. We should run our plants ourselves but let it help us build them.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, we welcome Chinese inward investment into the civil nuclear projects in the UK, as the noble Lord mentions, subject to our robust legal, regulatory and national security requirements. We have the most robust and stringent requirements. My advice is that the project at Hinkley so far meets all the necessary requirements that the noble Lord referred to.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

I will speak on behalf not only of the universities but of our industry. The amendment is extremely important to capture research students where we need them. I cite the nuclear industry: Dame Sue Ion, who chaired the Nuclear Innovation and Research Advisory Board, recently pointed out that over 20% of PhD students working in that industry, which is moving forward very fast, were from overseas. There is a much higher percentage of the post-doctoral research fellows, who are PhD students in the next stage of life. That is not covered by the amendment but we must address it. The Americans do this all the time. You get very bright overseas students to do PhDs, then you make it easy for them to stay on. They are the life-blood of high-technology industry. If we do not resolve this problem—and the best starting point is this amendment—our industry is going to be in trouble, not just our university research.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

I strongly support Amendment 150, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others. The noble Lord rightly posed the question, “Why should we bother?”. As a former associate vice-president of the University of Manchester and now an honorary special adviser to that university, I am well aware of the huge benefit of international students to it and to the city of Manchester and of why they should not be treated as long-term economic migrants to the UK. As we have heard, there are currently 437,000 international students studying in the United Kingdom, including 125,000 from the EU. There are currently nearly 11,000 international students studying at the University of Manchester and a further 2,500 EU students. As we have heard, the Government’s international education strategy, published in 2013, estimated that international students brought £13.6 billion into the economy in 2011. For Manchester, direct income from international students—for fees alone—will be £200 million in 2016-17. Furthermore, Universities UK estimates that international students lead to the creation of over 170,000 jobs across the United Kingdom. Independent analysis undertaken by Viewforth Consulting found that the University of Manchester’s international students created over 1,100 jobs in the local Manchester economy.

International students allow UK students to appreciate diversity and develop a global perspective. They also act as great ambassadors for Manchester and the United Kingdom when they return to their home countries. Manchester has contact with over 400,000 alumni, of whom 25% are based outside the UK, including many in leading positions in business, government and universities. I have been proud to visit Manchester alumni in Hong Kong, China, South Korea and many other parts of the world. A recent poll before the last general election indicated that 91% of the British public think that international students should be able to stay and work for a period after their graduation. We should do nothing to further undermine the attractiveness of British universities for such international students. As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others, the arguments are unanswerable. Please will the Government at last recognise the value of such students to Britain and accept Amendment 150?

Government Procurement Policy

Lord Broers Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, on obtaining this debate. It is an extraordinarily important topic today and I agree with all his specific suggestions. However, I wish to speak on the broader issue, as discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, of how we can, as a nation, ensure that we are in a better position to provide and maintain more of our own infrastructure. The noble Lord, Lord Sugar, mentioned Siemens supplying our rail rolling stock rather than Bombardier, which, while not a British company, at least manufactures in the UK. However, the problem is of course much wider than just railways. We are having to turn to overseas companies to supply most of our renewable energy sources and our new nuclear power stations as well, and, if we go ahead with it, our high-speed rail network too. This will further increase our current account deficit in manufactured goods and do nothing to alleviate our serious unemployment problem.

Many of our industrial companies cannot compete with overseas suppliers, despite the significant advantages of being local suppliers, because they have quite simply not kept up in research and development. At the same time as we have held, even advanced, our position in science, we have steadily slipped down the R&D tables in investment and achievement to seventh place. The noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, has already mentioned this. There is nothing inherently lacking; several of our high-technology companies are thriving and well ahead of their competitors, but there are not enough of them and huge gaps are left in our ability to manufacture what we need, especially to meet our energy and transport needs.

To correct this failing, we must do more to ensure that our capabilities better match our needs, and government procurement can play an important role in doing this. Intelligent procurement combined with joined-up planning, as practised by several of our European and American competitors, would put us in a much stronger position. Joined-up planning is a long-term issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has just said. Government should not only be thinking 10 and 20 years ahead in planning what infrastructure will be needed but making sure that we will have the industrial capacity to manufacture a significant fraction of it ourselves. I am not trying to suggest that we should do everything—we are a relatively small nation and that would not be sensible—but if we cannot supply a significant fraction of what we need, we are going to further aggravate our financial and employment problems.

The Chinese and Indian economies are growing and their trade balances are healthy because they have geared up to build their own power stations and transport systems. They do not have to get others to do everything for them. This also strengthens their ability to export, and thereby balance their need to import materials and essential commodities. In contrast, our own energy and transport policies seem to be developed without any effort to match them with our industrial capabilities. We do not seem adequately to involve industry in the planning process. By that, I do not mean having a few very senior executives acting as non-executive advisers—they are no doubt valuable, but at another level. What is needed is the involvement of the engineers who set and understand in detail the research and development operations of their companies and that can advise on what is and is not feasible. These experts also need to learn what the Government are planning so that they can comment on whether their companies are likely be in a position to supply it.

There are two ways in which we can do this. First, the TSB, which the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Kestenbaum, mentioned, has responsibility for using taxpayers’ money to provide leadership in strategic research and development. It should be able to ensure that appropriate manufacturing capabilities will be available in the future. Its emphasis tends to be on good research to support the long-term development of emerging technologies rather than ensuring state-of-the-art capabilities in existing technologies, although it has the ability to do this as well. In fact, the TSB’s knowledge transfer networks provide an excellent mechanism for getting industrialists together with the Government to provide joined-up planning. I declare my interest here as unpaid chairman of the TSB’s Transport KTN. This evening, I am meeting senior members of the rail, automotive and marine industries to explore the possibilities of a technology innovation centre for transport.

Another mechanism that we have to ensure timely industrial planning is our network of chief scientific advisers. At present, they are seen mainly advising on science rather than engineering, but there is no reason why they should not play a larger role in joining industry with government. This issue was addressed by one of our recommendations in the Science and Technology Select Committee’s recent report, Public Procurement as a Tool to Stimulate Innovation, which says:

“We recommend that CSAs should have responsibility for encouraging engagement with industry (including both suppliers and potential suppliers) and academic communities with a view to promoting the procurement of innovative solutions … This role should be incorporated into departmental objectives”.

I see CSAs playing a more active role in ensuring that government policy in energy and transport is linked with future industrial capabilities.

If we go on planning our future infrastructure without regard to whether we can produce it ourselves, we are throwing away perhaps our best opportunity to solve our financial and employment problems. I ask the Minister to reassure us that the Government will use all the mechanisms available to them to restore our ability to have British workers build our future infrastructure.