Life Sciences Industrial Strategy (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the committee on the excellent report they have put together. I feel amply and ably qualified—some might say over- qualified—to take part in this debate, having given up chemistry and biology aged 14 and with a B in GSCE physics, so listen in. It does, however, fit very much with my areas of interest, particularly the interplay between innovation and inclusion and talent and technology. No matter how good the innovation, the IP and the kit, ultimately it is about the people—be they in our marvellous universities and higher education institutions or across our phenomenal NHS. Young people would say to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, that this is a great report, “obvs”.

The areas I will touch upon have been mentioned by many noble Lords, but I hope I will bring something new. They include data, talent and immigration. We are often told that data is the new oil that will fuel the fourth industrial revolution, but that undersells it. It is potentially more impactful than Texas tea, because data does not have any finite limits. When it comes to data, perhaps our deepest well, if you will, is the NHS. But as other noble Lords have alluded to, what is NHS data? Does it exist? If it does, who owns it and what form is it in? What do we want to do with it? Can we do something useful with it? The great potential is that, as is all too often the case, the data is partial, patchy and fragmented. However, with current developments, not least in AI and machine learning, we can turn GIGO on its head and bad data into largely good data, or, if not good data, then useful data.

All the issues have been set out, and are seen not least in examples such as the Royal Free—although I wonder what we may think of that experiment in only a few years. We see the excellent work from the Moorfields collaboration with DeepMind. It is a single provider with a single arrangement with a single corporate body. However, the results should not necessarily be decried because of that. It demonstrates the potential here, not to supplant but to turbocharge our wonderful clinicians. This is augmentation, giving the most phenomenal cognitive prosthetic to anybody in a position to pop it on.

As I said, however, no matter how good the data and the kit, ultimately it is about talent and what we do in this country to develop and embrace it to optimise the benefits for the life sciences and the whole of the fourth industrial revolution. If it was a marathon, we would barely be lacing up our shoes right now. So much needs to be done, whether it is on apprenticeships, degree apprenticeships and FE, or from preschool all the way through to PhD and post-doc. That is demonstrated not least in the current levels we invest in research, as has already been set out.

It is worth offering thanks and respect to my noble friend Lord Baker and the university technical college initiative. He has done more than most, including Secretaries of State in the Department for Education, to make a difference by enabling and empowering talent in the area of science and technology.

I move now to immigration. We have already heard the words “expensive”, “disappointing” and “puts people off”. Surprisingly, that is not a description of the Brexit negotiations but of our current immigration policy. Look at any element of the policy and ask: why would we do that? Why would we have any cap at all on talent? Surely it should be a threshold. If individuals have what we require, wherever they are from, and there are positions available for them to take up, should we not say, “Come on in, you are so very welcome to be part of our next chapter”? Take the student part of the picture. Will my noble friend the Minister tell us the policy reason why international students are included in the net migration figures? Crucially, will he tell us how it benefits Britain, productivity and the mission we are on right now?

Ultimately, life sciences is as good an example as any of the link between talent and technology and between innovation and inclusion. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, undersold the power of life sciences somewhat. He said that, in his industry, each bottle of Cobra has to taste exactly the same as the last. Life sciences is even better than that—and I can say that, on a night out, every bottle of Cobra tastes better than the last.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

That is the power of our life sciences.

To touch on an area that has not been mentioned but which is critical, I turn to the whole question of clusters. We see from the Valley in the US and other examples around the world how critical clusters are to this. Any noble Lords who have not yet had the pleasure should go to Pancras Square: go there, do it. Only a few years ago, you would not go to that area in daylight, never mind after dark. Now, you come out at the back of King’s Cross and there are beautiful buildings. It is a wonderful physical space. But what you experience is nothing short of a collective, collaborative beating brain for Britain.

Then there is the golden triangle. What plans does the department have to do even more to connect that wonderful Oxford/Cambridge/London golden triangle? Of course, we need other clusters, but that is a key one to push. What is happening with transportation? What is happening to the Varsity Line? What is happening to housing and social provision to make the golden triangle as attractive as possible, so that we have that marvellous coming together of industry, academia and medicine—every element that we need—to collaborate? When we have that co-location and cluster, we see pace happening due to proximity.

We have a phenomenal opportunity. This truly could be the new dawn for Britain if we are able to seize all the opportunities in the life sciences space and across all elements of the fourth industrial revolution. I was lucky enough to be on the Artificial Intelligence Committee, which reported earlier this year, and I also did a report largely off my own bat on distributed ledger technologies. If noble Lords are having difficulty sleeping, they may choose to look at that. My purpose in writing that report was again to drive the possibility into the public good. I titled it Distributed Ledger Technologies for Public Good: Leadership, Collaboration and Innovation.

We know all we need to know to make a success of the life sciences and of the fourth industrial revolution, be that AI, machine learning, robotics, distributed ledgers, IOT or nanotechnology. We know everything that we know because we understand psychology, science, philosophy, economics, culture, attitudes and behaviours. What is the department doing across the piece to further turbocharge everything to enable us to make a success of the fourth industrial revolution; to enable the NHS to be the service it always could have been; to drive commercial benefits in the right way, from the NHS, and enable that to go straight back into treatment? An NHS for the future and a nation fuelled by the fourth industrial revolution: that is a better Britain worth fighting for.