King’s Speech (4th Day)

Lord Mair Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mair (CB)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lords, Lord Livermore and Lord Vallance of Balham, on their appointments as Ministers. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, on his excellent and important maiden speech—and the noble Lord, Lord Petitgas, on his maiden speech. The noble Lord, Lord Vallance, is especially welcome as Minister for Science. His very considerable expertise in science and technology is warmly welcomed in this House. The vital importance of science and technology was emphasised in His Majesty’s gracious Speech in relation to the Government’s plans for sustainable economic growth.

The absence of an industrial strategy in recent years has undoubtedly been problematic for this country. The new industrial strategy to be introduced by the Government is therefore very welcome, as is the proposed industrial strategy council, to be established on a statutory footing. It is to be hoped that this will result in a stable pipeline to enable industry and the UK’s world-renowned science and engineering research base to deliver innovations and provide confidence for businesses to thrive.

It is also to be hoped that the proposed new industrial strategy has real meaning. Much has been said about industrial strategies over many decades. In 2018, during a debate in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, noted that the then formal industrial strategy set out in 2017 had been at least the eighth government industrial strategy to be published since the Second World War. A few years later, that industrial strategy too was abandoned, and from 2021 the previous Government instead pursued various other plans for growth. The establishment by this new Government of an industrial strategy council on a statutory footing should ensure continuity of an industrial strategy. It is continuity above all that is needed.

This country has an outstanding science and technology research base. To harness it most effectively the UK requires a robust and consistent strategy for industry and for universities, scrapping short-term funding and aiming for long-term stability. This is what is crucially needed to ensure economic growth.

My final point relates to employment and skills. There is a huge need for engineering skills to deliver the green and digital economies, adapting to the new, fast-moving technologies. These include the all-important AI, as so well articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, in his excellent maiden speech. At the heart of the Government’s agenda is making Britain a clean energy superpower, with zero-carbon electricity by 2030. The Government’s clean power mission plans major investments in wind and solar power, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and marine energy, decarbonising the electricity system and long-term energy storage. Nuclear power will also be essential. All these important and welcome technologies will be vital for economic growth. All the associated innovations and required new infrastructure—the driving forces for the industrial strategy—will require many more engineers and technicians to be employed.

Employers are constantly referring to the acute national shortage of engineering skills; this is limiting the success of an industrial strategy or of an infrastructure strategy. There is a substantial untapped resource of future engineers and engineering apprentices in our schools. We need to address this urgently and plug the skills gap. Only then can the much-needed economic growth be realised.

Further education colleges have been neglected for far too long. I welcome the Government’s plan to transform FE colleges into specialist technical excellence colleges, as well as reforming the rather unsatisfactory apprenticeship levy, ideally as soon as possible. In addition to supporting our world-class universities, an enhanced future for apprentices, including degree apprenticeships, will be especially important if this country is to become truly a technological superpower.

Overall, I am optimistic for the future. I wish the new Government every success in their plans to enhance the UK’s position as a leading industrial nation, these plans being vitally underpinned by science and engineering.

Science and Technology Superpower (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Mair Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Mair (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in the register and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, and her committee on producing this important and comprehensive report. It rightly emphasises the need for government to have a clear and consistent science and technology policy, with a laser focus on implementation to prevent “science and tech superpower” simply being an empty slogan.

I will make just two points. The first relates to the vital role of industry engagement, and the second concerns the crucial importance of association with Horizon Europe. On the role of industry, the Government’s R&D spend of 2.4% of GDP requires significant private sector investment, which is expected to be around twice the public sector spending. The apparent increase to 2.4% is, of course, welcome, but it represents a significant increase in industry funding. As the Select Committee report notes,

“industry does not yet feel engaged with the strategy process”

of the Government.

A vital ingredient of the pathway to the UK becoming a science and tech superpower will be effective translation of research for application and exploitation by industry. The recent Nurse review, published in March, addressed the importance of translational research organisations, rightly emphasising the need to bridge

“the gap between discovery research and the translation of that research into real-world uses”.

The review highlights the important role of catapults in achieving this. They are independent, not-for-profit technology and innovation centres first established by the Government in 2011. They are intended to foster collaboration between research organisations in the public and private sectors, and their main purpose is to assist industry with turning innovative research ideas into commercial products via connections and networks. The Royal Academy of Engineering emphasises the importance of connections and networks, as exemplified by catapults, in its recent position paper, Strategic Advantage through Science and Technology: the Engineering View, which was published in April.

This House’s Science and Technology Select Committee considered catapults in detail in its report, Catapults: Bridging the Gap Between Research and Industry, published in February 2021. I was privileged to have been a member of that committee under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. We made a number of recommendations regarding catapults, and our report was debated in the House last year.

In particular, we highlighted the crucial question of the future role and long-term continuity of the catapults. We recommended that the Government prioritise scaling up the Catapult Network, promoting it as the UK’s national innovation asset. In the light of the ambition for the UK to become a science and technology superpower, can the Minister provide an update on the Government’s strategy regarding catapults and their role in promoting substantially greater industry R&D investment?

My second and final point relates to Horizon Europe. The noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, referred to this critical post-Brexit issue in her excellent introductory speech, as did other noble Lords speaking in this debate. The Select Committee rightly highlights the damage already caused to the UK’s reputation and scientific capability by the ongoing lack of association with Horizon Europe. UK universities have built high-impact science, technology and innovation networks over many decades of collaboration within EU framework programmes. These are now in jeopardy.

The UK must be seen by all international research communities as a reliable partner, and the Government must recognise that their plan B in the event of non-association with Horizon Europe is in danger of being a poor second best. The Nurse review concludes that it is essential that the UK associate with Horizon Europe. If it does not do so, the UK is in real danger of losing its prestigious position in the global R&D hierarchy, becoming less attractive as a research partner and for foreign investment and less likely to become a science and technology superpower.