Science and Innovation Strategy

Lord Patel Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Patel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for making their science and innovation strategy an effective part of their industrial strategy.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I assure you that the next debate is as interesting.

It is with great pleasure that I open this debate and thank all noble Lords, including the Minister, for taking part. On the speakers list are the names of extremely talented noble Lords with a great deal of experience in the area which we are to debate, and I look forward to their contribution. The subject of the debate is science, innovation and industrial strategy, reflecting on the Green Paper published in January 2017 entitled Building our Industrial Strategy, which identified 10 pillars of industrial strategy that will drive economic growth in the United Kingdom. I will touch briefly on each of the issues and make a few remarks about the latest publication on life sciences and industrial strategy.

The basis of the industrial strategy is, of course, the UK’s strength in science research. This is undoubtedly so. Our universities rank highly in the global league of top 100 universities. For the first time in 13 years, Oxford and Cambridge top the table, with four universities in the top 20 and 12 in the top 100. The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford score highly on research funding as a matrix, but they also rely heavily on—or rather, I should say, gain from—the research funding that comes on a competitive basis from the EU: in Cambridge’s case, it is about a quarter; in Oxford’s case, it is about a fifth.

In the life sciences sector, we have four universities in the top 20—and, similarly, the engineering and technology sector also has the top four universities in the UK. So, yes, we should be proud of our science lead. By the way, in the top 100 globally, we have 12 universities. Seven of them are in the south-east of England, two are in Scotland and only three are in the rest of England—the north of England. That might have implications for where the science funding goes.

When it comes to taking science to innovation, we do not have such a good story to tell. In world rankings for innovation, 51 of the top 100 universities are in the United States, 26 are in Europe and 20 are now in Asia. That is where the current threat of innovation is coming from: Korea, China, Japan and other developing countries. They are the new threats.

I am tempted to consider what a top innovative university looks like. In 1940, Stanford University was regarded as no more than a third-rate school of engineering. Currently, its alumni deliver $3 trillion a year to the economy and employ 5.4 million people. Of the 100 top innovative universities in Europe, the UK has 17, the same as France, while Germany has 23. Of the UK’s 17 universities, four are in Scotland. I am pleased to say that number five in the United Kingdom is the university of which I was Chancellor for 11 years—not any more—the University of Dundee.

All these figures show that we are good at turning money into ideas, but not so good at turning ideas into money. That is what we need to address. Therefore, does the Minister agree that we need to look at ways to support universities that are good at research to become innovative universities? Mr Jo Johnson, the Universities Minister, has suggested developing a knowledge exchange framework rather like the TEP and REF for teaching and research. Can the Minister say more: do the Government plan to do so?

I turn to the document, Building our Industrial Strategy. In 1960, we had the “white heat of technology”, which ended in the demise of the automotive industry and many others. Then we had market competition, in which government spent money on science and left the private sector to innovate. It was successful for a while, but when the financial crisis hit the economy in 2007 and 2008 we had another strategy: rename the department. We got the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and a new slogan: “New Industry, New Jobs”. Intervention was then followed not by strategy but by an “industrial approach”. The financial crisis, economic stagnation and Brexit has now resulted in this document, Building our Industrial Strategy. It has been well received, shows government commitment and is visionary, with innovation at the heart of it—and succeed it must, because we have nothing else.

But there remain challenges, such as Brexit, with its impact on the economy and the skilled workforce and, of course, the effect of immigration policy. Then there are other challenges, including how to turn science into innovation, which I have already mentioned. The strategy is based on innovation but I see no goals in it for specific innovation, except in sector terms. Why should not there be specific goals of tech-based innovation linked to each of the 10 pillars?

The Government have committed to raise the spending on R&D from 1.7% of GDP to 3% of GDP, comparable to our competitors. Of course, our competitors also have strategies to raise their GDP and, by the time we meet the goal of 2027, if we do, of 3% of GDP, our competitors, particularly in the east, will have moved further along.

The Government have promised £4.7 billion of investment in science and innovation over the next four years and the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund may act as a catalyst to leverage more R&D from the private sector. However, what evaluation have the Government made of previous policies to be confident that policies to leverage more R&D funding will be successful?

Another suggestion in the document is that the Government will start an institute for battery research, to add to the National Graphene Institute, the Francis Crick Institute, the Rosalind Franklin Institute, the Alan Turing Institute and the Henry Royce Institute. What will be the governance mechanism, how much of the institute will be committed to research as against innovation, and how will it be monitored?

I turn briefly to the report of the Government on the life sciences sector—the life sciences industrial strategy, recently published by Sir John Bell. I add that I am chairman of the Lords Science and Technology Committee, which is conducting the inquiry into the strategy and which will report in due course—no doubt constructively.

The report has been well received and widely welcomed. It is ambitious and identifies the need to increase the science offer; for a growth in infrastructure and an increasing skills base; for regulation to promote innovation; for immigration policies that align with the needs of the life sciences sector; and for the NHS to be both more adaptive to innovations and more innovative. I shall pick out two of those points, because they are connected. One key recommendation is the creation of the Health Advanced Research Programme, or HARP, to create two or three new global industries in the next 10 years, analogous to DARPA, an organisation linked to US defence, which has been highly successful. However, in that case, US defence was its key customer, which wanted to be assured that it could lead the world in defence globally. Is our NHS similarly placed? HARP needs the NHS and the social care system in the UK to be effective, affordable and appropriate to the changing demographic needs of the UK population, and to be recognised as a leader in the world. Do we have an NHS that can be quick to adapt and be innovative? Current evidence does not suggest that that is so.

The report also recommends greater government support for the charity research sector. That sector in biomedical science is extremely strong, but universities need the support of the Government. Do the Government agree with that? When will they respond to the sector report on life sciences, and when will it be implemented?