Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Lord Patten Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, the general tone of this debate—one of overall welcome and support for the Bill, in reaction to what my noble friend said in his excellent introduction—was set, if I may say so, by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. I listened most carefully to what he had to say in his entertaining, as well as perceptive, words. I enjoyed it very much, as I enjoyed what his father said a long time back when I was a new Tory MP on the green Benches in the other place, making my maiden speech back in 1979. When I sat down, the then right honourable Tony Benn MP stood up as the next speaker and said all those nice things that you say to a new boy or girl. Very welcome they were, and I thought, “That was very kind”, sat down and thought no more about it until, on the way to the station to go down to the constituency for the weekend, I got a slightly panicky message from my constituency party saying that there was trouble in the party about my maiden speech. I had been a Member of Parliament for only a moment or two and had no idea what I could have said that would have caused any trouble at all until I got off the platform at Oxford station and saw the billboards for the Oxford Times saying, “New Tory Member Makes Maiden Speech Praised by Tony Benn”.

That said, I have four quick points to make. First, I strongly support the Bill, all the more so because it is a manifesto commitment that has been carefully crafted and kept, which does not happen with all government legislation. Long may it become a habit, I say to my noble friend, that we keep our manifesto commitments.

My second remark is that we are setting up for the UK a novel blue-skies body. Everyone else has said this; they are quite right and I will not labour the point. It is right, however, that throughout, our national security, about which we all feel strongly, is protected. Hence the need, contained in the Bill, for ARIA to accept directions from the Secretary of State. I know that my noble friend the Minister said, in his introductory remarks to which I listened carefully and will hold him to, that that is where it would all stop, but the powers must stop sharp there. Ministers must never be allowed to seek to nudge, let alone give direction, to promote other parts of their political agenda. To make up a random example, they must not help the levelling-up agenda by putting something in some part of the country, totally randomly chosen, which might need a leg up.

My general message is “Hands off”, and I look forward to reaffirmation by my noble friend that that will indeed happen. “Hands off” was what got DARPA off to such a cracking start back in 1958. The US is very lucky to have been a leader here, and to have spawned from DARPA a good number of similarly great private sector companies, such as IBM and others.

I have known some of these pretty well, and there has been a bit of copycatting to a very successful degree. Take Boeing, the aerospace company: it has an outfit called Phantom Works, which no one dares, or is allowed, to get near. Or there is Lockheed Martin’s endearingly—indeed trademark—named Skunk Works, which is more difficult to get into than Fort Knox. I must declare my interest as, for some 12 years, I was an adviser and a non-executive director for Lockheed Martin Corporation and my shareholding continues to be declared because it is current in the Register of Members’ Interests. So I know this world a little bit, and I just wish that more UK companies had set up such DARPA-like bodies years ago.

Thirdly, the quality and imagination of the leadership of this new body will be absolutely critical. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, was thinking about who might be served up to the Secretary of State and what might be in the Secretary of State’s mind. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, said in his admirable remarks that one of the most important things of all is getting the leadership right. We do not want to have a head hunt as they will be queuing up to earn an honest pound by producing lists of the same old—with respect—FRSs and Nobel Prize winners and the great and the good of the scientific world. We need them to find someone daring, free thinking and original, but of course, responsible, committed and scientifically knowledgeable.

Here I have no interest at all; I have never met, communicated or worked with her, but I think the now—happily—Dame Kate Bingham has just those qualities that some man or woman could well replicate. Some noble Lords will remember her transformation from zero to hero. When she was first given the job by HMG she was excoriated by the worst sort of commentariat and media people, and suddenly, six months later, she was a national hero. So I would like my noble friend the Minister to undertake to pass on my remarks to the Secretary of State in these terms: appoint sensible risk-takers, not referees.

Lastly, I strongly support the determination of the Government to keep the endless FOI regime from getting further and further into it, opening the door of a small, highly staffed and not hugely financially endowed body with the specific mission to risk failure to those tendentious inquiries and time-wasting journalistic fishing expeditions to get a story in which they can say that something has failed. We can all see that coming.

I greatly hope that the Bill is a success and I look forward to it passing. Who is to say, the work of ARIA might even help to solve one of the great mysteries of the day: why the UK continues to have such low levels of productivity.