Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Collectively, my amendments not only would help to clarify the UK-wide responsibility of UKRI but, importantly, recognise the need to make all processes work in the best interests of the UK, while at the same time recognising the roles of higher education in the devolved Administrations and devolved research organisations. I hope the Minister will properly consider this issue, accept the principle in these amendments and suggest a way forward on Report. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we have Amendment 477 in this group. As we have heard in great detail from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, the Bill currently provides that in appointing members of UKRI, the Secretary of State must,

“have regard to the desirability of the members including at least one person with relevant experience in relation to at least one of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”.

We do not believe that this is good enough for UKRI to be properly representative of the whole of the UK. There should be a proper representative for each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Amendment 477 would ensure that there will be at least one person with experience of Scotland, one person with experience of Wales and one person with experience of Northern Ireland. Although the issue of gender balance is not in the amendment, I am sure the Minister would want to reflect on that—that seems to be the word of the day—and assure us that consideration will also be given to ensuring that there is a proper gender balance.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments raise important issues. I would like to bring to them my own perspective as pro chancellor of Lancaster University, not speaking for the institution but talking about how it strikes me that these issues concern us, thinking about the strength of the university sector in the north of England.

The fundamental problem with UKRI—on the whole I support the idea of UKRI, I hasten to add—is that the research and innovation strategy concerns the whole of the UK but the HEFCE functions on research are purely for England and are to be exercised by Research England. My fear about a board that, like that of the BBC, had a governor for each of the nations would be that the interests of England in such a body might not be as strong as they should be, and, in particular, that Research England and its funding might over time be marginalised as a result of the emphasis on the UK.

The funding for Research England is absolutely crucial to institutions such as my own. We are a top research university but not part of the golden triangle. We are in the north of England and we are quite small. So, because of scale, the ability to land big grants from the research councils is limited. A lot of our research success comes from the ability to do well in the research assessment exercise and get QR funding. If there were any reduction in the total of QR funding, that would hurt universities such as my own quite considerably.

I am concerned about the tension—it is in the nature of the beast, really, and we have to find a way of resolving it—between Research England, its Englishness and the need for that to be protected on the one hand and, on the other, the need, which I fully support, for a coherent UK research and innovation strategy. I am not sure that the best way of achieving it is by having, as it were, a governor for each of the nations of the UK. Indeed, if that were the Government’s response to this question, I would come back and say, “Well, can we please have a north of England member of UKRI?”.

I know that this sounds sectional, but the truth is that one of the strategic objectives that the Government have just put forward, in the very good industrial strategy paper that Greg Clark has presented, is to try to prevent the ever-greater concentration of research funding within the golden triangle. If we are going to have an effective regional resurgence, which I think there is cross-party consensus that we need in this country, universities will be at the heart of it. We have to find a way of making sure that other parts of England, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, have the opportunity to benefit from this welcome increase in research and innovation funding. To be frank, the risk with UKRI is that it will be dominated by the great and good of the science world, who will continue to channel most of the money into the golden triangle. I hope that the Government will take action to make sure that this is prevented.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 488, which has in a way been trailed already in its substance by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, who raised but did not get a response about the absence in the Bill of any serious reference to continuing co-operation overseas, and also by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, who pointed out that there is a quite a lot of cross-coverage in what he is putting forward as probing amendments and what I am putting forward as a substantive amendment.

Amendment 488 is very simple, merely adding a further task for the UKRI in the list given in this clause. It says that,

“UKRI shall take every possible opportunity to encourage and facilitate the maximum co-operation between British higher education and research establishments and those based outside the UK, and in particular with projects and programmes funded by the European Union”.

The wording does not limit this to the EU. Although it is to some extent Brexit-related, it looks much wider than that. Clearly, it will not in itself provide the legal or policy framework for co-operation between the UK and EU when we are outside, because that will be laid down by the Government in their Brexit negotiations. I very much welcome the fact that the Prime Minister in her Lancaster House speech explicitly mentioned this as one of the areas where Britain will want to go on co-operating as closely as possible. The amendment does not provide for that. It is a task merely for UKRI, and UKRI will have to operate within the scope of whatever arrangements the Government may negotiate with the EU—on money, legal base, and all that sort of stuff.

The EU dimension is, however, very significant. The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, mentioned it briefly. Since the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme began in 2014, the UK has provided 5,428 participants—more than any other member state. The UK co-ordinates around 20% of the projects. We have received 16.4% of the funding, adding up to something like £2.63 billion.

Turning to the separate European Research Council programmes, here I mention the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, whose name is on the amendment, because he was very much instrumental in setting up the European Research Council many years ago when he was working at the Commission. It is a brilliant organisation, much less bureaucratic than some of the other aspects of the European Union. In the ERC programmes, we have 699 grant-holders and are the most successful member state.

There is a lot at stake here. In addition, something like 46% of UK research involves some overseas partners. That surely demonstrates how important a part of UKRI’s work will involve this international dimension. I very much hope that the Minister will feel able, even today, to say simply that he accepts the amendment. I cannot believe that it cuts across or does anything other than complement the Government’s own objectives. So I will listen with great care when the Minister responds to this debate and I will hope to be delighted to hear that he thinks this is a jolly good amendment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we have Amendment 490 in this group. I echo what has been said by other noble Lords about the paramount importance of international—particularly EU—academics, scientists and researchers employed in the UK.

The Government’s own industrial strategy highlights the importance of continued investment in science and R&D, noting that the UK spends 1.7% of GDP on public and private R&D, compared with an OECD average of 2.4%. Presumably that is why the Government have committed to substantial new investment in R&D, including an extra £4.7 billion by 2020-21—a 20% increase in spending, which must be welcomed. However, the ability of this investment to pay dividends depends on ensuring that world-class people come here to carry out that research. It is no good finding the extra money if you do not have the people. Without ensuring that the best and the brightest are working here, throwing money at research will not help and will not enable UKRI to reach its strategic goals.

The curtailment of freedom of movement, coupled with an already complex visa regime for non-EU workers, threatens to undermine our scientific research base. Indeed, just the uncertainty over Brexit is already having an effect. As Dr Jo Beall, director of education and society for the British Council, told the Education Select Committee on 25 January, the UK is already losing out on vital research as academics pull out of research bids or choose not to take up posts in the UK as a result of uncertainty over their long-term future. The uncertainty over Brexit means that the viability of scientific projects that could take 20 to 30 years cannot be guaranteed, either in funding terms or, crucially, even whether the academics who start such projects will be able to live in the UK throughout that time or recruit the others they need to make a success of the projects.

The amendment does not seek to force the Government into maintaining freedom of movement, although of course this is an approach that my party favours. Instead, it seeks to ensure that the effect of such a change on the viability of world-leading science and research is recorded and understood so that it might influence government decision-making. The amendment would therefore require an annual report by UKRI on the impact of scientific academics and researchers, employed either directly through UKRI or through higher education institutions. Should the report identify a fall in the number of international researchers and academics in the UK, the amendment would require the Secretary of State to assess the impact of such a reduction on the ability of UKRI to deliver its functions.

The intention of the amendment is to give the Secretary of State the responsibility of understanding that failure to protect the free movement of academics and researchers risks undermining the Government’s aim of being a world leader in R&D. The very viability of this goal, identified in the Government’s own industrial strategy, depends on having such an assessment and not simply assuming that relying purely on home-grown scientists will provide the capacity or diversity needed to compete in a globally competitive field.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome all these amendments. As ever, I declare my interests as outlined in the register. I am employed by the University of Cambridge and I have at various times benefited from EU funding. I am particularly keen to speak in support of Amendment 488 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and I want to stress the importance of research co-operation.

The Government have committed to keeping research funding going up to 2020 and, if we lose funding under Horizon 2020, that that can be replaced. But funding is only part of it. Research co-operation—the dynamism of exchanging ideas and being able to co-operate with partners across the European Union—is absolutely vital, whether in social sciences or hard research science. If we lose that, we will lose something that is absolutely crucial to research and innovation in this country.

I also add my support for Amendment 507ZA, which I believe is in this set. It mentions the idea of an UKRI visa department. I very much hope that when the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, our colleagues from within it will not be subject to visas. But if they are, that will jeopardise co-operation with our European partners even more than would simply leaving the European Union and the single market. If that happens, something like an UKRI visa department will become even more important. A simplification of the way in which academics and others have to face visa regimes would be most welcome, because it is one of the many things that increasingly put people off coming to the United Kingdom.