King’s Speech

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the three noble Lords who made their maiden speeches today and I welcome them to your Lordships’ House.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the content of the gracious Speech was underwhelming: a hotchpotch of mainly minor legislation with little sign of any strategic approach. As my noble friend Lord Knight said, it demonstrated that the Government had run out of ideas. Indeed, various Bills that had been at least hinted at, if not promised, were notable by their absence. There was no mention, for instance, of delivering on the 2019 manifesto commitment to bring forward much-needed reforms to the Mental Health Act, despite a White Paper last year promising what were termed “once in a lifetime” reforms. There was no mention at all of education, despite statements by Ministers in both Houses after the Schools Bill crashed and burned last year that the long overdue register of children not in mainstream education would be legislated for separately, on grounds of safeguarding if nothing else. There was no mention either of reform of the private pensions sector, an issue close to the hearts of many, not least noble Lords, despite the commitment by the Chancellor in his Mansion House speech in July that the reforms would boost the typical pension by more than £1,000 a year. Perhaps he mislaid the envelope on the back of which he had written that down. Not to worry; Labour in government has a commitment to deliver that important reform.

Further, in terms of the main thrust of today’s debate, there was next to nothing on science and technology. Yes, there are the two carryover Bills, but apart from that the DSIT website could offer only:

“plans to introduce a new legal framework to encourage innovation in new technologies such as machine learning was also announced”.

Rather vague, and a missed opportunity to champion harnessing the role of science in the economy and wider society.

I want to focus on physics because it fuels economic growth. Research commissioned by the Institute of Physics in 2019 is highlighted in the most recent issue of Science in Parliament, the excellent journal of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. It showed that, in 2019 alone, physics-based industries directly generated £229 billion in gross value added, which represents 11% of total UK GDP. These firms had 2.7 million full-time employees, accounting for 10% of UK employment. Anyone still labouring under the misapprehension that those working in physics are mainly white-coated boffins needs to get real.

Of course, all governments have an ambition to grow the economy and strengthen society, and that can be achieved more quickly and more sustainably by unlocking the full potential of physics innovation. Physics-intensive firms underpin a third of all business R&D, powering many of the world’s most impactful innovations, such as fibre optics that bring better connections to millions of homes across the UK, or MRI that helps to diagnose disease. A new wave of technological innovation is about to break. Emerging technologies, enabled by UK physicists’ breakthroughs in fields such as materials science and quantum physics, promise to radically transform the way we work and live, to create new business opportunities and to open up new markets.

The research to which I referred earlier shows that, of the total amount of research and development undertaken by businesses in the UK, more than a third came from physics-intensive firms. These figures assume even more significance when considered alongside the fact that almost two-thirds of physics innovators say they expect to increase investment in R&D and innovation in the next five years. Physics-powered technology sectors can become engines for economic growth. To build a green economy, most clean technologies are built on physics discovery and innovation and need physics skills for their continued development. A thriving base of physics innovation is critical to tackling climate change and powering growth of the green economy.

However, a major challenge threatens those developments: a shortage of the necessary skills, which has already put a brake on the innovation activities of some physics-based businesses. Two-thirds of physics innovators say that skills shortages caused innovation activity to be suspended or delayed in the past five years. Meanwhile, the demand for physics skills is growing quickly, which will cause the skills gap to widen even further, stalling plans to increase R&D activity and scientific output.

For the UK to build a more innovative economy requires an equally dramatic increase in the scale and diversity of the R&D workforce to fuel scientific progress. This needs to start in schools, where more young people from more diverse backgrounds should be encouraged and supported to study science subjects, including computer science, where in 2022 the numbers of female students taking GCSEs was just a third of that of male students. There also needs to be much better advice and guidance on studying STEM subjects for young people considering their post-16 options.

I was pleased to see that in its report published in March this year, the Commons Science and Technology Committee made a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion in STEM subjects. It is also incumbent on teachers to challenge gender stereotypes, and the Institute of Physics is calling for the barriers in the current education system to be tackled, so that young people are not prevented from enjoying the rich and inspiring future that studying the sciences can offer. This requires that all schools offer inclusive and equitable environments, including whole-school equity plans to be made mandatory in all nurseries and schools, to shift the dial in the numbers of underrepresented groups studying the sciences. An inclusive environment must be backed up by high-quality specialist science teaching, particularly physics teaching, in all schools. Too often, science subjects are taught by non-specialists, teachers in other subjects who just happen to have passed an A-level in one of the sciences.

However, learning the key skills needed for an increasingly digital economy is not just a challenge for school students. Adults too must be helped to build these skills. Upskilling and reskilling are key to that challenge, and I welcome the campaign to boost digital skills led by the Institute of Coding. Noble Lords will have received the letter that the institute has prepared for sending to the Chancellor in advance of the Autumn Statement next week. I have signed it and I hope many others have also done so. The Institute of Coding highlights the fact that the UK has some 870,000 vacancies across the tech sector, at a time when there is growing demand for a digitally skilled workforce with the right knowledge in the right places to make a difference. Of those already working in the sector, the institute reveals that just one in five is a woman and that there are clear disparities between those from other underrepresented groups, who face barriers to accessing both education and employment.

Since 2018, the Institute of Coding’s hybrid short course programmes have supported more than a million learners from hard-to-reach backgrounds and this essential work deserves much greater exposure and government support. It is vital that this work expands rapidly as improving support for digital skills is essential. I would like to believe that it is inconceivable that Ministers and civil servants have not stressed this point to the Chancellor. We shall see.