Semiconductors Manufacturing

Debate between Lord Wigley and Viscount Camrose

Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

My noble friend reminds me that I had the pleasure of visiting the graphene centre at Manchester University just a couple of weeks ago. I share not only his positive views of the material but his positive estimate of its future uses. It will play a significant role in compound semiconductors of many different kinds, and that is one of the areas of focus for the UK’s semiconductor strategy.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords—

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[Lord Wigley (PC)]

I am very grateful. I want to continue on the basis of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, regarding the specific Newport Wafer Fab factory. I do not think the Minister got around to answering that fully, and I would be grateful to have his observations on the issue.

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Lord for not having reached that bit. The concern about Newport Wafer Fab was that the ultimate owners of the buyer were Chinese investors; hence, under the NSI Act, that was blocked. I cannot comment any further on that specific case because it is under judicial review.

Deafblindness: Emerging Technologies

Debate between Lord Wigley and Viscount Camrose

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

As the noble Lord rightly points out, identifying the appropriate technologies by scanning the horizon for those that will be of most impact and use is, and must be, a cross-governmental matter. I take every opportunity to urge my fellow Ministers to fight the good fight in this respect. DSIT’s role is as the provider and exemplar of technology use to all of government and the public sector, and indeed all of the UK, but all government departments recognise their responsibility to continuously identify ways to use technology and to make technology in the United Kingdom as accessible as it can possibly be.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I support the points that the noble Baroness made and note the staggering figure of 450,000. Would it be possible for the Minister to extend the review to include work undertaken at universities? There may well be scope for co-ordinating that work to help not only them and deafblind people but those in the commercial sector who are looking for new ideas.

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

DSIT works extensively across universities on this and other programmes. In addition, the Government commission a range of research, particularly in the area of deafblindness, not least, for instance, into the procurement of hearing aids by the NHS.