Newport Wafer Fab Sale

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

Seventy-seven days have passed since the National Security and Investment Act received Royal Assent. In the previous months, I and colleagues across the Chamber sought to work constructively with the Government to ensure that that legislation was as robust as it possibly could be. Notwithstanding the fact that the Government rejected most of our suggestions, we all backed the Act because it was in our collective interest to do so, yet it appears to have been rendered almost useless at its first hurdle. I respectfully suggest that had it not been for the intervention of the Chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, it is doubtful that the Prime Minister would have sought national security advice on this matter. Why did it take an intervention from a senior Government Back Bencher for the Government to take this matter seriously? Is the National Security and Investment Act as it stands simply not up to the task? Is it not worth the paper it is written on?

[Amanda Solloway]

The Government have looked closely at the transaction and do not consider it appropriate to intervene at the current time. However, as the Prime Minister made clear at the Liaison Committee last week, he has asked the National Security Adviser to review this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

My hon. Friend has been a tireless advocate for his constituency, most notably in his advocacy of the Dewsbury town deal. As he will know, the support of MPs is important for bids to the levelling-up fund, but he will understand that I cannot go further than that while the bids are being evaluated.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

Today marks 33 years since the Piper Alpha disaster, when 167 lives were lost and many more oil workers were injured. The trauma reverberates right across Aberdeen to this day, and I would like to pass on my thoughts to the friends and families of all those involved in that awful, awful tragedy.

We have heard three questions from Conservative Members and had three answers from the Minister, but we have not had a single mention of the fact that rather than being a Government who are levelling up, they are cutting back. Just last week we have seen furlough support sliced away from businesses, many of which have been unable to open or operate since the start of this pandemic. Many of them will also now be paying back covid loans, despite of course never being able to bounce back. So may I ask the Minister: how does pulling funding away from businesses help communities to level up?

[Amanda Solloway]

I would like to add my thoughts to those expressed by the hon. Gentleman about the Piper Alpha disaster. Across government, we are investing in Scotland through a number of routes, including the United Kingdom community renewal fund, the levelling-up fund and the future UK shared prosperity fund, to name but a few. For example, at the Budget we confirmed £27 million for the Aberdeen energy transition zone, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, which is helping to support north-east Scotland to play a leading role in meeting our net zero ambitions.

[Stephen Flynn]

I do not think the Minister actually answered my question, but let us look at another aspect of the levelling-up prospectus: freeports. The Scottish Government have been clear that they want freeports to have a green agenda and to have fair work and net zero at their core, but just last week the UK Government told us that they will ignore that green port prospectus and will instead seek to enforce their will on the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people. So may I ask the Minister: when did levelling up become less about empowerment and more about dragging powers from Scotland back to London?

[Amanda Solloway]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the question. This Government are committed to the levelling-up process, and we have made it incredibly clear that that is what we are going to do. We will have a levelling-up White Paper, which is to be issued in the autumn. We are ensuring that we are levelling up throughout the whole of the United Kingdom.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Report stage & 3rd reading
Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

Of course, I give my assurance that we will issue the place strategy shortly, which will indicate all of this.

I am very grateful for the contributions that right hon. and hon. Members have made today. The interest in the passage of the Bill in the House and in the R&D community is testament to the important role that ARIA will play in our future R&D landscape, creating a space in the system that is free to fund groundbreaking science in innovative ways, independent from ongoing Government intervention.

This is an incredibly significant moment, because the opportunity that ARIA affords us is truly limitless. By unlocking a new level of ambition, and by enabling truly bold and adventurous ideas to flourish, ARIA will allow us to take a huge leap into the future. Yes, this will mean embracing the unknowns that come from ARIA being free from Government control, but we should make that leap confidently, knowing that the brilliant people that ARIA will fund will change the world in ways that none of us in this Chamber would dare to imagine today. This is therefore a truly exciting time for all of us here in the Chamber—for ourselves, for our children and for our grandchildren—and I feel particularly excited for my young granddaughter, who will feel the benefits of the major breakthroughs that we will unlock through this Bill. I am sure that this opportunity is recognised by all hon. Members.

I hope that I have demonstrated the reasons that I cannot accept the new clauses and amendments that have been tabled, and I hope that Members will agree not to press them.

[Stephen Flynn]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be glad to know that my final remarks will be brief, particularly because although we were expecting a rebellion tonight, I did not expect it in any way, shape or form to relate to any of the amendments that I proposed, which is disappointing. Maybe next time—we can only live in hope.

There are two clear and fundamental issues to do with the Bill on which we disagree with Government Members: where they are passionately and vehemently against public scrutiny, and where they are passionately and vehemently against ARIA having a mission. I believe the lack of a mission is a missed opportunity, and I am deeply concerned to hear that public scrutiny in the shape of an FOI request is regarded as an impediment to a public organisation. That should strike fear into all of us about what public money is to be spent on, not just now but in the future.

With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion on new clause 1, but I wish to press amendment 1, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), to a vote.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 1, in clause 2, page 1, line 7, at end insert—

“(A1) ARIA’s primary mission will be to support the development of technologies and research that support the UK’s transition to net zero carbon emissions or reduce the harmful effects of climate change.”—(Stephen Flynn.)

This amendment sets the primary mission for ARIA to support the development of technologies and research that support the UK’s transition to net zero carbon emissions or reduce the harmful effects of climate change.

Question put, that the amendment be made.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

We are indeed going to the better side of Aberdeen, although I should be very careful on my way home, because my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North and I are both on the same flight later.

I do not want to go over the arguments that we had earlier in the week. I think we had quite enough on net zero and climate change. We do of course still hold the view that that should be the abiding mission of ARIA itself. Given that the Bill does not make any provision for what we are suggesting in the new clause, it should be brought forward at this moment in time. I hope the Minister will be able to allay my concerns with her remarks.

[Amanda Solloway]

We discussed climate change extensively on Tuesday. I want to put it on the record that I agree with the hon. Members who raised the urgency and importance of tackling that issue. As I am sure the hon. Member for Aberdeen South is aware, however, the clause would be a very unusual provision for a statutory corporation. I also want to emphasise that ambitious legislative action has already been taken by the Government in this regard, with our strong statutory commitment to net zero making the UK the first major economy in the world to do that.

As I have said before, achieving the legislative commitment to net zero remains one of the Government’s top priorities, as demonstrated by the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan. I know that ambition is shared by colleagues across this place. I therefore recognise why the clause has been brought forward today. I would, however, caution against placing an immediate obligation on ARIA that is out of step with the wider 2050 timescale for reaching net zero.

ARIA is also likely to be a very small organisation with a small footprint. I also want to emphasise that ARIA will be subject to the Environmental Information Regulations, which require public authorities such as ARIA to make environmental information available. This would likely include data relating to carbon costs. We have discussed the importance of giving ARIA freedom and independence and space to establish itself, and ultimately I do not think that imposing that immediate statutory obligation is the right way to achieve the climate objectives that it speaks to, or to ensure the success of ARIA.

[Stephen Flynn]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the new clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

With that confirmation from the Minister, I am happy to say that I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 4

Ethical code for investment

‘(1) Within three months of the date of commencement of this Act, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a code for ethical investment developed and agreed by ARIA.

(2) The code of ethics developed by ARIA under subsection (1) must go beyond regulatory requirements and adopt a best practice approach.’ —(Stephen Flynn.)

This new clause is intended to ensure that ARIA develops a code for ethical investment that goes beyond regulatory requirements and adopts a best practice approach.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Stephen Flynn]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Again, the new clause is very straightforward. It is intended to ensure that ARIA develops a code of ethical investment that goes beyond regulatory requirements, and adopts a best practice approach. What is not to like? That is something that we should all aspire to, particularly when it comes to such a significant amount of public money. We have talked at length today and on Second Reading about ARIA’s ability to dodge freedom of information requests, and the like. The new clause would provide the assurance that we need, given that the Government appear unwilling and unable to take forward our views on freedom of information. It perhaps provides a compromise position.

[Amanda Solloway]

I recognise the issue raised in the amendment. The most transformational scientific research, of the kind that will be pursued by ARIA, is likely to have a wide range of potential technological applications, across different areas. Such research may prompt new ethical debates, such as those that we are already having about AI and robotics. The Government welcome lively, open and democratic public and parliamentary debate on the roles that new technologies play in our lives, and I do not think that that is something we should shy away from. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman that ARIA will operate in line with the law that already governs issues of research ethics, such as the use of animals in research. ARIA will not be given special dispensation to fund research that is not considered appropriate elsewhere.

I draw attention to the fact that there is no specific legislative requirement placed on UKRI, a much larger-scale funder, with respect to issues of research ethics. For ARIA the Government would be able to intervene in exceptional circumstances through the national security provision in clause 4 of the Bill, as we have already discussed.

[Amanda Solloway]

To reiterate our viewpoint, the Government would be able to intervene in exceptional circumstances through the national security provision in clause 4, which we have already discussed, and by introducing powers on the grounds of conflict of interest and appointing a new chair or new non-executive directors. More broadly, in working with relevant Government institutions, special attention will be paid to ensuring that ethical questions generated by research are thoroughly explored and that we strike an appropriate balance between innovation and caution.

[Stephen Flynn]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 5

Human rights abuses

“No ARIA resources may be used in any way that would contravene human rights.”—(Stephen Flynn.)

This new clause is intended to ensure that ARIA is not able to contravene human rights.

Brought up, and read the First time.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Flynn]

I am very much in favour of freedom, for want of a better phrase, but does the Minister not understand the concerns that the public will have about transparency on such a key amount of public money? That is something the Government have an awful track record on at this moment in time. Does she not understand the public’s view?

[Amanda Solloway]

I make reference to all the methods that we have in place to ensure that we are transparent in the running of ARIA. As I have been clear about throughout, independence is an essential feature of ARIA. Its procurement will therefore be at arm’s length from Government and Ministers. I hope that this debate has demonstrated the necessity of such an arrangement and that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central will withdraw her amendment.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Flynn]

Absolutely; my colleague is spot on. As I said, this is not new, and the example she has provided is another clear indication of this UK Government’s failure to take cognisance of Scotland’s needs. If the Minister wishes to stand up and tell me that Scotland will get its fair share and we will get a Barnett sum spent in Scotland, I will be more than happy to withdraw my amendment; otherwise, I will push it to a vote to ensure that Scotland’s needs are met.

[Amanda Solloway]

I shall turn first to amendments 14 and 30. The objective behind them is really important; we have spoken extensively about the need for ARIA’s funding to reach beyond the usual suspects. In my view, that applies to where that funding goes as much as to the formality of the research setting. That also reflects the wider Government priority. The R&D places strategy, due to be published this summer, represents a key part of our ambitions for R&D and innovation. It builds on the approach set out in the R&D roadmap.

The purpose of the places strategy is to ensure that R&D benefits the economy and society in the nations, regions and local areas across the United Kingdom, contributing to the Government’s wider levelling-up ambitions. I would like to make one key point about ARIA: as discussed previously, many of the details of ARIA’s operation will be set out more fully in a future framework document. I suggest that that document is the appropriate place for stipulations on the content of ARIA’s annual report.

It is extremely likely that ARIA will be required to provide in that report the type of geographical information sought in the amendments, but it would be beneficial to consider that in the round, alongside the other information that we might require ARIA to include in the report. The most appropriate and helpful information for ARIA, or Government bodies generally, to provide may also change in the future. To include specifics on the face of the Bill is impractical in that respect, as that would be inflexible.

On amendments 16, 17 and 18, ARIA will seek transformative scientific and technological breakthroughs, the outputs of which will have benefits across the United Kingdom. For example, a leap forward to driverless technology could create economic benefit to improve the quality of life across the UK. The attraction of the ARPA model is that its funding is laser-focused on achieving transformative outcomes. While £800 million up to 2024-25 is a meaningful amount of funding, it is a small proportion of the R&D spend. For those reasons, I urge the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central to withdraw her amendment.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Amanda Solloway]

As I previously explained, there is no precedent in the system. We will be recruiting in the same way as we do for UKRI, and it does not go into legislation. I am very confident that we will have a full and robust process for appointing the chief executive. I therefore think that this is an open, fair and robust process. It is completely sufficient for finding the right people to be the chair and chief exec of ARIA and to make it a success. As such, I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

[Stephen Flynn]

I want briefly to reflect on a couple of the Minister’s remarks. She has twice referred to the fact that there is, of course, no precedent to what has been suggested and used UKRI as an example. However, it is possible to make freedom of information requests of UKRI, and the organisation is subject to public contract auditors, so the comparison is not fair or just. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that it is apples and oranges, and I think she needs to reflect on that

The Minister also said that she does not want to infringe on the principle of ARIA. What about the principle of scrutiny? What about the principle of Parliament playing its role in that process? Does that mean nothing to the Government? The hon. Member for Cambridge hit the nail firmly on the head with his final comments. The relationship between Government and Parliament is an important one, and I find it utterly bizarre, as I said earlier, that a group of MPs who were all elected on a platform of taking back control are so happy to give it away to a single individual. Surely they can all see how utterly bizarre that is, and how the public will reflect on that with complete and utter dismay.

I will reflect briefly on the debate. I am sure that many of the points will be raised again later, particularly in relation to FOI, public contracts and the sleaze in which the Government are obviously enveloped. I have to admire the courage of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, who has tried incredibly hard to defend the Government. I would suggest that perhaps he is trying to defend the indefensible. I am sure the Government Whip is incredibly impressed at the hon. Gentleman’s hard work in that regard, but he needs to be mindful about how tone deaf he perhaps sounds.

The very notion from the hon. Member for Loughborough that we cannot mention Dominic Cummings, even though he is the architect of the Bill, is utterly absurd. Did she not watch his evidence?

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Amanda Solloway]

Q Thank you to our great witnesses. I have one question for both witnesses. What is the importance of giving ARIA independence from Government and Ministers, compared with other parts of the R&D system?

Professor Glover: I would argue that there is huge value in that. Obviously, the funding is coming from Government, but by giving it freedom from Government you might also be giving it the freedom to fail in many ways, and that is exceptionally important. If it is seen as very close to Government—whichever Government is in power—it potentially becomes a bit like a political football, either in what is being funded or in the direction suggested for where ARIA funding should go.

If there are notable failures of funding, which you would expect if it were a high-risk, high-reward funding agency, political opponents will also say, “Well, look, this is a complete disaster under your custodianship. Here are all the failures.” You just want it to be separate from that. It is also part of trying to embrace the unthinkable, if you like, in terms of the research we do and the areas we go into. Necessarily, those will sometimes be difficult areas, and not ones that you should expose Government to either. In the spirit of opening everything up, I would say that keeping that independence is extremely valuable.

Tabitha Goldstaub: I totally agree with what Anne just said—I would have said exactly the same thing. I think that the separateness and independence are really vital to the success of ARIA. The only thing that I would really think about adding here is how important it is that ARIA does have a relationship with Government, because it will need to have many customers, both private sector and public sector. The programme managers will need to create those bonds with central Government Departments individually.

I think that a commitment from Government to remain independent but to become good customers is very important. The health and transport sectors are good examples of where that might work. What is different is that a surprising number of these next big scientific fields, and these next big breakthroughs, such as artificial intelligence, are going to depend on systemic transformation, where you cannot separate the technology from the policy and regulation.

So yes, ARIA has to be independent, but it also needs to ensure that it works really closely with central Government and with regional and local government. Local government spends about £1 billion on procurement, and cities are key investors in infrastructure, so finding a good link with local government, as well as with central Government, is important. This will hopefully end up creating, as Anne suggested, a way that people feel part of this. Regional strengths deliver benefits to actual localities. Even if it is within the next 10, 15 or 20 years, it is really important that government feels part of that, even though ARIA is independent.

[Stephen Flynn]

Q Thank you, Tabitha and Anne, for your detailed responses so far. I have a couple of points, if I may. I think it is safe to say that you seem broadly in favour of ARIA, and you think it will perhaps fill a void. In terms of the resources that ARIA will have, we heard earlier today about the benefits of being a small, agile agency, and £800 million is being allocated. Do you feel that is sufficient for ARIA to meet its needs?

On independence from Government, from looking at your bio, Anne, I can see that you have worked for a few public agencies. If ARIA does not have the public contract regulations and freedom of information in place, will that free it to do what it needs to do? Should we see that as a positive as opposed to a check imbalance, given that we are referring to public money?

Professor Glover: I will deal with that point first—it is an exceptionally interesting point. Initially, when I saw that it might not be subject to FOI, I was thinking, “What are the pros and cons of that?” There is one thing that needs to be fundamental in ARIA, and that is an openness and transparency about what it is funding and why, and how it is doing it. For most things—UKRI would be similar to this—what you provide information on obviously cannot be something that would break the General Data Protection Regulation or that would be commercially sensitive. That should hold exactly true for ARIA as well.

There needs to be some thinking around the whole aspect of openness and transparency, because that brings along with it trust and engagement. If there were any suggestion that Government funding was going into ARIA and it was being syphoned off into particular areas, and we could not find out what those areas were, there would be nervousness. People would, quite rightly, object to that, so there would have to be some greater thought given to how the agency is able to be open and transparent. It might be writing its own rulebook in that area, about what it will provide information on and what it should not.

On whether £800 million is enough, you are asking a scientist and a researcher here, so no, it is never going to be enough, but we have to start somewhere. I cannot make a direct comparison with DARPA’s funding, which is about $3.5 billion or $4 billion per annum, but I might be a bit out of date on that. It does not seem unreasonable to me to start at that level of funding and to start off on the journey to see what is and is not working, where there is greater demand and where you might need more funding to meet it. What you would want to see is that this was such a success that there was substantial demand for funding.

On the other hand, you do not want to get into the situation that standard research funding has—I have certainly visited it many times during its lifetime—where you are putting in 10 research proposals to get one funded. That is an enormous waste of everybody’s time, including the agency that is funding the research. There needs to be a balance between how much money is available and what you hope to do with it.

The last thing I would say is that how that funding is apportioned needs to be carefully thought out, because there needs to be some security of funding. Traditionally in the UK, we have normally had three-year tranches of funding. Long before the end of the three years you have to try to think about how you get continuation of funding. You might hope that ARIA could look at a different model of funding, which might span different timescales depending on what the nature of the project was.

Many projects, particularly ones that are quite disruptive in thinking, will not deliver in a short period—two or three years—of time. Some could do, but some will not, so there needs to be that security of funding over different annual budgets to allow the investment over a period of time.

Tabitha Goldstaub: I will start with the amount of funding. I see the £800 million as just a start. I think that £800 million is sufficient as long as ARIA works in partnership with Government Departments, the private sector and other grant makers. ARIA should not be restricted in matching or exceeding the Government funding with funding from the private sector. There are people in the community that I have spoken to who think that for true intellectual and financial freedom, ARIA should be able to more than double the Government funding. It was good to see in the Bill that the potential for ARIA to take equity stakes in companies and start-ups in a venture fashion could lead to increasing that part over time and making more funding decisions. I see the £800 million as really just a starting point.

On freedom of information, I agree with Anne that openness is key. Transparency fosters trust, and I do not think there is any need to stop freedom of information. We need to keep freedom of information to help with the efforts for connectivity. If the community are going to feel part of ARIA and will it to do good things, they need to be able to use freedom of information. I cannot see any argument against this for the administration costs. Earlier this morning, we heard Ottoline Leyser say that UKRI gets 30 requests a month. If ARIA is 1% of the budget of UKRI, perhaps it could get 1% of the requests, which would be fewer than four a year. I cannot see it, for that reason.

The other reason why there is a desire for secrecy and no FOI is that people traditionally are not comfortable to innovate and fast fail in the open, but that is changing. DeepMind has teams. I have spoken to Sarah Hunter, who is at Google’s moonshot factory, X. She explained how they started in secret and everything felt so appealing, to protect people from any feeling of failure, but what they learned is that there are so many other much better ways than secrecy to incentivise people and to give them the freedom to fail. Actually, allowing for more transparency builds much more trust and encourages more collaboration and, therefore, better breakthroughs.

Anne has spoken about the community. I definitely will speak again about the community, but in addition to the community engagement, ARIA will need to have a press department and media engagement teams that are separate from BEIS, separate from the grid and separate from the Government, to enable it to be agile in its communication and foster a two-way conversation. In order to answer your question, I really think this is the key point: openness and transparency create more trust and more breakthroughs.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Amanda Solloway]

Q Thank you, that is really helpful. My next question is to Dame Ottoline. We acknowledge that there is clearly a role for ARIA, but I think it is important that it does not just fund the usual suspects. What are your thoughts on this? How will ARIA be able to target people and ideas that are not picked up through the current system, for example that UKRI is able to target?

Professor Leyser: Absolutely. I think that the kinds of examples that Tris has just talked about are quite illustrative from that point of view. Typically, the way the current system works is that we would put out a call for applications in a variety of contexts. It might be a completely open call; right across UKRI we run these so-called response-paid funding competitions where people with ideas about what they want to do can apply for funding to do them, whatever they might be. On the whole, those kinds of applications are the sort of bread and butter of really established research organisations: universities, institutes and, through Innovate UK, businesses. A lot of them are also collaborative with industry. It is that kind of grant application process that then goes through peer review, and we try to pick the projects that, as an overall portfolio, will best deliver what the UK needs, both in the short term and, absolutely, in the longer term, building that capacity and capability.

It tends to be established organisations that know the system and how to apply for those kinds of projects, and which have the structures available in their organisations to do that. With ARIA, however, I think there is the opportunity to test a much wider range of models, such as those kinds of competition-type prize approaches that Tris described—he is an expert in those. There is also a fairly well-established system called Kaggle for coding competitions, for example. That potentially reaches a much wider range of people. You do not have to apply; you do not have to have a system that can support that kind of application process. The funding flow is very different: it is a response to the results; it is the winner of the competition. As a result, it may be possible to reach a much wider range of people. In that coding space, for example, there are really extraordinary people working in their homes as freelance coders who would find it very difficult to access the classical UKRI and most of the funders that there are currently.

I very much hope that we would be able to tap into some of the talent right across the UK that is not in the more established places. That would be one really exciting outcome from this with that prize model. Where you have a really clear objective—so it is really clear who has won the money, so to speak—it is possible to do that in a way that does not automatically engage the kind of financial management systems that we have to use. For example, are we sure that this money is being spent on what the applicant said it would be spent on? If you are giving somebody the money for having done the research or having delivered the outcome—the car that goes across the desert—you are in a very different situation.

I do think there is a very interesting possibility for ARIA to reach those people who are talented and can contribute in ways that it is much harder to with the standard systems. I hope that we would learn from that and be able to import some of that expertise into the standard system when it was established and really clear that it was providing good value for money in a robust way.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

Q Thank you Dame Ottoline and Mr Dyson for your answers so far, which have been incredibly informative and helpful. I want to pick up on a couple of things that you have said. You have both mentioned the benefits of a small, agile agency. I guess that raises the question of whether £800 million is a sufficient budget for that small, agile agency. To pick on something that you said, Mr Dyson, about ARIA being quite ruthless in terms of stopping the funding of things quite early on, what would you expect the failure level to be, and how do you expect us all to measure in a reasonable way the success or otherwise of ARIA?

Tris Dyson: Well, more money is better. I think this money needs to be deployed intelligently, so being quite clear on the missions and the focuses is really important. It is even more important with a still significant amount of money but relatively smaller sums. Getting those areas right is really important. The examples that were just given about Kaggle and databased approaches are potentially a useful avenue for some of this, because the R&D investments and sunk costs are relatively low as opposed to building spaceships or something like that. That would be the sort of calculation you might need to make.

You can also use leverage. One of the areas that the UK has been pioneering is around regulatory sandboxes, for example, through the regulators’ pioneer fund, which is administered through UKRI. But some regulators, off their own backs, have also been setting up and developing sandboxes that allow innovators to play with datasets in an environment where the regulator is giving them a little bit more permission than they might have had otherwise. That in itself is an incentive, particularly when you are playing around with datasets.

You can think of examples where we have got significant strengths. One of the things we have talked about a lot during the pandemic—more recently, at least—is the UK’s strengths in genomics research. That means we have got an enormous range of data that could be made available to people through the likes of Genomics England, which in itself is an inducement or an encouragement above and beyond the financial. So being clever—boxing clever—with the money is important.

In terms of ruthlessness, part of this comes to the culture. The ARIA team will have to establish a culture where they trial things out, set targets and objectives and have constant reviews where they get together and decide whether to kill things off. That is clearer when you have defined missions or objectives that you are working towards. It is much harder when you are fostering lots and lots of different things—it is hard to compare X with Y.

Professor Leyser: From my point of view, the question I would ask is not so much how much money should ARIA have but what proportion of the public sector R&D spend should go into this way-out-there, high-risk, transformative research-type project and, of that, how much should be in ARIA. It is a proportionality question and, as Tris said at the beginning, at a time when there is an aim to drive up UK investment in R&D to 2.4%—hopefully beyond that, because 2.4% is the OECD average and I think we should aim to be considerably better than average—that is quite a stretch target for us. We do incredibly well—the quality and amount of research and innovation in this country is extraordinary—given that we currently invest only 1.7% of our GDP. So I think the opportunities to build that really high-quality inclusive knowledge economy, given how well we perform in the R&D sector with such a small proportion of R&D, are incredibly high.

On that rising trajectory, with us aiming for that 2.4% and beyond, I think spending a small proportion of that on this edge-of-the-edge research capacity and capability is the right thing to do. I would look at the budget in that context as a percentage of the overall R&D spend. People have been comparing the current ARIA budget with the budget of organisations such as DARPA, but if you look at it as a percentage, you get a very different number because, obviously, the US spends a much higher proportion of their—anyway—bigger budget on R&D than we do. That is the important question from that point of view.

How will we know that it has succeeded, and what would one expect the percentage failure to be? I agree with Tris that it is incredible difficult to predict. There is also serendipity and other things to factor in. If you set yourself a fantastic target of solving a particular problem or producing a particular new product and you fail to do that, none the less, along the way you might discover something extraordinary that you can apply in another field.

That high-risk appetite feeds into the question, again, of how much money or what proportion of the overall R&D portfolio should be invested in that way. One has to think about risk in R&D in that portfolio way. It is considered generally in investment markets that really high-performing investment portfolios are a portfolio. You invest in stuff that you know will deliver in an incremental sort of way, and then you invest in the really high-risk crash or multiply parts of the system. That is very much how one has to think about ARIA.

In that domain, where you have a very high probability of failure—that is what high risk means—but also an extraordinary probability of amazing levels of transformative success, it is a dice roll. The total number of projects will be relatively small, so it is very hard to predict an absolute number or proportion that one would expect, and one should not need to—that is what high risk, high reward means.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Amanda Solloway and Stephen Flynn

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP) [V]]

I am afraid the previous answer simply was not good enough, because we cannot have a situation where some businesses do not have the support that they need while another set of businesses have had absolute certainty since the start of the pandemic—those, of course, being the ones with links to the Tory party; as we now know, they have had Ministers on speed-dial since day one and even a former Prime Minister tried to get in on the act. So does the Minister believe her Government have a culture of covid cronyism at their very heart, and will she now back an independent investigation into apparent lobbying by David Cameron?

[Amanda Solloway]

Throughout the covid-19 pandemic, the Government have supported people and businesses across the United Kingdom. The Budget extends the UK coronavirus job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme and extends the VAT cut to support tourism, leisure and all the sectors. People and businesses all over the United Kingdom will benefit and have benefited from the Government’s actions.