Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Brown of Cambridge Excerpts

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I give my strong support to the government amendments in this group that allow for larger research councils, including an executive, and make it clear that our research can aim just to advance knowledge. I am very much an applied scientist, but I think it is hugely important that people are able do research that is just about moving forward the frontiers of their subject, even if we may not know for many years whether it has any purpose or practical application. I am delighted to see that such a provision has been included. I thank the Minister for not only listening to the comments of noble Lords and the research and innovation community, but responding to them.

I also add my support to Amendments 164A and 166A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, which would add a senior independent member to each council. I encourage the Minister to adopt that approach among the many other excellent improvements that he has already made.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, echo the thanks of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, to the Minister, the Bill team and the honourable Member for Orpington for the fruitful discussions and for listening to the points we raised at earlier stages of the Bill. I strongly support the government amendments in this group. There are two amendments with my name on them, which have already been discussed: on the establishment of an executive committee of the executive chairs of the research councils. I should declare that I am a former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, so I have first-hand experience of this issue.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, both mentioned the importance of Amendment 181, which sets out that one of the research councils’ objectives is the advancement of knowledge. In fact, I would go further and say that the core objective of research is to advance knowledge. The fruits of that may be to improve the economy or quality of life but, as I said at Second Reading, one can never predict where those fruits will grow. I quoted the words of Nobel Prize winner Andre Geim, saying how important the advancement of knowledge for knowledge’s sake was in helping to promote the well-being of society and of the economy.

Amendment 164A concerns a senior independent member. I would have preferred to have a non-executive chair because I know from my own experience as the chief executive of a research council that it is quite hard to fill the roles of both the chair of the board and the proposer of initiatives to the board, but I understand that for various reasons the Government are not willing to go down that road. The role of the senior independent member who can be a mentor to the executive chair, and in difficult circumstances perhaps chair the board if it wishes to take the executive chair to task, is an important addition.

Also from my own experience, I strongly support the notion of lay members on the council as set out in Amendment 165A. There were occasions when I was the chief executive of the NERC when disputes between the warring factions of the academics—the earth scientists, the oceanographers, the ecologists and the atmospheric scientists—became so severe that I had to call upon the lay members to act as brokers in order to resolve them. I can hear the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, laughing at that remark, so obviously he has seen that kind of phenomenon before. The lay members of the research councils will have a key role to play and we should certainly support their inclusion among the 12 board members.

That is all I want to say at this stage, other than to repeat my thanks to the Minister and to noble Lords on these and other Benches with whom I have worked in trying to improve the Bill; I think we have significantly improved this part of it.

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Moved by

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

166: Schedule 9, page 105, line 16, at end insert—
“( ) In the case of Innovate UK, the Council must have a non-executive Chair, and the non-executive Chair and the majority of the Council members must be from science-related business backgrounds.”

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 166 and support the other amendments in this group, which focus primarily on ensuring that Innovate UK—a very important business-facing council which is joining a group of academic research councils in UKRI—retains its unique character, strong business focus and ability to act in different and innovative ways. Innovate UK is, for good reason, a very different organisation to the other research councils.

My Amendment 166 goes beyond the earlier proposal for senior independent members. I was delighted to hear the Minister’s response on that, and I very much welcome the approach he will take on senior independent members. My amendment proposes that Innovate UK retains a non-executive chair and that a person appointed to the role be a senior figure from business.

Most of Innovate UK’s funding goes to companies, not to universities or research institutes. This funding is used to support innovative and strongly product and process-focused research and demonstration. Innovate UK’s support has direct economic benefit and will be all the more critical as we exit the EU, with a change in relationship to the industry-focused programmes of Horizon 2020. Innovate needs to retain its strong business voice, both inside UKRI and, critically, also outside it. That voice will be very much amplified if Innovate is chaired by a leading industrial figure and has a majority of business members on the board. This is the purpose of Amendment 166.

Government Amendments 173 and 183 are enormously welcome, recognising the need for UKRI and Innovate to be able to provide a wide range of forms of support to new products and companies, which could include investing in and forming companies as well as giving grants and loans, reinforcing Innovate’s role in supporting UK business—as indicated in Amendment 183. I beg to move.

[Lord Oxburgh (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 173A. On the face of it, it appears that the provision, under “Supplementary powers”, in paragraph 16(3)(b) of Schedule 9 prevents the research councils from doing a number of things that are important to their fundamental function. Clearly, they should be able to continue to do them. I hope the Minister will be able either to explain to us that this amendment is unnecessary because of provisions elsewhere in the Bill that I have not spotted or to accept that this is something that needs to be changed.

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I hope this reassures the House of two things: first, that we do not intend to inflict any undue process on UKRI and its councils; and, secondly, that they will continue to have delegated autonomy over matters pertaining to their subject areas. In summary for this group addressing Innovate UK and UKRI’s financial freedoms, I kindly request the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

I thank noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate and the Minister for his detailed response. I recognise from what he said that we have a strongly shared objective of retaining the different role and character of Innovate UK. In the light of the government amendments, which go a long way towards doing that, and of his earlier and very positive assurances on an important role for senior independent members of the councils, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 166 withdrawn.