Engineering Biology (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Baroness Brown of Cambridge Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Grand Committee

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[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Science and Technology Committee Don’t fail to scale: seizing the opportunity of engineering biology (1st Report, HL Paper 55).

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to introduce for debate the Science and Technology Committee report entitled Don’t Fail to Scale: Seizing the Opportunity of Engineering Biology. I am looking forward to hearing the contributions from others to the debate, and particularly to the response on behalf of DSIT from the Science Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, when I am hoping we will hear of some progress.

I thank all committee members past and present who participated in the report. This was my last report as chair of the committee, and I am pleased to note that my noble friend Lord Mair, the new chair, will speak later. As ever, much, if not the majority, of the preparation and the quality of this report is down to our excellent committee staff, the clerks John Turner and Matthew Manning, the policy analyst Thomas Hornigold and the committee operations officer, Sid Gurung. We were also very fortunate to be supported by a POST fellow, Benedict Smith.

The inquiry started in May 2020 and published its report in January 2025, with the government response following in March. The inquiry heard from approximately 30 witnesses in person and published 53 pieces of written evidence. Contributors included engineering biology academics, companies, international witnesses and the Government themselves.

What was our motivation for this inquiry? Engineering biology is a rapidly developing field involving the use of tools of synthetic biology to solve practical problems. We chose to conduct this inquiry for two reasons. The first was the promise of the technology. In recent years, our ability to sequence, edit, analyse and synthesise DNA has developed very rapidly thanks to CRISPR machine learning and handheld DNA sequencing. This unlocks applications for synthetic biology in areas such as energy, medicines, manufacturing, agriculture and materials. Biotechnologies could allow us to replace fossil fuels as the feedstock for the production of chemicals and plastics or enable better recycling of rare earth metals from electrical devices. Both could be very important steps in moving towards net zero and to a sustainable, more circular economy.

Everyone seems to be focused on cyber and AI these days, but we must not forget that most technological development requires at some point physical products or actual stuff as well as capabilities in cyberspace. Engineering biology provides us with tools to manipulate atoms in physical space, a critical capability to address many of our key global challenges in sustainability, climate and health.

Secondly, this is an area that the Government have already identified as a priority for the UK. Indeed, it is one of DSIT’s five critical technologies, and the UK has historically had strength in these areas thanks to our life sciences sector and early investments in synthetic biology. The committee agrees with the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, and the Government that this is an area with huge growth potential for the UK. But our inquiry found that the rest of the world is catching up with us and, indeed, potentially overtaking us.

Our report proposed urgent actions that the Government needed to take to address this issue. The Government’s response, while positive in some areas, describing ongoing policies, deferred a lot of details to the spending review and the publication of the industrial strategy, but our overall message is one of urgency. Increasingly, it is one of some anxiety over how science funding will fare in a tough spending review ahead. The Minister himself highlighted that there is a small and closing window of opportunity to realise the benefits to our economy that these technologies can provide—otherwise, we will find ourselves using the products of engineering biology developed elsewhere.

Our report made recommendations around strategy, skills, regulation, infrastructure, investment, adoption, governance, safety and public acceptability. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I will address only some of those points now and leave others, particularly details around scaling up, where the committee has a new inquiry, to be covered by other Members.

On funding, as the Minister we ask the Government to recommit to the previous Government’s target of £2 billion over 10 years. That is not a vast sum in the context of an accelerating global race and the potential benefits of gaining a leading position in some key areas. Let us take biofoundries, for example. These are facilities that allow biotech researchers to prototype and test their ideas rapidly. In 2019, there were 16 facilities worldwide, five of them in the UK. Just five years later, there were 36 facilities worldwide, and still just five of them in the UK. UKRI told us in written evidence that it had funded approximately £700 million in synthetic biology research since 2007. We heard that, in Shenzhen in China, $750 million has been spent on a single biofoundry. We urgently need to see a serious commitment to funding engineering biology R&D, or falling behind will not just be a matter of risk; it will be a matter of fact. However, the Government’s response did not make this commitment, and we must wait until the spending review and DSIT’s ability to allocate its budget. We hear that the Minister is developing plans for long-term R&D spending, which we welcome. Inconsistency is one of the things that allows us to fall behind—but will he be able to commit today to this funding target, or at least let us know when we can expect more details?

On infrastructure, as a result of what one witness described as a “batteries not included” approach, the biofoundries are funded through cost recovery from the researchers who use them and subsidised by the universities that host them. We heard that, in many cases, this makes them too expensive for researchers and start-ups to use; with universities facing their own financial crisis, that is not a sustainable situation. The Government have a manifesto pledge to introduce 10-year funding for key research infrastructure, so can the Minister confirm sustained support for research infrastructure like biofoundries, and that that will be part of this pledge?

Will the Minister also commit to mapping and supporting the existing infrastructure across the university sector and the catapults, including the Centre for Process Innovation, or CPI, to help lower barriers to access? In due course, the sector will need scale-up infrastructure to compete with offers available in Europe and elsewhere. The UK Science and Technology framework said that the UK would have a

“long-term national plan for research and innovation infrastructure”.

Could we have a progress update on this? The Government Office for Science has produced some good research about the sector’s infrastructure needs. Will it be acted on, and can we expect announcements of new research infrastructure for the sector?

A strategy is clearly critical. The Government need a plan for engineering biology as part of their industrial strategy. The committee welcomes the intention to have an industrial strategy that identifies critical technologies that the UK should support. It will also need to mobilise significant investment, in challenging fiscal circumstances, really to move the dial on growth. However, the current consultation suggests that the strategy will focus on eight very broad sectors, of which engineering biology could fit into at least four—“life sciences”, “digital and technologies”, “advanced manufacturing” or “clean energy”—while DSIT’s investment in the area suggests that it could also fit into “defence”. We think it important that there is clarity on how critical foundational technologies such as engineering biology will be supported by the industrial strategy. We need reassurance that they will not get lost because every sector thinks that one of the others is picking it up.

In the light of its broad sectoral focus, can the Minister explain how engineering biology and, more generally, the work of DSIT on critical technologies fit into the industrial strategy approach? Will we see institutions such as the National Wealth Fund, the British Business Bank and British Patient Capital, which aim to support the objectives of the industrial strategy, be upskilled, empowered, enabled and eager to invest in early-stage and scaling companies using novel engineering biology technologies? Will we see a co-ordinated industrial strategy that does not just fund a few projects or sectors but aligns all of the levers—skills training, public and private investment, public procurement, regulation, infrastructure, mandates and incentives—to support engineering biology?

One approach that we think could help is a high-profile national champion for engineering biology. Our committee recommended that a “national sector champion” be appointed to help co-ordinate cross-government efforts. The Government’s response was somewhat coy. They said that sector champions can be useful and that they will “explore the feasibility of” this. Can the Minister make a firmer commitment on a sector champion?

The Minister will, I hope, bear with me now as I move on to what I would call a perennial topic for our committee: visas for scientists and engineers. This is an issue that engineering biology witnesses raised specifically, but so have just about every group of witnesses from whom we have heard in our recent committee inquiries. Here, the Government’s response was the most disappointing. We wrote a letter to the Home Office in January describing the UK’s visa policy towards scientists as an “act of national self-harm”; that may sound harsh, but it reflects what we felt.

By many comparable metrics, UK visa fees are among the highest in the world. We award only a few thousand global talent visas a year to the best and the brightest, but the Royal Society has found that the upfront costs for a global talent visa are in excess of £5,000 per person for the immigration health surcharge alone, rising to £20,000 for a family of four. For around £40 million a year—a rounding error on the NHS budget—we are putting up a huge barrier to exactly the young, talented researchers whom we need to help grow our economy. In some cases, these costs end up being borne by research institutions, eating into the funding available for research. Cancer Research UK wrote to us saying that it will spend £700,000 a year on covering increasing visa costs—that is £700,000 of money donated by the public that will not be spent on cancer research.

We recommend that the UK rethinks its immigration policy for skilled scientific and technical workers, expands the global talent visa and reduces the burden of upfront costs. These are not new ideas; we said the same things to a previous Home Secretary back in 2022 during our people and skills inquiry but, disappointingly, we have not seen any progress. I expect that the Minister agrees with me that this issue needs to be addressed. The Government were elected on a pledge to reduce overall immigration numbers, but does that really require putting up these barriers to people we recognise as global talent?

The recommendations are not new, but the global context is. Thousands of scientists, especially in the biomedical sciences, vaccines, clean energy and climate areas are seeing grants rescinded and positions terminated by the new US Administration. Surveys show that many may wish to relocate to Europe. Other countries have recognised this enormous opportunity: for example, the Spanish Government have boosted US-focused funding for their “Attract” programme to attract and retain science and innovation talent. We urgently need something similar. Will the Minister advocate strongly to his colleagues that our short-sighted approach must end, and we need specific measures in the immigration White Paper to attract the best and brightest scientists to the UK?

To conclude, spending on science and technology is not just a “nice to have”. The UK has had over a decade of slow productivity growth and fifteen years of stagnant wage growth. This is driving instability in our politics and stretching our public services. That is why the Government have a growth mission, and engineering biology can be a sector that drives growth.

Investment, especially in high-growth technology sectors, is the most obvious route out of this. A new report from PwC and GO-Science suggests that half of UK growth over the next decade will come from the advanced technologies of engineering biology and AI. The UK still has advantages in engineering biology, especially with its life sciences pedigree and the NHS, but we are ceding ground in science and technology to other countries. No, the UK is not the US or China—but we nevertheless still have a lot of advantages: an excellent science base with research that remains world-class, universities that attract global talent, significant research infrastructure to build on and a Government that we believe value science.

Above all, however, there is a growing consensus that something urgently needs to change to address this decline. I do not mean to suggest that this is easy. It requires us to prioritise; it requires a well-co-ordinated, long-term and committed strategy across government; it requires us to get the best out of the assets we have; and it requires us to build the capacity of the state and private sector to support science and technology from blue-skies research through to scaled-up industries. The Government’s response has shown some promising signs of policy development and commitment to this technology and wider measures to enable scaling up, but much bolder action is needed. It needs investment in research and development that is stable, focused, and sufficient; investment in people, both trained here and attracted here from overseas; investment in cutting-edge laboratories and facilities with low barriers to access; investment in the research infrastructure that makes discoveries and developments possible; investors, both in government procurement and in the private sector, who are skilled, experienced and empowered to assess the benefits of engineering biology; investment in our regulatory capacity, so it can lead, not follow developments; and investment from the public, pension funds and private sector in companies that scale up in the UK. We know that the Government recognise this opportunity and the areas where action is required: they must now move from recognition to decisive action.

Some will say that we cannot afford to invest in technologies of the future, such as engineering biology, right now. This would be to fall into the same trap the UK has for the last decade or more. The truth is, we cannot afford not to—otherwise, the benefits of engineering biology will be realised elsewhere. That narrow window of opportunity the Minister referred to is closing and we cannot afford to miss it. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

Let me start by thanking all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. We have heard some fascinating speeches; I apologise that I will not mention them all by name, but the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, gave us an absolute masterclass in managing to integrate previous comments into a very interesting speech. I say well done to all noble Lords and hope they will feel that they have therefore been mentioned.

Like others, I am sure, I very much look forward to the Science and Technology Committee’s current inquiry reporting on the situation for scale-ups in the UK and what needs to be done. That will be fascinating, and I wish the committee the very best of luck with it.

I will mention the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, because it was great to hear that the Engineering Biology Regulators Network is not now one of the best-kept state secrets. I congratulate him. The second regulatory sandbox for engineering biology sounds like a very exciting process, and the start of building regulatory capacity in the area, with the funding to the Food Standards Agency, are all very much appreciated. It was very good to hear about them.

I turn briefly to the Minister’s response. There were about four things that I thought were hugely important. The first thing he said was that “we cannot afford not to do this”. He then said, “We must act—and urgently”. We will want to hold him to those remarks, but it is great that he shares our thinking. It was also very encouraging to hear that the CPI is looking to address the affordability of access issue with a 50:50 match-funding programme. It was good to hear that the digital and technology sector 10-year plan includes engineering biology, but including engineering biology in digital and technology simply strengthens my feeling that it needs a national champion, because it will not be the obvious place for some people to put it. It was good to hear that we are approaching a national champion—with small steps—but we are not quite there yet, so I hope that we will hear more about that.

It was also really encouraging to hear the Minister say that the Government and he get the need for a joined-up pipeline to help companies scale, reminding us that the National Wealth Fund can now invest in engineering biology. However, the key question is: does it have the capability to know where to invest in engineering biology? Will it have the confidence to make those decisions?

It was also very exciting to be told that we will hear more about attracting the very best scientists, engineers and technologists from overseas, and that the Chancellor is very committed to easier routes for scientists and technicians to come here. We look forward to hearing more about some of those exciting areas soon.

This is an area where we really need a national strategy. A strategy starts with prioritisation, and lots of noble Lords talked about the importance of that, but it should also cover things such as public engagement, skills, regulation, standards, screening of sequences and concerns and all the other key areas that noble Lords talked about today.

We leave with absolute recognition that the Minister is committed to this, and looking forward to hearing very soon about the industrial strategy and understanding how it will support these critical foundational technologies. Like the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, I hope that the timing of this debate is an indicator of how seriously the Government are taking this.

Motion agreed.