Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

NETPark is an excellent example of how science parks bring together talented communities to turn ideas into global successes. As home to the two of the UK’s Catapult centres, NETPark is playing a vital role in helping us to build back better across the United Kingdom. I would be delighted to visit not just NETPark but the wider north-east, to see how the region is capitalising on its innovation and technology strengths in order to support its local economy and communities. I know that my hon. Friend enjoyed his visit there so much that he went back week after week.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

On Friday I visited Newcastle University’s dementia research centre and spoke to the wonderful scientists striving to cure this terrible affliction. But I also heard of the desperate conditions that early career researchers face, with Government funding commitments abandoned; grants ending as covid devastates medical research charities excluded from Government support; institutes closed as the Government’s international development funding is slashed; and post-docs eking out funding from project to project with no job security, working two jobs at once or working for free, and unable to apply for funding in their own name—and the most disadvantaged are hardest hit. How can the Minister say that she is supporting science when she is throwing the next generation of scientists to the wolves?

[Amanda Solloway]

I always appreciate the hon. Member’s candid questions. She will know that we have been working on the people and culture strategy, which very much takes into account early career research, career progression and all the important things that we need to consider to ensure that our R&D system is really allowed to thrive and flourish. In May we announced funding of £15 million from BEIS, together with a £5 million fund from the Department of Health and Social Care, to support early career researchers, supported by charities, helping to protect the pipeline of research superstars who will have a fantastic impact in improving patients’ lives in future.

Draft Market Surveillance (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2021

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 General Committees

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Rees. I thank the Minister for setting out what the regulations do, and I shall not attempt to repeat what she said.

The regulations introduce enforcement powers and offences that are necessary to give effect to the EU market surveillance regulation in Northern Ireland. As the explanatory memorandum says, they provide “for an effective” and

“proportionate…penalty regime for breaches of the Regulation.”

The EU’s new market surveillance regulation, which comes into effect on 16 July, is designed to provide greater protection to consumers in the face of the challenges posed by e-commerce. The intention is that, by extending compliance checks for products sold online, consumers can be assured that the products that they order online meet EU harmonised standards for health and safety. By virtue of the Northern Ireland protocol to the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement, the market surveillance regulation is directly applicable in Northern Ireland, although certain provisions of the regulation require implementation in domestic legislation, which is what the regulations are designed to do.

Labour will not oppose the regulations, which are designed to provide greater protection to consumers in Northern Ireland and are required to meet the UK’s legal commitments under the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol. However, I want to raise a small number of important issues on which I would welcome the Minister’s assurances.

First, it is clear that the implementation of the EU market surveillance regulation in Northern Ireland will have an impact on British businesses, especially those that sell their products online from Great Britain directly to consumers in Northern Ireland. As the Minister said, GB business will need an economic operator established in Northern Ireland for compliance activities if they want to sell goods into Northern Ireland. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) set out the situation very well in a debate on another statutory instrument when he said:

“Brexit was sold as being an end to red tape—nobody said it would be replaced with all this red, white and blue tape that we are debating today.”—[Official Report, Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee, 24 June 2021; c. 5.]

Given the additional obligations on British businesses that want to continue to sell their goods across this United Kingdom, will the Minister assure us that the Government will continue to provide all advice and guidance necessary to ensure that all British businesses are prepared for this new obligation when the regulation comes into force in less than two weeks? Targeted support might be required, and we will be watching carefully to ensure that businesses are not adversely affected by the changes after 16 July. Unfortunately, businesses have been affected adversely by an increase in bureaucracy and red tape, and in their complexity, as a consequence of the withdrawal agreement.

Secondly, the Government have suggested in guidance that the enforcement of the market surveillance regulation in Northern Ireland will be

“proportionate, risk-based and intelligence-led”,

minimising disruption to businesses. They go on to suggest that regulatory checks on goods entering Northern Ireland will continue to take place by exception, and only when there is a high level of risk. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy says that goods going into Northern Ireland from Great Britain have a low risk profile and therefore will not be routinely subject to inspection, but given current tensions over the Northern Ireland protocol and uncertainties about its implementation, will the Minister clarify the extent to which that approach has been agreed with the European Union? Is there an agreement that goods arriving into Great Britain will not be routinely subject to regulatory checks?

We are in a bizarre situation when I have to even ask this question, but is the application of the market surveillance regulation in Northern Ireland a protocol commitment that the Government support, or a matter that they wish to reopen with the European Union? Businesses and consumers throughout the United Kingdom need and deserve clarity.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

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

[Stephen Flynn]

I think it absolutely fits that point. Of course, there could be new solutions that we are not aware of at this moment. On Second Reading, the hon. Member made a similar point, and I said that he should not be so narrow in his view of climate change because to meet net zero we need to operate in a vast landscape. The Government do not seem to be acknowledging that through ARIA. To repeat myself, I believe that that is a missed opportunity.

The Government will point to their energy White Paper and point to the 10-point plan, and perhaps they will point to the North sea transition deal in terms of their aims in relation to combating climate change. That is fair and reasonable, but—notwithstanding the arguments we might have on those points, of which there are many—it does not mean that we stop there, particularly in the year of COP26. I urge Government Members to reflect on that as we move forward in the debate.

That covers amendment 1, which we hope to press later, but we have tabled other amendments. Perhaps the clearest, and the one that needs to be debated in this Chamber, notwithstanding what I have already said, relates to scrutiny—the fact that the Government have sought to put ARIA outwith the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It is no longer going to be applicable to public procurement regulations. That is simply unacceptable and there is no justification for it.

I listened closely to what the Minister had to say in that regard in Committee and on Second Reading, and I have read on numerous occasions remarks made in relation to that point by those on the Government Benches, yet I simply do not understand the logic of why they are doing this. From looking at DARPA, we know that there are 40-odd freedom of information requests—40-odd for DARPA, which is on a scale vastly superior to that of ARIA—yet the Government still seek to move away from that scrutiny. From a public perspective, that does no one any favours. I am sure that, if the Government had their time back, they might do things differently, because ultimately this benefits nobody. All it does is create more clouds of suspicion around what the Government’s activities are.

That ties in with our amendment 2, which relates to cronyism and the need to avoid it. The Government’s record and reputation over the last year and a half have been deplorable. The hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) shakes his head, but that is the reality. There is a reason that his Prime Minister is so disliked and distrusted in Scotland: it is what we have seen over the pandemic—not just from the Prime Minister himself, but from his Ministers and friends, the donors, and the family members who have benefited from contracts. What we do not want to see—what we cannot see—is ARIA becoming a vehicle for that to happen. Our amendment would clearly stop that.

On FOI and procurement regulations, the Labour party has said something similar to us, just with a lot more words. It is within the Labour party’s gift to do so, although I am not quite sure why it did not just agree with us. It can do so on occasion; we will not take it personally.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for his kind words. Of course, the SNP amendments were simply agreeing with Labour’s amendments during Committee. We sought to improve—as we should do—from Committee to Report.

[Stephen Flynn]

If I heard that correctly, the Labour party is not agreeing with the amendments that it tabled in Committee and that the SNP has agreed to at this point in time, so it had to add more words. But I suppose that is the nature of this place.

That takes me to transparency and scrutiny, and a key token and standpoint of those on the Government Benches: to take back control. I do not suspect that they will agree to the SNP’s view on a mission for ARIA. That being the case, the mission—to all intents and purposes, what ARIA seeks to do—will be determined by the chair and chief executive officer. They will decide what happens. In that regard, the House will, of course, have no say and we suggest that the House should have a say. It is important that this place has a role to play in the process. I would be incredibly surprised if Members who fought so hard to take back control did not seek to have their say on such matters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

It is a pleasure and honour to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I am certain that the current Conservative Government could benefit enormously from her championing and promotion of an industrial strategy, and I hope that they are listening.

I thank all those who worked so hard to improve this Bill in Committee, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), for Luton North (Sarah Owen) and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), as well as the Clerks and House of Commons staff for their excellent support.

It is vital that we get the Advanced Research and Invention Agency right. Today we will hear many Members—although not as many as we had thought—raise a wide range of important issues such as climate change, regional and national economic development, international development and democratic accountability, but at the heart of this debate is science, which now plays such a critical part in all our lives.

The UK has a proud tradition in science, engineering, innovation, research and development. We are renowned across the world for scientific breakthroughs and discoveries that pushed humanity forwards. From the discovery of penicillin to the invention of Stephenson’s Rocket in my constituency of Newcastle upon Tyne Central, again and again UK scientists pushed forward the boundaries of knowledge, shrinking the vast expanse of ignorance, which, as this pandemic has shown, may threaten humanity’s very existence.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend refers to some of that world-beating research. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on HIV and AIDS. There has been a great degree of concern among some of our global health all-party groups about the cuts that were and are coming to global health research. I totally support the amendments that we have tabled on climate change; there is also a critical link between climate change and global health. Does my hon. Friend agree that we absolutely need to continue that world-beating research, because it has so many benefits for health not just globally, but in this country too?

[Chi Onwurah]

I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend’s all-party parliamentary group, with which I am quite familiar. I wholeheartedly agree with him about the importance of that research, and about the link between that important research and this agency. I will develop that point further in a few moments.

As hon. Members have indicated, UK science is not only inspiring; it can also be groundbreaking and is a key economic driver. Our university research base alone contributes £95 billion to the economy, supporting nearly 1 million jobs in scientific institutes, charities and businesses of all sizes. Research by Oxford Economics commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy found that each £1 of public research and development—such as the money to be spent on ARIA—stimulates between £1.96 and £2.34 of private research and development, and we cannot recover from the pandemic without inspiring and initiating more private sector investment in research and development. Together, private and public sector research can help to address the key challenges facing humanity—from climate change to inequality, from pandemics to productivity.

That brings us very neatly to the broken promises of this Conservative Government on overseas development aid, as raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), and how that betrays the poorest among us and the critical challenges faced by us all. With over £4.1 billion slashed from overseas development aid, the £120 million cut from science and research programmes may appear minor, but that has already had a devastating impact on science here and abroad. Cutting funding from global challenges research fund hubs, for example, threatens researchers at Newcastle University in my constituency, as well as scientists in developing countries working together on water security. These cuts are a consequence of the Government’s decision to scrap the legally binding 0.7% of GDP target for overseas development aid.

New clause 4 tabled by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), which sought to reverse that decision, has not been selected for debate, though a debate on the issue may follow; certainly, the debate is not going away. Particularly in relation to ARIA and the amendments before us, it is really important to emphasise that for UK science, research and credibility, these cuts have a significant impact. The UK has been the only G7 country to cut aid in the middle of a pandemic, and in so doing it has united hon. and right hon. Members across this House who are horrified by the harm done—harm such as, in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, in Yemen, slashing aid by 60% without conducting an impact assessment, and harm such as cutting bilateral funding on water, sanitation and hygiene—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I would like the hon. Lady to return to the Bill.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, because that is exactly the point to which I am going—to the amendments. Just to say that the funding for coronavirus research, which is the kind of world-beating or leading research that we would hope ARIA will be looking at, has been cut by 70%, which will kill the project. A Government happy to withdraw support for vital research projects across the globe are not a Government who wish to act in the best interests of science, the country or the world.

On ARIA itself, we have many serious concerns. We recognise the need for new mechanisms to support high-risk, high-reward research in our science sector, and as such ARIA is a step in the right direction. ARIA can transform our scientific landscape and we can build an institution that furthers our societal aims for decades to come, but we have concerns, which our amendments seek to address, about the lack of direction, strategy and accountability in the Government’s current proposals. Without such improvements, we fear that the agency could be used to pursue vanity projects disconnected from the public interest.

The first major issue with the Bill is the absence of a mission for ARIA, which has already been raised. What is ARIA for and what is it working towards? Labour’s amendment 12 would require ARIA to have a specific mission for ARIA’s first decade, and we want that mission to be climate change.

[Richard Fuller]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for reverting to items that are in order today. On amendment 12, she mentioned that that should be the “core mission”. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) talked about its being part of a bigger whole, but it is still a relatively small amount of money. Does the amendment mean that that is the only mission? Essentially, when she says “core mission”, what she means is the only mission and the agency cannot do anything else other than that for 10 years.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for seeking to aid Madam Deputy Speaker in determining what is in order. I am not sure whether that was necessary.

On the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, I fail to see why he thinks that pedantry can make up for a lack of argument. Climate change is a core mission. We are not seeking to hem in the agency with absolute linguistic barriers for what exactly should be done, but we want it to have a direction. We want to know where it is going and what it is seeking to do. The core mission, as I intend to set out in detail, will be climate change. I do not intend to limit its interpretation of climate change, but I will set out the reasons why climate change will be its core mission.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

As the hon. Lady will recall, we had similar debates in Committee. Does she completely dismiss the idea that the mission is to find cutting-edge science, to explore it, and to go where no other agency is willing to go at the moment, because they will have to follow too many metrics to prove their effectiveness? That is its mission. This agency does not have to have a mission beyond trying to find something exciting, new and potentially really beneficial to mankind.

[Chi Onwurah]

I have a huge amount of respect for the hon. Gentleman, but I fundamentally disagree with him on this issue. To go where no one has gone before is not a mission or a direction; it is a deliberate absence of direction. I spoke earlier about the vast expanse of ignorance that can present us with huge, existential challenges. The history of science has been about trying to reduce that huge expanse of ignorance, and for us to leave ARIA without any mission or direction in addressing that vast expanse of ignorance that is before us will severely limit its likelihood of success. That, together with other aspects of the Bill with regard to accountability and transparency, leave it open to cronyism as well as other issues.

[Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)]

The hon. Lady talked about lessons learned from the pandemic. May I ask her to think about the fact that we were prepared for a flu pandemic but not a coronavirus pandemic? By stating that we have to have a core aim or principle for the ARIA Bill, is she not heading for the same problem? She says that this agency must be focused on environmental matters, but if something else were to come along of equal importance, would we not have limited ARIA already?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, which gives me the opportunity to clarify again that the difference between a flu virus and a coronavirus virus may be significant in medical terms, but it is not what we are talking about. We are talking about climate change—the existential challenge. We are not saying that it should be one part of climate change. To say that it is like preparing for one virus as against another virus is not an equivalent comparison. This is a much vaster challenge. Indeed, I think that she answered her own question. If something more important than climate change comes along in the next 10 years, with climate change being the existential challenge of our times, we would have significant issues to face as a Parliament. If she can think of something more important than climate change coming along in the next 10 years, would she like to intervene on me and suggest what that might be?

[Dawn Butler]

The UK Government have set the most ambitious climate change target, which is to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035. Would it not be ridiculous if ARIA were to pursue something that undid that good work?

[Chi Onwurah]

Absolutely. As my hon. Friend says, the UK has set the most ambitious climate change target, but the Committee on Climate Change has said that the Government are currently on course to miss their manifesto commitment of achieving net zero by 2050. Amendment 12 aims to support the Government in that mission.

I now wish to make some significant progress in my comments, so I will not take any more interventions for a while. The lack of mission is a concern shared by many. The renowned economist Mariana Mazzucato suggested during the evidence sessions that achieving net zero should be ARIA’s mission. The Secretary of State said that ARIA needs a “laser-like focus”, but failed to provide it. The Institute of Physics said that a clear mission is “essential”, and the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) raised concerns about ARIA’s lack of focus and purpose. The president of the Royal Society said that

“£800 million is not a large sum of money, so if we have a plethora of missions, then I think we will go wrong. ARIA has to have focus of mission and a commitment to the model over the long-term”.––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 63, Q62.]

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Fifth sitting)

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 3, page 2, line 20, at end insert—

“(2) On or before the date that an annual report is laid before Parliament in accordance with paragraph 15(4) of Schedule 1, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament, and publish, a statement containing the required information about details of funding and ARIA’s tolerance to failure.

(3) In this section, the required information about ARIA’s tolerance to failure is—

(a) how this section has been interpreted by ARIA during the relevant financial year,

(b) the number and value of projects funded by ARIA which have been terminated or disbanded on the grounds of failure during the relevant financial year, and

(c) details of ARIA’s funding in the relevant financial year and its proportion of Government research and development expenditure.”.

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make an annual statement regarding ARIA’s tolerance to failure.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. Before I speak to amendment 19, I want to say that that in the intervening time between the previous sitting and today, I have managed to break my foot, which was truly an achievement, given that all I was doing was running. If I am not as quick to rise as I would otherwise be, I hope you will be forgiving, Mr Twigg. The Minister said on Tuesday that the Advanced Research and Invention Agency might contribute to being able to “Beam me up, Scotty!” That would have been highly desirable as I tried to make my way into this place this morning. I am sure we wish ARIA luck in that. I am grateful to everyone for their indulgence as I deal with my new-found injury.

Amendment 19 would require that the Secretary of State makes an annual statement about ARIA’s tolerance to failure, in order to provide greater oversight and responsibility. It is very much in keeping with all the amendments that the Opposition have tabled. It is a constructive amendment that seeks to ensure that ARIA’s mission, when it has one, and its workings are understood by the public in general and that we have the right oversight to ensure that ARIA is not in any way subject to or tainted by the sleaze that is all too common and evident in the current Government’s procurement dealings with their mates. We believe that it is right that ARIA should be given operational independence from Government. We support the idea of specifying that it has a high tolerance to risk and failure, but the challenge is to establish what that tolerance is and to ensure that it is scrutinised properly and that there is public understanding of it.

We believe that ARIA should have a high-risk appetite, but we need greater clarity in order to understand how that appetite will be determined, calibrated and explained, and how Ministers will be accountable for ARIA’s failure and success with public money. That is critical and it was a theme of the evidence sessions that, if we are to maintain public support, we must be open and honest about ARIA’s tolerance to failure.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good introduction to today’s proceedings. I express my sympathy to her for having to stand up and sit down; I will not make her do it too often.

The evidence sessions brought some of this out, but does she agree that attitudes to failure in our country are very different from those in America in particular, which is where we are learning lessons from in establishing the agency? Given that, does she also agree that this is a particularly important amendment? The British attitude towards failures is not very tolerant; we do not necessarily view them as being positive. There is a risk here because unless we get this right, it will be difficult for those establishing the agency to be able to explain what they are doing to a wider audience.

[The Chair]

Ms Onwurah, if it becomes uncomfortable standing, please remain seated.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you, Mr Twigg. I will do that. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge for expressing his sympathy. It is always a pleasure to give way to his interventions because he makes such excellent points. Indeed, his point about the differences in culture was brought out in the evidence session, particularly by Professor Glover from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, who said that

“the biggest challenge might be—this will help in engaging with citizens—being up front right at the very beginning that we expect failure, and that failure is part of the measure of success for an agency like ARIA, because if you were not taking any risks, you would not get any failure. The challenge is that, culturally in the UK, and quite differently, I think, from North America, we see failure through an emotional lens, not a scientific lens, whereas I think the opposite is the case in North America. We need to think about that. In a way, just talking about it and saying that that is the case makes it easier for people to understand that we need to fail in order to get the big rewards.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 61, Q58.]

That goes to my hon. Friend’s point and to the heart of this amendment. We have a cultural difference here in the UK. As someone who has worked in technology in the UK, France and the US, it is very noticeable to me that in the US, for example, a failure is a mark of experience from which one will go on to succeed better, whereas here a failure is intoned in negative headlines and comments.

I am sure the Minister will agree that in order for ARIA to have public support we need to change that culture. By seeking an annual statement on ARIA’s tolerance of failure, our amendment would make a significant contribution and help the public understand the importance of failure. When ARIA fails, there will be headlines saying that public money has been wasted. Certain newspapers, and perhaps even certain politicians, may say that. Would there not be support for both ARIA and the Secretary of State, whoever that may be, if the successes of this high-risk agency were mapped and placed in the context of the failures from which they directly stem?

Our amendment will provide details of the funding provided to high-risk research compared with public investment in wider science and research, so that the public can better understand the proportion of research funding going to this high-risk, high-reward investment. Without public buy-in, it will be very difficult to ensure long-term support for ARIA. Indeed, a consistent theme of the science community’s response to public funding is that it needs to be long term. The amendment would help to ensure that ARIA is not disabled, as it were, at the first failure. We recognise, and this was said in the evidence sessions, that there is a very high probability that ARIA will have a high number of failures, even if the level of failure is difficult to predict.

We want the Minister to be responsible for ARIA’s failures. Although the agency must act independently, this is public money, so there needs to be parliamentary and ministerial accountability for it. In particular, we do not want to see ARIA’s chief executive, whoever that may be, politically abandoned at the first failure. The amendment would help to ensure that accountability and wider understanding are there from the very beginning.

Dame Ottoline Leyser of UK Research and Innovation said:

“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.––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 12, Q7.]

We understand that we cannot predict the levels of failure, but by measuring and reporting on them, and by ensuring that there is a wider public understanding of them, we can help to begin cultural change, as well as ensure the long-term support for high-risk, high-reward research, which ARIA so fundamentally needs.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)]

May I start by saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg? I wish my colleague the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central well. In fact, I was just reflecting that if we were on the Star Trek Enterprise, we could have beamed her up and Dr McCoy could have sorted her out.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her very kind remarks. I probably should have said earlier that the NHS, and the Royal Free Hospital, which treated me, showed all the support, kindness and innovation that Bones in “Star Trek” would have done.

[The Chair]

We need to come back to the business now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her remarks. We agree on the need for ARIA and for high-risk, high-reward research, but perhaps we differ on whether the publish share an understanding of that need. There are also, unfortunately, the realities of the environment in which we live: our culture does not have a high tolerance of failure. We truly believe that it is incumbent on us as parliamentarians and leaders to take what steps we can to help transform the situation and to not leave ARIA alone, so that we can all better understand the role that failure will play.

I am reluctant to detain the Committee. This was meant to be a constructive amendment, but if it has not met with the approval of the Minister, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Amanda Solloway]

It is absolutely vital that ARIA operates at the cutting edge of science and technology, and I have consistently heard from the scientific community that ARIA must tolerate the risk of failure to succeed. This idea gets to the very heart of what ARIA is about and on Second Reading there was also cross-party support for it, too.

ARIA will set highly ambitious research goals, which, if they are achieved, will bring about transformative scientific and technological advances, and those advances could also yield significant economic and social benefits. It follows that, as these goals are expected to be highly ambitious, it is likely that only a small fraction of them will be fully realised as originally intended, which will necessarily require a high tolerance of failure. For example, it might be that when some failures are judged over a longer time horizon, they will lead to unexpected successful outcomes. Clause 3 allows ARIA, in exercising its functions, to give particular weight to ambitious research, development and exploitation, which carry a high risk of failure.

I will just say a few words about failure. Although ambitious goals might not ultimately be achieved, ARIA will generate value from project failures. For example, a particular goal may not prove technologically viable, but in pursuing it scientists may happen across another promising technology or develop a new method of data collection. There is also value to be had in knowing what does not work, as well as in the successes.

ARIA is also expected to be a convener of high-calibre individuals and organisations from across the public and private sectors, which otherwise might not have been brought together. However, ARIA is not just about ambitious research goals. Clause 3 also allows ARIA to take greater risks in the form of the support it provides, including the use of innovation funding mechanisms. For example, clause 3 provides ARIA with the potential to take equity stakes in start-up ventures for the purpose of developing and exploiting scientific research.

That approach also extends to funding research and development that is untested and untried, and not necessarily peer-reviewed, which is a clear dividing line between ARIA and other public research and development funders, such as UK Research and Innovation. For ARIA to be a fruitful addition to the R&D funding landscape, it must be able to pursue truly ambitious targets and to support them in a novel and sometimes risky way. It must not be scared of failure, and clause 3 seeks to enable that mindset and approach.

[Chi Onwurah]

We recognise that clause 3 is essential to enabling and empowering ARIA and ARIA executives in tolerating failure. That is part of ARIA, and the clause has our support.

On the exercising of functions in the Bill, following our debate on an amendment debated in the previous sitting, the Minister kindly sent me a letter about how the Secretary of State might consider removing the chair from their position. I thank the Minister for her comments that set out the way in which the chair might be removed. I point out that our amendment would have given powers to remove an executive member and the Bill only gives powers to remove a non-executive member, which is the issue we were concerned about.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 accordingly order to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

Grants to ARIA from the Secretary of State

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Amanda Solloway]

Clause 4 creates a power for the Secretary of State to fund ARIA. The Committee will be aware that the Government have committed to funding ARIA with £800 million up to financial year 2024-25. The clause allows the Secretary of State to attach conditions to the grants made to ARIA, which will be set out in the framework document and funding delegation letter, which are agreed between my Department and ARIA. The documents will be drafted and agreed with ARIA’s senior leadership team ahead of ARIA becoming operational in 2022.

The documents will complement the Bill, setting the broad parameters within which ARIA can operate and ensuring appropriate use of public money. It is a requirement for arm’s-length bodies of Government Departments to have these arrangements in place. I will be exceptionally mindful that we do not tie ARIA up in knots with endless Government approval processes, as that would run counter to what ARIA is about, but some parameters must be put in place to safeguard the use of public money.

For example, I have spoken about the importance of providing ARIA’s high-calibre programme managers with the freedom to experiment with a toolkit of funding methods in a way that best suits the programme goals and that does not always fund the usual suspects. As the policy statement sets out, that may include the use of inducement prizes, grant-prize hybrids and seed grants, taking equity stakes and so on. Some of ARIA’s activities could be subject to delegation levels, which limit the amount of a single type of activity, for example. The ability to attach conditions to grants paid by the Secretary of State to ARIA will set the appropriate framework within which ARIA can then freely determine its activities and funding choices without ministerial interference.

Clause 4 is as significant in what it does not say as in what it does. Unlike the corresponding clause in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, clause 4 does not include a direction-making power regarding the allocation or expenditure of ARIA. This is important because the funding decision-making power should rest with ARIA, not Ministers. Clause 4, in allowing ARIA to be funded, is essential to its functioning and should stand part of the Bill.

[Chi Onwurah]

As the Minister said, clause 4 enables the Secretary of State to make grants to ARIA. It is clearly essential—what is the point of an agency that is not able to receive funds? While we do not oppose the clause, however, we are concerned about the general tone and language in the discussion of the way in which grants and funding will be made available to ARIA.

The Minister talked about not burdening ARIA with bureaucracy. At this time, there are a number of investigations into accusations of sleaze and the inappropriate ways that funding has been made available to the mates of different Secretaries of State. Funding and procurement have been carried on through WhatsApp groups, rather than through the normal procurement procedures, for example. I believe that the clause would have benefited from setting out more robustly the importance of the procedures, which are to be agreed, as well as the importance of what the Minister calls “bureaucracy” in enabling and ensuring trust, which is so very important for this agency.

In the debate on Tuesday, the Minister talked about a “different model of trust” for ARIA. I put on the record that the Opposition believe strongly that it is not the model of trust that is wrong, but the way in which it is being followed or implemented by this Government. We believe that the current model of trust needs to be supported in relation to ARIA and in all funding and procurement decisions.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

National Security Directions

[Chi Onwurah]

I beg to move amendment 20, in clause 5, page 2, line 33, at end insert—

“(4) The Secretary of State must, in relation to each financial year—

(a) prepare a report in accordance with this section, and

(b) provide a copy of it to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament as soon as is practicable after the end of that period.

(5) Each report must provide details of—

(a) any directions made under this section in the relevant financial year, and

(b) the nature of the national risks posed which triggered the making of the directions.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to prepare and provide to the ISC an annual report on any directions made under this section.

It is a great pleasure to move this amendment, which proposes an essential addition to the Bill. It would require the Secretary of State to prepare and provide to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament an annual report on any direction made under the clause. I remind the Committee that clause 5 states that

“(1) The Secretary of State may give ARIA directions as to the exercise of its functions if the Secretary of State considers it necessary or expedient in the interests of national security. (2) The power to give directions under this section includes power to vary or revoke a direction. (3) ARIA must comply with a direction given under this section.”

We in the Labour party are very clear that we are the party of national security—[Interruption.] Would anybody like to intervene? Let me say it again: we are the party of national security, and we believe that it is vital that decisions taken by the Government reflect our national security interests. That is clearly in the interests of the nation. The first duty of any Government, of any colour, is to keep our nation secure, and we are very pleased that the Bill recognises the importance of national security. Indeed, we are often concerned that, at times, it seems that this Government place business interests, particularly foreign investment, ahead of national security.

Obviously, national security is an important consideration, but the issue and the challenge here is that, under the Bill as drafted, those directions cannot be subject to adequate parliamentary scrutiny. I am reluctant to remind the Committee again, but the Government are in the midst of a cronyism scandal. The Bill places power and responsibility in the hands of the Secretary of State, with little ongoing accountability generally. Part of our constructive approach to the Bill is to try to ensure that there is appropriate scrutiny provision throughout the Bill, particularly given that it was drafted before the cronyism scandal that has had such an impact on the public’s trust in procurement, funding and other decisions taken by this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I am intrigued by the amendment, because on the one hand, the Opposition were very keen with amendment 15 that ARIA’s mission be to drive the net zero agenda; on the other hand, this amendment would require the Secretary of State to report to the ISC. Can she explain where she thinks a report on the potential for net zero to the ISC would be necessary and what it would achieve?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which I hope does not reflect a lack of understanding of the ways in which science research and our national interest work. On national security, a direction could be given to ARIA not to work in nuclear energy with a Government whose interests did not align with our own, for example. That is quite a relevant example, because we know that, rather than investing in it themselves—even though interest rates are so low at the moment—the Government have welcomed, and even encouraged, investment in our nuclear energy by the Chinese. Some kind of direction might well be given on that basis. There are many ways in which climate change is essential to our national security, so I do not think that example was very well chosen.

More generally, if the hon. Member is asking how trade-offs between national security and other priorities should be made, which is a very important question, we have already said that we believe in national security, and national security should always be the priority. However, when such a direction is made for reasons of national security, which we support, the fact is that we will not know why it was made. Perhaps that is right, because if it is an issue of national security, those concerns should not be shared publicly; none the less, somebody needs to scrutinise them. I hope everybody on this Committee will agree that someone in Parliament should be scrutinising decisions on national security, particularly when those decisions are taken by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. As I have already said, neither the Department nor the Secretary of State has long experience of making national security decisions.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I fully take the point made by the hon. Member for North Norfolk, but we Opposition Members have a degree of prescience in being able to predict the way that votes in this Committee might go. We anticipated that the Government might not accept our suggestion about giving ARIA this mission. Does not that the lack of a mission create this further problem? If we had had that clear mission around climate, this would be far less of an issue.

[Chi Onwurah]

Once again, my hon. Friend raises an excellent point, and indeed he brings together the themes of our amendments. He is right to say that if ARIA had a clear mission, there would be better understanding of the kinds of decisions and trade-offs that might well need to be made, and we could have a much better informed discussion around that. However, the fact is that we have neither a mission for ARIA, nor any opportunity to scrutinise the national security directives that might be made in the interests of addressing climate change, but also might be made in the interests of ensuring that we have oil drilling rights, or that we continue to fund minerals extraction around the world in order to support other research objectives. It is clear to us that we need to have this scrutiny.

As I indicated, there have been a number of debates on Intelligence and Security Committee scrutiny of other Departments, including in relation to the National Security and Investment Bill and the Telecommunications (Security) Bill. In those cases, despite that Committee being keen to scrutinise national security decisions, the Government have shown a great reluctance to allow parliamentary scrutiny of issues of national security. Some believe—I am not one of those cynical people—that this is because the Government are not happy with Parliament’s choice of Chair of the ISC. I am loath to believe that the Government would be so petty when it comes to such an important matter as national security, so I hope the Minister will clarify how we will have appropriate scrutiny of national security decisions made by the Secretary of State, as set out in this Bill, and why the ISC is not the right vehicle for that.

I will finish with two brief quotes in support of the amendment. In the National Security and Investment Bill Committee, we had the great privilege of taking evidence from Richard Dearlove, former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service.

He said:

“My view would be that the annual report has as much transparency as possible, but you are probably going to require a secret annexe from time to time. It is a bit like the reports of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which I dealt with frequently as chief. They and we were keen that they should publish their reports, but there comes a point where it is not in our national interest that some of this stuff is put in the public domain.”

––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, 24 November 2020; c. 21, Q23.]

That is the case here as well.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has said:

“I do not want to give the impression that the ISC is looking for work, because I have been a member for a number of years and we are busy with a lot of inquiries—I have three or four hours’ reading every week looking through reports from the agencies. However, it is important that the ISC can at least look at the intelligence that lies behind decisions.”––[Official Report, Telecommunications (Security) Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2021; c. 143.]

That is all that we are seeking to achieve through this amendment.

[Amanda Solloway]

Amendment 20 would require the Secretary of State to provide a report to the Intelligence and Security Committee at the end of each financial year detailing directions made by the Secretary of State to ARIA in the interests of national security and the national security risks that triggered the directions.

The Government take very seriously their duty to protect the national security of the country and its citizens. The ISC plays a valuable role in providing scrutiny and expertise in respect of its functions, as set out in the Justice and Security Act 2013 and the statutory memorandum of understanding. However, that remit does not extend to oversight of BEIS work.

I do not see any reason why such a report should be necessary. No such arrangements exist with UKRI through the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. Instead, the organisation has robust national security arrangements in place to ensure that appropriate action is taken. Similar arrangements will be put in place as ARIA becomes operational, and we are speaking with the relevant parts of Government to make sure that that is the case.

The clause reflects the fact that, while ARIA will be free from ministerial interference, we will always act on our responsibility to protect our national security. Information made known to the Secretary of State will be fed into the wider work of the Government to protect UK R&D from national security risks as appropriate. I see no case for ARIA to report on that to the ISC. I urge the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her comments, but she has not responded to the underlying and constructive aim of the amendment, which is to ensure that the ISC has sight of intelligence and security decisions.

She makes a comparison with UKRI. This agency is about high-risk, high-reward research, which we are told will be transformative. During many of our National Security and Investment Bill Committee debates, the point was raised that the nature of national security threats is changing and, as we heard numerous times in evidence, has moved, and is moving, very much into the technological domain. The question whether or not we play a leading role in artificial intelligence, for example, is an issue of national security, as are our cyber defences, which I am sure any chief executive of ARIA would be keen to look at. The agency needs the kind of intelligence scrutiny that only the Intelligence and Security Committee can give. On that basis, I would like to press the amendment to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

Clause 5 creates a power for the Secretary of State to give directions to ARIA regarding the exercising of its functions that are considered necessary or expedient in the interests of national security. It is right that ARIA is free from too much ministerial oversight. However, when it comes to questions of national security, Ministers may intervene to prevent risk to the UK’s national security interests.

The necessary and expedient threshold of clause 5 offers adequate protection and limits the possibility of ministerial overreach, owing to a more broadly defined power. The direction-making power with which ARIA must comply can be general—for example, a direction not to conduct research in conjunction with partners from a particular jurisdiction that poses a threat to the United Kingdom’s national security—or specific: for example, a direction to terminate a specific contract.

Subsection (2) states that the directions include the

“power to vary or revoke”,

which is to say that directions can be altered or withdrawn depending on how the national security risk develops or subsides.

I would like to take this opportunity to assure the Committee that my team are working hard to ensure that ARIA is set up with national security risks front of mind. That ranges from reducing the risk of cyber-attacks, to ensuring that ARIA is plugged to the appropriate Whitehall national security networks. This work complements a direct-making power in the Bill.

[Chi Onwurah]

As I have said, Labour is the party of national security.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

The hon. Lady has said on a number of occasions that Labour is the party of national security. I would be very interested to hear her views about what date it became the party of national security. If my memory serves me right, Sir Richard Dearlove, to whom the hon. Lady has referred approvingly, said that the former leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), was a personal risk to national security, particularly if he ever got the keys to No. 10. He said:

“Do not even think of handing this politician the keys to No10.”

If that was the Labour party’s approach under his leadership, at what stage did it change its mind about national security?

[Chi Onwurah]

I am really disappointed in the hon. Gentleman for trying to make our national security an issue of party politics, and in particular for quoting a supposed critique of politicians by our intelligence service from previous years. I do not think that such comments have a place in this debate. We have elected leaders. I could go into a long list of quotations about our current Prime Minister and the concerns that he raises in many people’s minds, including from when he was Foreign Secretary.

[The Chair]

I think we should stick to the business at hand.

[Chi Onwurah]

I recognise that, Mr Twigg, but let us be clear. When I say that we are the party of national security, it is also what the shadow Secretary of State for Defence and my party leader say. That is a statement, and I really do not think it was appropriate of the hon. Member for Broadland to try to undermine the unity on both sides of the House with regard to the importance of national security. I fear that that is what he was trying to do.

As I was saying, Labour is the party of national security and believes strongly in the importance of the Secretary of State’s ability to give directions informed by national security. However, I feel that the Minister has yet to set out how those directions will be scrutinised. That remains a significant concern for the Opposition if we are to be sure that those directions are really driven by our national security interests and if we are to give the scrutiny that ensures continuing public confidence. However, given the importance of national security, we will clearly not be opposing clause 5.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6

Information

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I beg to move amendment 27, in clause 6, page 2, line 38, at end insert—

“(2) ARIA must provide relevant Select Committees of the House of Commons and the House of Lords with such information as the Select Committees may request.”

This amendment is intended to allow relevant parliamentary Select Committees to access information in order to scrutinise the value for money provided by ARIA.

I will not say a huge amount about the amendment, which pretty much speaks for itself. As ARIA is not subject to freedom of information, I think it incredibly important that there should be a commitment from the Minister that ARIA will provide information to Select Committees if they request it. If the Minister will stand up and say that ARIA will of course provide information to Select Committees, I will withdraw my amendment post haste.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

Clause 6 focuses on the Secretary of State’s information rights with respect to ARIA. The Secretary of State may request information relating to his or her functions—for example, information required to determine the Government’s funding of ARIA, to make national security directions, or for the appointment or removal of board members. It is important that the Secretary of State has the information that he or she requires to perform relevant functions.

The information rights remain limited compared with the other arm’s length bodies of Government Departments. The Bill does not allow the Secretary of State to request ARIA’s strategy or delivery plan, for example, as the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 does with respect to UKRI. A limited set of information rights is an important feature of maintaining ARIA’s independence from Government, and it also helps the body to be an agile organisation that can focus on high-risk, high-reward research.

I remind the Committee that this is not the extent of the information provided by ARIA. As we have discussed with respect to schedule 1, for example, ARIA must also send a copy of its statement of accounts and annual report to the Secretary of State, to be laid before Parliament. It is also in the gift of the Secretary of State to oblige ARIA to make other types of information available—via the framework document, for example—as a condition of funding under clause 4. Clearly, it is important to strike a balance between transparency in the use of public moneys and not operationally overburdening a small organisation.

The clause also sets out stipulations regarding the handling of information. Disclosure of information by ARIA under the clause does not breach any obligation of confidence owed by ARIA, and does not, for example, require a disclosure of information should it contravene data protection legislation. I hope that hon. Members agree that the information rights set out in the clause are important to allow the Secretary of State to carry out their functions effectively.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for summarising clause 6. The theme of many of our amendments has been the importance of communication, information, understanding ARIA and its mission, and accountability, so we support the requirement for information to be provided by ARIA to the Secretary of State as appropriate. The duties in the clause seem entirely appropriate, but I have a couple of concerns that I hope the Minister will either respond to or perhaps write to me about.

Clause 6(3) states:

“A disclosure of information required under this section does not breach—

(a) any obligation of confidence owed by ARIA, or

(b) any other restriction on the disclosure of information (however imposed).”

Perhaps this is something that I should already understand, but I am not clear whether commercial confidentiality would come under subsection (3). If ARIA were funding, as I hope it will, a high-risk, high-reward and sensitive project, would that be excluded on the grounds of commercial confidentiality? There is no requirement for the information that ARIA provides to the Secretary of State to be published or shared more broadly, so I would hope that commercially confidential information could be shared.

Subsection (4) states:

“This section does not require a disclosure of information if the disclosure would contravene the data protection legislation.”

Clearly, if disclosure contravened data protection legislation, it would be illegal, so I am somewhat confused about a requirement on ARIA not to break existing laws. I am happy for the Minister to write to me to say under what circumstances there might be a need to share information, the disclosure of which would contravene data protection legislation. I can only think that it might involve personal information, which suggests that the Secretary of State would ask for personal information. Earlier, we discussed the gender pay gap and disclosing information on that. Did the Minister think that that might contravene data protection legislation if, for example, only women worked for ARIA?

Those are my concerns, and I would be obliged to the Minister if she wrote to me about those questions, but we will not oppose the clause standing part.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I beg to move amendment 21, in schedule 3, page 13, line 37, leave out paragraph 11.

This amendment would remove ARIA’s exemption from the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

Amendment 21, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends, is a key amendment that will ensure that ARIA merits and deserves the confidence of the public at this time of great debate about sleaze and cronyism. The amendment would remove ARIA’s exemption from the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. As drafted, paragraph 11 of schedule 3 excludes ARIA from the definition of a “contracting authority” under the 2015 regulations; as a consequence, ARIA is exempted from the usual public procurement rules. The Opposition do not understand why ARIA’s exemption from those rules is justified. Indeed, we are truly concerned that exempting it in this way opens a side door to sleaze in science.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct in her presentation: we fail to understand why ARIA is exempt from the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The Government are embroiled in the PPE and VIP lane scandals. It has been exposed that companies were put into the VIP lane by mistake—for example, PestFix was awarded £32 million. For ARIA to be exempted from any regulation risks this exploding to a larger extent with £800 million of public funds.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and she is absolutely right. It would be a cause for concern at any time to exempt an agency of this importance and public funding from procurement rules, but it is particularly worrying when the Government are already embroiled in a cronyism and procurement scandal.

In support of the point that my hon. Friend made, Transparency International—a well-known and reputable organisation—found that, of 1,000 procurement contracts signed during the pandemic and totalling £18 billion of public money, one in five had one or more of the red flags commonly associated with corruption. Is that not a figure of which we should be absolutely ashamed? That has happened within the existing rules, and the Minister proposes to exempt ARIA from those rules.

In her letter to the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee on 2 March 2021, the Minister explained that the Bill will

“provide ARIA with an exemption from Public Contracts Regulations so that it can procure services, equipment and works relating to its research goals at speed, in a similar way to a private sector organisation.”

We have several concerns about that explanation. What assessment has the Minister made of the ways in which private sector organisations procure services? Has she compared this with the success or otherwise of Government procurement processes for PPE during the covid crisis? Is she saying that private sector procurement is more effective, more honest and fairer; or is it simply quicker?

What the exemption is for is also a concern. The Minister implies that it is for services, equipment and works relating to ARIA’s research goals. Is it for equipment, services and works, or is it actually for research? Will ARIA be considered to be procuring research? We had been led to understand that it would a funder of research and development, not a body conducting its own research in a lab, so what actual procurement needs will it have, beyond office space and office equipment? There are months and months before ARIA is operational, so what will it need to procure at speed, or is the intention to enable ARIA to procure research without oversight? What is the justification for not having appropriate oversight for its procurement of research?

We absolutely understand, and support, providing ARIA with additional flexibility in terms of its funding activity, but the benefit of exempting ARIA’s procurement of goods and services is not clear. We suggest that ARIA’s procurement needs are not different from those of other Government funding bodies. We hope that the Minister will explain why that is the case. In terms of safeguards, the Government are proposing that in a future framework agreement BEIS will require ARIA to appoint an independent internal auditor to report its procurement activities. It is therefore going to have an internal bureaucracy, as the Minister puts it, rather than be subject to the procurement rules that have been developed, debated and put in place over time.

Will that framework agreement set out procurement rules for ARIA? Otherwise, what is the auditing requiring compliance with? How can we audit if there are no rules to benchmark against? Without safeguards, we have significant concerns about the risk of sleaze. What is to prevent ARIA from buying its office equipment from a mate of the Secretary of State or of the chief executive? Can the Minister say which of the regulations she objects to? The Public Contracts Regulations 2015, for example, state that a person awarded a public contract must

“be linked to the subject-matter of the contract.”

Does she object to that? What will prevent ARIA from operating effectively?

In the evidence sessions, we heard a number of times, including from Professor Glover, that there is a need for openness and transparency. David Cleevely said:

“The more open you are about what you are doing, the less easy it is to hide the fact that you have let particular contracts and so on, so there ought to be a mechanism within the governance structure of the agency to do that.”—[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 75, Q78.]

The Minister is removing such mechanisms as there already are. We heard that having rules and regulations in place was part of the culture of DARPA, on which this agency is supposedly based, with one of its directors, Dr Highnam, saying:

“Honour in public service is top of the list.”—[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 39, Q32.]

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Did we not also hear from Director Highnam how DARPA benefits from other transaction authority and the flexibility that comes outside of the standard Government procurement process?

[Chi Onwurah]

We heard from Dr Highnam repeatedly of the importance of rules and regulations. He spoke specifically of a culture in which the process was not considered bureaucracy and a barrier but part of enabling DARPA to meet its obligations. I say to the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock, for whom I have a great deal of respect, that the flexibility that DARPA benefits from in being able to procure research is not outside the United States procurement requirements. Dr Highnam made it clear that they benefit from providing extraordinary results while being open and following the highest standards in public service.

I hope that the Minister will agree to leave ARIA with public procurement rules that provide some measure of trust, particularly in the middle of the current cronyism scandal.

[Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg.

If procurement rules for the traditional R&D granting used by UKRI do not apply, we need to understand that ARIA, like DARPA, will work differently. There will be some granting, but others will be commissioned and contracted to conduct research. If ARIA often procures R&D services, they could be within the scope of procurement regulations, so it is important to have the exemption. My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock made a good point when he referenced the evidence that DARPA deputy director Dr Highnam gave last Wednesday about how DARPA benefits from other transaction authority and has flexibility outside the standard Government-contracting standards. Those flexibilities exist in the US and it is important that ARIA has a similar flexibility.

The exemption places freedom in the hands of the leaders and programme managers. In that model, those programme managers will be recruited to run ARIA as an independent body. ARIA’s procurement will be at arm’s length from Government and Ministers.

Importantly, in paragraph (14) to schedule 1, the Government have made a commitment to ensure that ARIA internally audits its procurement activities. The upfront flexibility that the exemption affords will be balanced by reporting at a later point. It is clear that the need for agility does not negate ARIA’s accountability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her response, but I do not feel reassured and I do not think that the public will feel reassured. I will therefore press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Sixth sitting)

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Public Bill Committees

Consequential amendments

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 22, in schedule 3, page 14, line 3, at end insert—

“Freedom of Information Act 2000

(12) In Part VI of Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“Other public bodies and offices: general”), at the appropriate place insert “The Advanced Research and Invention Agency”.”.

This amendment would make ARIA subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone. Amendment 22 is critical and very simple. It would make the Advanced Research and Invention Agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The amendment forms part of a sequence of amendments that we have tabled, which seek to deliver greater oversight of ARIA and greater accountability, in order to increase public confidence, particularly at this time when we are in the midst of a cronyism scandal. We do not believe that ARIA’s blanket exemption from the Freedom of Information Act regime can be justified.

I make the point that £800 million of public money will be spent by ARIA. It is a new agency whose aims and ambitions we all support, but public trust will be vital to its long-term success. In our evidence sessions, we heard from Government witnesses such as Professor Philip Bond. Dominic Cummings, the self-proclaimed architect of ARIA, gave similar evidence to the Science and Technology Committee, which celebrated trusting the leaders of ARIA with £800 million of taxpayers’ money and no purpose. The Labour party believe that this could be a side door to sleaze in science.

We do not want to bureaucratise ARIA. We acknowledge that a hands-off approach is integral to its success. We simply want ARIA to be accountable to the public via the Freedom of Information Act.

On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme stated that,

“UK Research and Innovation receives about 300 FOI requests a year”.—[Official Report, 23 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 830.]

I have since received an answer from the Science Minister to a parliamentary question, which states that, for example, UK Research and Innovation received 371 freedom of information requests in 2020 and has answered 100 in the first three months of 2021. I asked about the costs to UKRI of complying with those requests, but it does not keep track of costs, which implies that they are not significant.

ARIA will be spending between 1% and 2% of the funding that UKRI is spending. If UKRI receives about 300 requests per year, we might calculate, say, that if freedom of information requests were related to the amount of public money being spent—a reasonable approximation—ARIA might receive between three and six freedom of information requests per year. I ask the Committee: would six freedom of information requests per year be a bureaucratic burden on ARIA, as the small and agile organisation we want it to be?

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

rose—

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

rose—

[Chi Onwurah]

I give way to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and for welcoming me back to the Committee by mentioning me in her first paragraph. I was sorry to miss this morning’s sitting, but I was paired with an Opposition Member. I admire her mathematics, but given the interest in ARIA and the cutting-edge research that it will undertake, I do not think that scaling back in the manner she did and suggesting that it might receive only three to six requests a month is likely. As she knows, UKRI has a team of people to deal with freedom of information requests. We should consider carefully whether we want to put such a burden on ARIA, because we want it to be nimble and lean. I am afraid that I do not believe the quantum of money can be scaled to the number of FOI requests. I think ARIA would get an awful lot, given the research we want it to undertake.

[Chi Onwurah]

Will the intervention from the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock be on a similar point? I imagine it will.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

It was going to be on exactly the same point. I could not have put it better myself.

[Chi Onwurah]

My respect for the hon. Member only increases because he does not wish to repeat what somebody else has said. That is not always the case in this House, as we know. I welcome the intervention from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, and I would welcome a long discussion on probability, mathematics and statistics, but I can see that my Whip might not be entirely happy with that, so let me confine myself to this. I was not claiming that the estimate was rigorous. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme suggested that because there will be more interest in ARIA, it will receive more Freedom of Information Act requests. That might be true for the first two or three years, but I do not think that level of interest would be maintained, even if it received more requests proportionately.

I mentioned funding because that is what enables activity, and freedom of information requests relate to that activity. Therefore, even if we doubled the greatest estimate to, say, 12, what price does the Committee think should not be paid for accountability and freedom of information? What would be too much? I was not here in Parliament for the expenses scandal, but we saw the impact that had on public confidence as we now see the cronyism scandals and their impact on public confidence and trusted institutions. Freedom of information and transparency is an essential part of that.

The Campaign for Freedom of Information reports that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, with its significantly higher budget, was subject to just 48 requests in 2019. During the evidence sessions, we heard that UKRI was happy to deal with FOI requests, because it viewed them as an important aspect of spending public money. We also heard—this was telling—that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, although it is not subject to FOI, behaves as if it is and responds to requests because it views them as an important aspect of transparency. Regardless of whether the Minister accepts the amendment—I very much hope that she will—ARIA should echo the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s approach.

We heard in evidence from DARPA that it believed that rather than hindering the agency, the transparency offered by FOI requests was useful in building public trust in its work. In fact, DARPA’s deputy director stated that the level of oversight that it is subject to is “important to its success”. Other high-risk, high-reward agencies such as the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation in Germany, Vinnova in Sweden and the French National Centre for Scientific Research are all subject to the freedom of information requirements of their respective countries. What makes ARIA so different?

The protection of sensitive information cannot be used as justification for a blanket exemption, as the Freedom of Information Act 2000 already provides exemptions where disclosure would prejudice research or commercial interests, or cause a breach of confidentiality. In their initial response to the Secretary of State’s announcement of ARIA’s FOI exemption, NESTA said:

“Radical openness and honesty is needed or distrust will undermine it. The public will expect to know what’s happening with public money”—

I think we can very much see that now—

“and greater risk requires transparency and evaluation in order to determine what works.”

The Campaign for Freedom of Information said that ARIA

“will spend hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money on high risk projects but the government apparently wants it to be less accountable to the public than parish councils, which are subject to FOI.”

In the evidence session, Tabitha Goldstaub said that

“at Google’s moonshot factory, X…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.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 57, Q55.]

On what we are trying to achieve with this agency, the Minister has mentioned her concerns about bureaucracy a few times, but I think we as legislators have to decide whether we believe that rules and regulations are simply mere bureaucracy to be thrown out whenever possible, or whether we believe that they can contribute both to the effectiveness of an agency and to the contract that we in Parliament have with the public to take their hard-earned taxpayers’ money and spend it as best we can to encourage and enable growth, prosperity, and a national health service—all things from which the public benefit. We cannot do that in secret; we have to do it publicly.

I really urge the Minister to accept the amendment. She knows that the exemption has come in for much criticism and that the controversy around it will continue to mar the progress of the agency. I urge her to listen to the siren voices of concern and to accept the amendment to remove ARIA’s exemption from the Freedom of Information Act.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I would like to speak briefly to amendment 22. In the past week, we have discussed the concerns about exempting ARIA from FOI requests, and we have heard evidence about the potential burden of administration. UKRI told us that it has a team of staff purely to deal with the 300-plus FOI requests that it receives annually. In addition, Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser said that although UKRI is happy to be able to respond to FOI requests,

“there is a judgment call about the burden of administration”.––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 9, Q4.]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme so eloquently put it—echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock—with unique freedoms and independence to enable transformational research, ARIA will inevitably receive a number of FOI requests that is disproportionate to its size.

Our vision for ARIA is that it should be lean and agile. Do we really want it encumbered by that level of administrative burden? Do we want ARIA’s brilliant programme managers to be stifled by bureaucratic paperwork?

We have also heard about whether ARIA will deliver the game-changing R&D that we want if it is subject to FOI. It was Tony Blair who gave us the Freedom of Information Act and it was he who subsequently described it as

“utterly undermining of sensible Government.”

To use his words:

“If you are trying to take a difficult decision and you're weighing up the pros and cons, you have frank conversations...and if those conversations then are put out in a published form that afterwards are liable to be highlighted in particular ways, you are going to be very cautious.”

Professor Philip Bond put this view into an R&D context in his discussions with us last week. He said that

“if you are asking people to go out on a limb to really push the envelope, I would assert that there is an argument, which has some validity, that you make it psychologically much easier for them if they do not feel that they are under a microscope.” ––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 29.]

Mr Blair and Professor Bond perfectly highlight the fundamental reason why ARIA should be free from FOI. The last thing that our scientists need when they are looking for the next internet is to be held back by caution.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)]

The Government are committed to good governance and transparency, and I believe that the Bill in its current form embeds that within ARIA. With regard to amendment 22, we have carefully considered the case for and against subjecting ARIA to the Freedom of Information Act. The intention is for ARIA to have a streamlined operating structure, with decision makers who can solely focus on ARIA’s research goals. We have spoken and heard a lot about culture and how important that is to facilitating an environment that pursues transformational research.

In turn, we have thought carefully about guaranteeing accountability and transparency in the most appropriate way. There are many different mechanisms to achieve this, and I cannot accept the claims that no such oversight exists for ARIA. To reiterate: the Bill requires ARIA to submit an annual report and statement of accounts, which will be laid before Parliament; ARIA will be audited by the National Audit Office and subject to value-for-money assessments; ARIA will interact with Select Committees in the usual way; and we will draw up a framework document detailing ARIA’s relationship with BEIS and further reporting requirements, such as details of what will be published in the annual report. Together, these provisions are rigorous and proportionate and will ensure that the research community, MPs, peers and taxpayers are informed of ARIA’s activities and where it spends its money.

By not subjecting ARIA to the Freedom of Information Act, ARIA’s leadership and scientists will be free to find and fund the most cutting-edge research in the UK and the world, and to maintain the UK’s competitive advantage as a science superpower. While there are exemptions to freedom of information requests, they must still be processed, and that administration is likely to run contrary to the lean and agile operation of ARIA. To be clear, other bodies subject to the Freedom of Information Act, such as universities and Government Departments, including BEIS, will still process requests regarding their activities with ARIA in the usual way. I hope that makes it clear that this is not about reducing transparency; it is about making ARIA streamlined. I hope that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central understands why I cannot accept the amendment.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank those Members who have taken part in the debate, which highlights, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge said, a real difference between us and Government Members. I totally understand why Government Members do not want Government conversations to be known at the moment—releases of those on WhatsApp have not been in their interest. However, we strongly believe that freedom of information is a duty of public bodies, so I will press the amendment to a Division.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

Clause 11 concerns the regulation-making powers in the Bill, which are limited. The principal point of interest is the parliamentary procedure that each of these delegated powers will be subject to. Subsection (4) sets out that regulations made under clause 8 to dissolve ARIA and any regulations under clause 10 that amend, repeal or revoke any provision of primary legislation or retained direct principal EU legislation will be subject to the draft affirmative resolution procedure. These are the most substantial powers, so I consider that it is right that Parliament has a say over how they are exercised.

With the exception of regulations made under clause 14 concerning commencement, any other regulations made under the ARIA Bill will be subject to the negative resolution procedure. These are predominantly concerned with operational and procedural details, so again I consider that the negative resolution procedure is appropriate in this case, and I hope the Committee agrees.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12

Interpretation

[Chi Onwurah]

I beg to move amendment 23, in clause 12, page 5, line 10, after “social sciences” insert “and the humanities”.

This amendment would modify the definitions of scientific knowledge and scientific research to encompass the humanities.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 24, in clause 12, page 5, line 13, after “social sciences” insert “and the humanities”.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 23.

[Chi Onwurah]

We are moving through this Bill at speed, so it would be good to take a few moments to think about the role of the humanities. These amendments modify the definition of scientific knowledge and scientific research to encompass the humanities.

It is incumbent on us, particularly during a pandemic when we are missing so many of the arts and other aspects of culture, to recognise the very important role that the humanities play, not only in our mental and social wellbeing but in scientific research, and particularly in our understanding of the world around us. We believe that science can be the engine of progress for our society, and it needs to be for and by everyone. Expanding the scope of ARIA’s research to include the humanities can provide greater returns for society.

This also speaks to the Government’s so-called levelling-up agenda. As part of that, they must appreciate the important role that social sciences and the humanities play in helping us understand and solve many of the issues faced in all our communities across our United Kingdom. ARIA presents us with an opportunity to drive innovation across the country, but it must be done in the right way. Currently, the Bill fails to adequately factor in the importance of all forms of research.

The statement of policy intent makes no reference to the social sciences. The examples of areas that may be funded by ARIA are AI, quantum computing and robotics. They are very important, but we also need answers from the Government on how they envisage that ARIA’s social science funding will work.

The recent report into race and ethnic disparities, commissioned by the Prime Minister, has been roundly condemned—indeed, trounced—for its lack of coherent or credible research. It has been criticised by historians, social scientists and academics from across our country. That illustrates very well how important it is that we have strengths in humanities and social science research, and that the Government and the Prime Minister recognise that. The role that institutional racism and prejudice play in the lives of so many in this country is worthy of credible research. Addressing the many inequalities that so many people still face is surely a worthy challenge—a worthy moonshot—that ARIA should consider.

Mariana Mazzucato, a leading academic and economist of mission-oriented research, said that all science should address social inequality. We heard from Felicity Burch that:

“Clearly defining the mission of what ARIA is trying to achieve when we get the team in place, making sure that it is something that excites people, having a clear market, and also solving national and international social problems will help encourage really bright, brilliant people to get involved.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 68, Q66.]

With our two amendments, we wish to ensure that the humanities are considered part of ARIA’s remit.

[Amanda Solloway]

I will speak to amendments 23 and 24 together. ARIA is unashamedly focused on achieving transformational breakthroughs in the sciences, and this is reflected in the definition set out in clause 12. I say to the hon. Member that scientific research and scientific knowledge are broadly defined to include the social sciences. I do not believe it is helpful for ARIA to extend the interpretation of “sciences” to include humanities. There are other funders that do a fantastic job at supporting the humanities, including the Arts and Humanities Research Council, but that is not the Government’s intention for ARIA. I hope the hon. Member will withdraw the amendments.

[Chi Onwurah]

I am disappointed in the Minister’s response, but I will not push the amendments to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I beg to move amendment 25, in clause 12, page 5, line 13, at end insert—

““Invention” means the process by which ideas are converted into value in the form of new and improved products, services and approaches.”

This amendment would establish the meaning of “invention” as referred to in the title and functions of ARIA.

The amendment is about defining “invention.” Before the sharp-eyed hon. Member for North Norfolk points out that, at the start of these proceedings, I tried to take the word “invention” out of the title, I repeat my earlier observation that we are quite prescient on this side of the House. I had rather anticipated that, despite all the fantastic strength of our arguments, Government Members were not necessarily persuaded, strangely enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

This clause provides the short title of the Bill. ARIA’s name has already been discussed at the very start of proceedings, and I do not think we need revisit that discussion here.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 15 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 1

Protection of independence of ARIA

“In exercising functions in respect of ARIA, the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to protect its independence.”—(Chi Onwurah.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to have regard for the need to protect ARIA’s independence when exercising functions under the Bill, including with respect to appointments.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Chi Onwurah]

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

The entire debate has been extremely exciting, and I know we are all reluctant to bring it to a close, but the new clause, which I will discuss briefly, is in keeping with all our constructive amendments that we have considered in our debate on ARIA. The new clause would improve the Bill and protect the spirit and goals of ARIA. Indeed, it would clarify them in places.

The new clause would ensure that when exercising functions in respect of ARIA, the Secretary of State must have regard to the protection of its independence. Members on the Government and Opposition Benches have talked about the importance of ARIA’s independence and referred to the challenges to the relationship between business and Government that we see now in the many conflicts of interest and concerns that have been raised about sleaze and cronyism that are now being considered in Parliament and in Committees.

We feel it is important to set out that ARIA is independent and can act with operational independence. Indeed, the Minister has repeatedly told the Committee that she wants ARIA to act with operational independence. “Extreme freedom” was Dominic Cummings’ clarion call in his evidence to the Science and Technology Committee.

The new clause would ensure that the Secretary of State had regard to ARIA’s independence when exercising all functions under the Bill, such as his power of appointment. For example, appointing a major Conservative party donor or a Conservative peer to the board of ARIA would clearly have a damaging effect on ARIA’s independence and how that independence was perceived by the scientific community.

I hesitate to predict what the Minister will say, but I suspect that she will not look favourably on this amendment and she may say that the ministerial code already requires Ministers to behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety and ensures that no conflicts of interest arise. In response to that, I would say that we can clearly see the repeated undermining of the code by Ministers in this Government and—critically—the current vacancy for the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on Ministers’ interests.

I also remind the Committee that the Government themselves introduced a very similar amendment to the Environment Bill—new clause 17—that imposes the same obligation on the Government in exercising functions under that Bill in relation to the Office for Environmental Protection. If such a measure is appropriate for the Environment Bill, why not for this Bill? For as long as we have this cloud of sleaze allegations hanging over this Government, we must ensure that we are crystal clear when it comes to key issues such as independence, propriety, conflicts of interest, and so on.

In addition, I will just briefly quote some witnesses who gave evidence. Tabitha Goldstaub, for example, said that

“ARIA has to be independent”.––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 56, Q54.]

Dr Dugan said:

“That independence of decision making and the crafting of those programmes in that spirit are coupled, and that is part of the reason why the agency”—

that is, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency in the US—

“has been so successful over years.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 47, Q43.]

And I will close by quoting Professor Glover, who said:

“I would argue that there is huge value in that”—

“that” being the independence of ARIA, and 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.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 55, Q54.]

I think that all Members of the Committee will agree that we do not wish ARIA to become a political football; we certainly want it to avoid the controversy that has affected football itself in the last few days. We want its independence to be crystal clear. We do not want it to be subject to, or tainted by, any of the allegations of sleaze or cronyism, or the corrupting influence of there being too close a relationship between business and Government. By accepting this amendment, the Committee will send a clear message in that regard.

[Amanda Solloway]

New clause 1 concerns ARIA’s independence, which is at the core of our policy aims here, and the Bill has been drafted to set ARIA as free from ministerial interference as possible. ARIA will set its own research programmes, recruit freely at the executive and programme manager level, and make decisions on what programmes to start and finish without recourse to Ministers.

I observe a contradiction in moving this new clause to protect ARIA’s independence to be discussed alongside a series of amendments which would take powers away from ARIA and give them to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State deliberately has limited powers and the Bill strikes the right balance between providing ARIA with the independence to operate freely, which we believe is critical to its success, and sufficient Government oversight to protect the use of public funds, for example, the right to remove non-executive members or to intervene where necessary or expedient on national security grounds, or the Secretary of State’s reserve power to introduce procedure in law affecting conflicts of interest, a power that is not found in the Bill but which creates other statutory corporations, such as UKRI. These measures represent appropriate protections, rather than controls, affording ARIA greater freedoms and independence than those of typical arm’s length bodies.

Without real freedoms, there is a danger that ARIA will get pulled closer by Ministers over time, and will become an arm’s length body like any other. I therefore do not think the new clause is needed.

[Chi Onwurah]

There is not a contradiction between wanting to establish ARIA’s independence while also ensuring the same levels of scrutiny. For us they are two sides of the same coin. As this is our last proposed amendment, I want to press the new clause to a Division.

Question put and negatived.

New Clause 2

Carbon costs

“ARIA must—

(a) have regard to the carbon costs of decisions it makes; and

(b) operate with net zero carbon costs.”—(Stephen Flynn.)

This new clause is intended to ensure that ARIA has regard to the carbon costs of its decisions, and runs with net zero carbon costs.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[The Chair]

We now go to Aberdeen South to move new clause 2.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Flynn]

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

It is perhaps apt to reflect on the debate on the annunciator screens, which relates to many right hon. and hon. Members’ concerns about human rights. Those concerns are just and appropriate, and I do not think that any of us wants to be under any illusion about whether ARIA might have cause to have or seek investment in technologies that may contravene human rights. It is an incredibly serious topic.

We can see from the Bill the flexibility and freedom that ARIA will have. We hear from the Government that they want it to be agile and nimble, and we know that it will not have the level of scrutiny and transparency that perhaps it should—certainly in our view. I would welcome an incredibly serious tone from the Minister and a cast-iron assurance that human rights will not be contravened in any way, shape or form by ARIA and its processes.

[Chi Onwurah]

I second the concerns raised by the SNP spokesperson. If ARIA commissioned research, for example, that was collaborative between the UK and a Chinese tech company involved in the Uyghur human rights abuses, which are so extreme, how would we know about it and what action could be taken?

[Amanda Solloway]

I completely agree with the sentiment and the intention behind the new clause. Human rights are protected in law in the United Kingdom through the Human Rights Act 1998, and ARIA will be subject to public authority obligations under the Act. I refer the hon. Member for Aberdeen South to the first page of the Bill, which confirms that the Secretary of State has signed a statement to the effect that

“the provisions…are compatible with the Convention rights.”

I therefore reassure the Committee that ARIA will operate in a way that is compatible with the European convention on human rights; indeed, it would be unlawful under existing legislation for it not to do so. I hope that that satisfies the hon. Member that there is no need for the new clause.

[Stephen Flynn]

I think that there remain some outstanding concerns that are not covered by other Acts from the UK Government that we have debated in the House over many years. I do not think that the Minister necessarily addressed the shadow Minister’s question about ARIA seeking to partner with an organisation that was in breach of human rights or that contravened them in its activity, but I am more than happy for her to intervene if she wishes to correct me.

[Chi Onwurah]

The concern over human rights in supply chains for tech companies has been raised a number of times, but we have yet to see it properly addressed by the Government. That echoes a concern represented here, and I hope that there will be an opportunity for the Minister to reassure us further.

[Stephen Flynn]

I thank the hon. Member for that important contribution. On that note, I will press the new clause to a vote. I hope the Government will reflect on the issue before the Bill comes back to the House.

Question put and negatived.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I know that Members will be disappointed that this is the final question before the Committee.

[Chi Onwurah]

On a point of order, Mr Hollobone. I thank you for the way in which you have chaired our deliberations, and for your guidance and that of the Chair of each sitting. I thank the Committee members, whose contributions have just about always been good-natured and constructive, and have often been humorous and enlightening at the same time. I offer my particular thanks to the Clerks of the Committee, to Hansard for taking down our words of wisdom—or whatever—so accurately and concisely, and to all the staff and Officers of the House who have furnished us with excellent briefings for the evidence sessions. We have benefited from their advice and guidance outside of the Committee Room as well.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Hollobone. I echo the comments made by the shadow Minister. I have said thanks very much to the Clerks, but I also put on the record my thanks to Dr Jonathan Kiehlmann and Scott Taylor, our staff members who have been assisting us. I also put on the record my thanks to the Minister, who wrote to us with a response to questions that we asked on Tuesday. I thank her and her team for ensuring that happened.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Fourth sitting)

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 7, in schedule 1, page 6, line 24, at end insert—

“(5) The Secretary of State must, in appointing the members of ARIA, have regard to the desirability of the members (between them) having relevant experience.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the (collective) relevant experience of ARIA’s members when using their power of appointment.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 8, in schedule 1, page 6, line 24, at end insert—

“(5) The Secretary of State must, in appointing the members of ARIA, have regard to the desirability of the members including at least one person with relevant experience in relation to each of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

(6) In this section, ‘relevant experience’ means experience of one or more of the following—

(a) the conduct of scientific research; and

(b) the development or exploitation of scientific knowledge.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the (collective) relevant experience of ARIA’s members in the devolved nations when using their power of appointment.

[Chi Onwurah]

It is a pleasure, to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins, and to return to our deliberations on the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill.

Both amendments concern the diversity and characteristics of the members of the board of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency. We have heard repeatedly in our deliberations that the board has a significant amount of power and autonomy. In our view, it suffers from lack of oversight, which the amendments are designed to address.

Amendment 7 would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the collective experience of ARIA’s members in the devolved nations when using the power of appointment. The Labour party believes that science can be an engine of progress for society, and that it needs to be by and for everyone, not a private cashpoint for the few. It is essential that everyone in each region of the UK benefits from the creation of ARIA.

The Government have made many levelling-up promises over the past 18 months, just as they have made many promises to support science, but it is reported that they are now on track to miss the R&D target spend of 2.4% of GDP, following the cuts to international science spend, which were debated in the Chamber this morning, and the failure to provide support to medical research charities during the pandemic, forcing them to make sweeping cuts. The Royal Society has said that the Government’s actions, such as the cuts to overseas development aid and science, and the lack of clarity until the last moment about Horizon European science funding are undermining the ambition for the UK to be a science power. We do not want the people of this country to be short-changed by the Bill, when it comes to the levelling-up agenda.

Levelling up is not possible without utilising the skills and experience of all those who have extensive knowledge of scientific research and knowledge in each nation of the United Kingdom. Each of the devolved nations possesses subtle and significant differences in their research landscapes. Our amendment would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the relevant experience of ARIA members when making appointments. We cannot expect ARIA to function effectively for every area of the Union, if its key decision makers and knowledge base are restricted to one narrow region of England. I am sure the Minister agrees.

Labour recognises that, as does UK Research and Innovation. In November 2020, UKRI chairman Sir John Kingman told the Select Committee on Science and Technology:

“We have structures that involve regular consultation with the devolved Administrations and the funding agencies in the devolved Administrations.”

He also told the Committee that this good working relationship was in contradiction to the decision not to have board-level regional representation. He said:

“It was decided at the time that there should not be representatives of the devolved countries on the board. In practice, I would say that there are two members of the current board.”

As we see, UKRI has had to struggle against the lack of representation on its board, so let us make it official and clear from the beginning that ARIA is a national body. Research and development is a vital driver of growth, and we must utilise ARIA in each region and nation to unlock new markets and create jobs. We all want significant improvement in the way in which the benefits of research and development are shared across our nation, and we want those who contribute to it to come from all areas of our nation. I therefore hope the Minister welcomes amendment 7, which would ensure that.

In the evidence sessions, we heard about the importance of public service in attracting good people to the ARIA board. Tabitha Goldstaub, the co-founder of CognitionX and the chair of the AI Council, said:

“The most important thing is that I just kept hearing time and again from the community I spoke to, similarly to what the gentleman from DARPA said, that this is a time to serve. People really want to find a place to do research that saves people’s lives, especially in the AI eco-system.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 52, Q50.]

That desire to serve should be reflected by ensuring that we have people from across our nation serving. That is why we are proposing amendment 7.

Amendment 8 would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the diversity of the board members, including the representation of those with protected characteristics. The points that we are raising here were discussed in a previous debate on the SNP amendment grouped with one of our amendments, so I will not reiterate them, but I expect it to be recognised that science has a diversity problem. We want ARIA not to exacerbate that but to send a clear message against it. We are not looking to set specific quotas for ARIA, but we want to send a clear message to the scientific community and ARIA’s chief executive and chair, whoever they may be, that diversity is essential to successful scientific research. High-risk, high-reward research should not exclude women or representatives from across our nations and regions.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)]

Amendment 7 concerns the Secretary of State’s appointment of ARIA’s non-executive members. I have spoken to many experts, scientists and researchers about the creation of ARIA over the past six months, and one thing that has been made crystal clear to me is how important finding the right people will be to ARIA’s success. That point was reiterated to this Committee in the evidence session last Wednesday. The importance of finding the right people extends to ARIA’s non-executive members, and Professor Bond offered a valuable perspective on that. He was clear that we need a balance on the board and that it should include radical thinkers and those with different backgrounds in academia and industry. I was struck by his advice that we should have a board that was,, in his words “small” and “slightly unusual”. That is an important point.

We are looking to foster a culture that takes big bets and pursues transformational ideas. We have heard over and again how rare are the people who can do that. The difficulty in finding the mix of people to best support that activity means that we should impose as few constraints as possible and cast the net as widely as we can. That is a strong argument against placing inflexible legislative constraints on the background and experience of the limited number of people we are looking for before we have been begun that process.

We will conduct robust appointment processes that will follow the governance code for public appointments. That code includes principles of fairness, merit, diversity and integrity, which speak to the intention of the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her response. Will she say whether there are any factors that the Secretary of State should consider when making these appointments? For example, schedule 9 to the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 establishes that the Secretary of State must consider the collective experience of the UKRI board when making appointments. Are there no factors that should be considered in the case of ARIA?

[Amanda Solloway]

As I said, we will have a really robust appointment process. All those things will be taken into account to get that incredibly special person that we need to lead ARIA.

Amendment 8 also concerns the appointment by the Secretary of State of ARIA’s non-executive members. As I have said, I strongly believe that we should impose as few constraints as possible and cast the net as widely as we can in finding ARIA’s members. There is a real risk that placing inflexible legislative constraints on the background and experience of that limited number of people we are looking for will hamper our ability to find the right person.

I do, however, recognise that it is important for ARIA to be fully connected to the outstanding R&D activity in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That will require ARIA to build strong partnerships with institutions and businesses in all four nations. I echo comments from elsewhere about the fundamental importance of relationship building to this activity, but it is not necessarily possible to legislate for that. In the recruitment for the CEO and chair, we will work with the devolved Administrations and stakeholders across the United Kingdom to broaden the search for potential candidates, to encourage geographic diversity from the outset of these discussions. That approach, seeking as far as possible to ensure that the pool of people considered for positions in ARIA is representative of the geographic diversity of the UK, is the right one. ARIA would ultimately not be served by extensive and specific requirements that limit the options. I therefore cannot accept the amendment.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her response. We are hearing again that ARIA is not to be subject to regulation or oversight, regardless of what form that takes. The flexibility of which the Minister speaks can be seen by others as cronyism or the opportunity to ensure cronyism. The public are sick of mates being appointed without oversight. As I said in my intervention, other boards, such as the UKRI board, are required to consider the experience of the board before making further appointments. Would the Minister consider it acceptable if the entire board came from, say, Cornwall, which is not very representative, or had expertise only in nanotechnology? Cornwall is a very nice place and nanotechnology is an excellent scientific subject, but we heard from witnesses about the importance of having diversity of thought, background and experiences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

For the avoidance of doubt, we are happy to support the two amendments. On the issue of geographical experience, if we go with geographical knowledge as well, and perhaps get people who have specific expertise in, for example, energy-related technologies, such as we have around Aberdeen, and in technologies around AI, which we have in the area around Edinburgh, then we have geographic hubs as well as experience hubs. The amendment nicely allows for ARIA to make sure that it encapsulates all of that and not just, as the hon. Lady says, nanotechnology, which is brilliant but is not the only thing that we should focus on.

[Chi Onwurah]

I am in absolute agreement with the hon. Lady. She highlights an important issue. We want ARIA to be transformational. We heard the Minister underline that we want ARIA to transform real people’s lives, but how is ARIA to do that if its members do not have experience on the ground in the different regions and nations of our country and if they do not understand the way in which the supply chain works in Aberdeen, for example, for specific technologies and sectors? We do not want ARIA to have a narrow focus or a narrow background of expertise. On that basis, I wish to press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I beg to move amendment 11, in schedule 1, page 6, line 31, leave out sub-paragraph 4 and insert—

“(4) The Secretary of State may refuse consent under sub-paragraph (3) only where the Secretary of State considers—

(a) it necessary or expedient in the interests of national security, or

(b) the person is unable or unfit to carry out the functions of the office.”

This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to refuse consent to the appointment of an executive member of ARIA on the basis of their unfitness or inability to carry out the functions of the office.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 12, in schedule 1, page 7, line 11, leave out sub-paragraph 2 and insert—

“(2) The Secretary of State may remove a person from office as an executive member if the Secretary of State considers—

(a) it necessary or expedient in the interests of national security, or

(b) the person is unable or unfit to carry out the functions of the office.”

This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to remove an executive member of ARIA on the basis of their unfitness or inability to carry out the functions of the office.

[Chi Onwurah]

I am not daunted by the 6:9 defeat that we have just experienced. We will continue in the hope of winning over Government Members to the improvements that we wish to see in the Bill. The amendments, which stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends, are just such constructive amendments to improve the Bill and, more specifically, to actually give the Secretary of State greater powers than he, perhaps in his modesty, has set out in the Bill.

Amendment 11 would allow the Secretary of State to refuse consent to the appointment of an executive member of ARIA on the basis of their unfitness or inability to carry out the functions of the office. Amendment 12 would allow the Secretary of State to remove an executive member of ARIA on the basis of their unfitness or inability to carry out the functions of the office. The amendments are necessary because greater oversight and responsibility are needed to avoid even the suggestion of the taint of sleaze being attached to science.

This morning, in response to amendment 10, through which we intended the Science and Technology Committee to review the appointment of the chief executive, I think the Minister said that we needed a different model of trust. The public need the existing models of trust to be upheld by our Parliament, our Ministers, our Executive, and the executives of agencies such as ARIA. It should also be clear that the Government are taking responsibility for who is on ARIA’s board and has control of £800 million of public money and, more important, control of our scientific—and therefore economic—future.

The Bill places huge responsibility and power in the hands of ARIA’s CEO with little ongoing accountability. The Secretary of State is responsible for appointing the chair, other non-executive members of the board, and the first CEO. All subsequent CEOs and all other executive board members will be appointed by the chair after consultation with the other non-executive members, as set out in paragraph 3(2) of schedule 1. Such appointments cannot be made without the consent of the Secretary of State, but as the Bill stands, the Secretary of State can refuse consent only on national security grounds. Why are national security grounds the only grounds on which somebody might not be fit or suitable to serve on the board of ARIA?

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Should other grounds, such as wanting to pursue eugenics in great depth, not be considered reasons not to appoint somebody to a board?

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. As we heard in earlier discussions, there are concerns about the areas of science, such as eugenics, that might be championed or accepted by potential board members. I would hope that belief in eugenics was sufficient to consider someone unfit for the board, but, as it stands, the Secretary of State would currently have no power to refuse consent for an appointment on that basis. I find it interesting to consider the workings of the Secretary of State’s mind here. National security is clearly a critical issue, and it is the first duty of any Government to protect their citizens, but are there no other reasons why somebody might not be suitable?

[Daniel Zeichner]

This is an opportunity; we can help spare the Government future embarrassment. Quite frankly, if we have this set of out-there people running the organisation and they then choose to appoint someone highly controversial, it could be extremely embarrassing. I remember occasions when Labour Secretaries of State had difficulties with scientific advisers. These are controversial areas, and I can foresee an extremely difficult situation. Without an ability to intervene, where does it lead?

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is important to understand that ARIA will be an independent agency, but it will be spending taxpayers’ money and it will therefore reflect the public and the national interest. If somebody is recruited who, at the time or later on, is found to have views that are abhorrent to society, or not fit to serve on the board for other reasons, by what process could or would such a person be removed from the board? If, for example, after appointment of a member to the board, it was found that they championed eugenic research or that they believed in anti-vaccination mythologies, for example, would there be any means by which they could be removed?

[Kirsty Blackman]

Does the shadow Minister find it bizarre, as I do, that we have a higher bar for taxi drivers, for example, who have to pass a “fit and proper person” test in order to become a taxi driver, than for these people, who will be spending millions of pounds of public money? I recognise that that is a sensible thing to do, but there is not the level of oversight that we have for people such as taxi drivers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point on the comparison with a “fit and proper person” test for taxi drivers. That underlines the point I was going on to make. In the Bill, there is no statutory requirement for members of ARIA to possess scientific expertise or experience, whether individually or collectively. There is no floor—there is no minimum requirement—for their expertise. We have heard a lot about how wonderful and amazing and visionary they must be, but we have not heard about any floor for that expertise and, as I said earlier, there are no “have regard to” factors that the Secretary of State must consider when making appointments. Schedule 9 to the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, for example, establishes that the Secretary of State must consider the collective relevant experience of the UKRI board when making appointments. In this Bill, there is no floor. That is a huge concern for the Committee.

In the evidence session, Professor Philip Bond said:

“What you are doing in creating this kind of model is handing trust to people. You want people with high integrity who are brilliant, and then you let them get on with it, and you trust that they will do something that reflects their character.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 25, Q20.]

With the examples that we have seen of Tory cronyism, do the Committee really think that we can just rely on trust when it comes to public interest and the public purse?

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

One of the fundamental roles of a director is to exercise reasonable care, skill and diligence. As that is part of the fundamental concept of a board, I would suggest it is the collective responsibility of the chief executive and the entire board, not the responsibility of the Secretary of State.

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point, and it would be excellent if we understood better how the board would collectively exercise responsibility. When we talk about a board exercising collective responsibility, that is absolutely true. That is right, and it is what happens in the private sector. I would be interested to know whether the reporting requirements on private sector boards will apply in this case, but this is public money. It is £800 million of public money—taxpayers’ money. Particularly as we come out of a pandemic and recession, there are many worthy recipients of that money. Is the hon. Member truly saying that it should be spent and directed by people who have no accountability and cannot be removed? The Secretary of State is responsible for their getting the money, but will have no ability to remove them, no matter how unfit they prove themselves to be. On the basis that the amendments offer the Secretary of State further powers to ensure the fitness of the board, I hope that the Minister will accept them.

[Amanda Solloway]

Amendment 11 would extend the right of the Secretary of State to refuse an executive member appointment to include refusal of consent where a person is

“unable or unfit to carry out the functions of the office.”

It is important that the Secretary of State’s refusal rights are limited to where it is necessary and expedient on national security grounds. The freedom for the chair to hire the executive leadership team is a key feature of ARIA’s independence from Government. The Secretary of State will hire a top-quality non-executive team who have the experience and expertise to oversee ARIA. We should trust their judgment to hire an exemplary set of executive members. I remind the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central that the Secretary of State will appoint the inaugural chief executive officer and will set the tone for the quality of the future executive member hired by the chair, and I hope she will withdraw her amendment on that basis.

I will now move to amendment 12, building on my comments with respect to amendment 11. Once appointed, the terms of employment for executive members’ contracts are determined by the chair, with the consent of the Secretary of State, and only after consulting other non-executive members. They are expected to include standard provisions that would allow the chair to remove an executive member from office if that person is deemed unfit or unable to carry out the functions of the office.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her earlier comments. Can she clarify what she means when she says, “They are expected to include standard provisions”? Is she saying that they will include the explicit provision for the CEO and the chair to remove members, and under what criteria or circumstances?

[Amanda Solloway]

To reiterate, and building on my previous comments, contracts are determined by the chair. The contracts that people will have are to be negotiated. Furthermore, in extremis, the Secretary of State may remove the chair and other non-executive members if he or she is particularly concerned by the quality of executive members recruited by the chair. It is for those reasons that the amendment is not necessary, and I hope the hon. Lady will not press it.

[Kirsty Blackman]

We have asked an awful lot of questions about the appointment of the CEO and chair. Does the Minister understand that her answers have not given us comfort? To say that the roles will be appointed by the chair and the chief executive does not help us a huge amount, because we are not very happy about the process of appointing those people, so for them to be able to appoint other people does not help us in any way, shape or form. Having more safeguards in place would give us comfort that those people will be fit to do the job.

[Chi Onwurah]

I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North. We recognise that a significant amount of power lies in the chief executive and the chair, and there is no oversight from Parliament or others of those appointments. To say that the chief executive and the chair will have the power according to contractual negotiations to remove members does not reassure us. The Minister said that the Secretary of State could, in extremis, remove the chair. Would she write to me to set out what the in extremis circumstances would be?

I am keen not to detain the Committee unnecessarily. We are raising important matters, but since the Minister is not happy to accept them, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Chi Onwurah]

I beg to move amendment 13, in schedule 1, page 9, line 11, leave out paragraph 11 and insert—

“11 The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision establishing the procedures to be adopted for dealing with conflicts of interest of members of ARIA, members of a committee or sub-committee or ARIA’s employees.”

The amendment seeks constructively to improve the Bill by providing greater transparency and oversight, and thus avoid potential scandals of sleaze that are currently overwhelming various aspects of this Government. The amendment would require that the Secretary of State make regulations to establish the procedures to deal with conflicts of interest involving ARIA’s members and staff. We recognise that ARIA should have close links with the private sector. ARIA will not be able to achieve its transformational goal without working closely with the private sector.

As was stated in the evidence sessions, part of the UK’s particular challenge is the commercialisation of existing fantastic ideas, so working closely with the private section is important. However, the Committee must be aware that we have seen time and again, particularly now, that the revolving door between the private and public sectors can be open to abuse, especially—I say reluctantly—under this Government. Only last weekend, writing in The Observer—other newspapers are available; I mentioned The Daily Telegraph earlier, so I am trying to be fair—the senior Conservative MP and Chair of the Liaison Committee, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said:

“The line between public service and private gain is shamefully blurred”.

He went on to say:

“In the meantime, the government can establish not so much new rules but new processes and education, which encourage more of the proper conversations about values, integrity, ethics and how to behave when there might be potential, or even just perceived, conflicts of interest.”

He went on to recommend training in conflicts of interest. Again, we are constructively giving the Government —obviously the Bill was drafted before some of the scandals that they are embroiled in came to light—the opportunity to follow his advice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Chi Onwurah]

I give way to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank the hon. Lady for the other Newcastle for giving way. She draws a comparison with DARPA, but is the more obvious comparison not with UKRI? Like ARIA, UKRI is bound by the code of conduct for board members of public bodies, which includes. for example. the obligation to declare publicly any private financial or non-financial interests that may, or may be perceived to, conflict with one’s public duty. That speaks to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk made: we would not expect the kind of people we will appoint to the board to act in the ways that she seems to think they will.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Member for the second Newcastle for that contribution. I will make a couple of points in response. Let me gently say that Government members of the Committee are trying somewhat to have it both ways, in saying that ARIA will be like UKRI while not putting in place any of the measures, systems or processes of accountability to require it to be like UKRI, building on the fact that ARIA is, as I understand it, meant to fill a gap in our research landscape.

On whether ARIA will follow all the rules that UKRI follows, I am pretty sure that the answer to that is no, because as I understand it, it is not going to follow freedom of information or procurement rules. We have seen over the past few months with the scandal over Greensill—this is what the comments from the Chair of the Liaison Committee were about—that the existing rules and regulations are not sufficient. Finally, for the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme to say that we can expect these people to behave better because they are going to be better than that—really? Many scandals have been founded on expectations like that and again, we do not want the touch or hint of scandal near our fantastic science base.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Can I have some clarity from the hon. Lady? The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme—the other Newcastle—was that there is already a written requirement for members of these kinds of bodies to make full disclosure. If they are going to ignore that, why does the hon. Lady think that they would not ignore a regulation from the Secretary of State saying exactly the same thing?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution, which I think was made in a constructive sense.

I think the Chair of the Liaison Committee is making a point about that guidance. Clearly, it was not sufficient for David Cameron and it is clearly not proving to be sufficient in other cases. I hope that, as this amendment sets out, it is not simply about declaring. This is a critical part and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to emphasise it. The amendment does not say they should declare conflicts of interest; it states that the Secretary of States makes regulations—detailed, I would say—establishing the procedures to deal with conflicts of interest. That is the key thing. This stems from the need to have a close working relationship with the private sector, which will give rise to conflicts of interest that may be quite complex, especially with new and evolving technologies, which may go on to complex and potentially international supply chains. Those conflicts of interest may be complex, involving equity stakes and so on. We need procedures to deal with them that are more detailed than the current general ones and which are specifically targeted at ARIA’s unique role.

Dr Regina Dugan, the chief executive officer of Wellcome Leap, effectively supported that proposal:

“The particular way that we work is through contracts; we do not actually do grants. I also think that this position of not taking equity is important, because the non-profit element of it is part of the differentiation, and we have an entire commercial sector that is good at assessing value and figuring out return on investment.”—[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 48, Q43.]

What is different with ARIA is that it is, potentially, going to be taking equity, which can raise more complex conflicts of interest.

Professor Pierre Azoulay of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that

“the programme managers at DARPA and also at ARPA-E—the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy—have a fixed expiration date, which means they will need to go back to academia or to the venture capital firm or large firm that they left, and generally they want to do so with their head held high and their reputation intact. I think that that has created over time a norm of correct behaviour, if you will, and the absence of cronyism.”—[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 38, Q30.]

We want to see that norm of correct behaviour established through supporting processes and procedures. I asked Dr Highnam,

“What should we be looking for in the directors and programme managers as the key positive part of the culture that ARIA should seek to build?”

He answered:

“Honour in public service is top of the list.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 39, Q32.]

I should say that I have not heard any Government witness or Minister emphasise the importance of honour as a key characteristic of board members. I think it is really important that procedures to deal with conflicts of interest are established. That view is shared by the Chair of the Liaison Committee, who has said

“After the dust settles over the Greensill affair, I suspect that we will find that the lack of judgment over David Cameron’s approaches to ministers is less important than the general failure to address what has become a casual approach to conflicts of interests amongst many in government and in politics…All can see now the general inability of the various codes and systems”—

to the points made—

“of oversight, such as the toothless advisory committee on business appointments, to provide sufficient transparency and accountability, which is why even its chair, Lord Pickles, wants reform.”

When the Chair of Liaison Committee, who is much respected on the Government Benches, says that, and when we are mired in scandals as a consequence of a lack of appropriate conduct and clear processes and procedures, I urge the Minister to accept the need at the very least for greater detail when it comes to avoidance of conflicts of interest. I urge her to accept the amendment to establish processes and procedures to avoid conflicts of interest in this new body, which is critical to our future economic and scientific prosperity.

[Daniel Zeichner]

It is a pleasure to be part of a Committee that you are chairing, Mrs Cummins. I fully endorse what my hon. Friend has said about the amendment. In fact, she has pretty much said it all, but there are one or two points that I want to add.

We are considering a profound set of issues. The evidence sessions showed some fundamental differences in culture between our country and the Americans, and it is their example on which we are largely modelling our initiative. To some extent it goes to the problem that we are facing as a country at the moment. For a long time, we rather considered ourselves not to be prey to such conflicts; we had a British way of doing it. Procedures were not necessarily written down, but there were understandings and people behaved properly. The sad truth is that over the past 20 to 30 years, somewhere that changed. That is the truth, and that is why we are in the current situation.

In the evidence session with the Americans, I was very struck at one point when we were pressing them on how they avoided conflicts of interest. Their response was a kind of American swelling of patriotic pride, as they said that they would not do that because it would somehow harm the American dream. [Interruption.] Exactly. People in Britain are different; it is not that we are not proud of our country or patriotic, but I would say that our patriotism is different from theirs.

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Perhaps the fact that DARPA is part of the US defence establishment, with all the military honour and commitment to the defence of the nation, is one of the reasons why honour was held so high by the Americans. Does he agree that the absence of any mission and any departmental ownership of ARIA means that will not be the case in the UK?

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend has touched on a very important point. It was something that I tried to draw out in some of the evidence sessions. I would point Members to an excellent book written a few years ago by Lord Sainsbury, an esteemed former science Minister. He talked about the differences in culture between Europe, America and the UK, and warned against just trying to transpose one system to another, unless one really understood the cultural context. We have not mentioned it so far today, as it has very much been about natural sciences and perhaps, mea culpa, engineering at the beginning, but the social sciences may be biggest challenge of all. That was touched on at one point in the evidence sessions when one of the witnesses said it is not just a matter of the technologies, but public acceptance and understanding of them. It will require some really innovative work from social scientists to understand how that will work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

On amendment 13, the framework document to be agreed between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and ARIA, which will complement the Bill, will commit ARIA to the code of conduct for board members of public bodies, which sets out the personal and professional standards expected from board members, and forms part of individual members’ terms and conditions of appointment.

The code of conduct includes, for example, the obligation to declare publicly any private financial or non-financial interests that may, or may be perceived to, conflict with one’s public duty. I believe that that principle-led, non-legislative approach is appropriate. Indeed, it is the standard approach taken by many other arm’s length Government bodies, including UKRI. That approach allows ARIA to manage conflict of interest risks in a flexible way that is best suited to its operations.

I agree wholeheartedly with what Dr Peter Highnam said last week about what we should be looking for in the CEO to build the right ARIA culture:

“Honour in public service is top of the list.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 39, Q32.]

We will instil that sentiment in ARIA from the outset, starting with the recruitment of the chair and the CEO. We also have an additional assurance, in that the Bill includes a reserved power to introduce additional procedure, in law, should that be necessary once ARIA is operational. I believe that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central should take great comfort in the reserved power set out in paragraph 11, and I ask her to withdraw the amendment.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her response. I take most comfort from her unequivocal statement that honour in public service is a key characteristic that will be looked for in the chief executive officer of ARIA, because I had not heard such a strong statement about the need for honour, or even for public service, in ARIA’s mission. I take more comfort from that than from the confirmation that ARIA board members will be subject to existing rules about conflicts of interest. As we have heard, those rules are not sufficient. For example, in one of the recent scandals it was found that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care owned shares in a company that had received a significant contract from his Department, and there were questions about whether the requirements for declarations of public interest had been met.

We in the Opposition have said a number of times that ARIA is an organisation that will necessarily give rise to important conflicts of interest, so it needs more detailed procedures and processes. I do not want to detain the Committee, however, and I hope that the Minister will look at the issue in the future. I will not push the matter to a vote, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Chi Onwurah]

I beg to move amendment 14, in schedule 1, page 10, line 5, at end insert—

“(3) The report shall contain information regarding—

(a) the proportion of ARIA’s funding in the relevant financial year which has financed activities taking place (in whole or in part) outside the United Kingdom, and

(b) the national and regional distribution of activities in the United Kingdom supported by ARIA’s funding in the relevant financial year.”

This amendment would require ARIA’s annual report to contain details of the geographical distribution of activities funded by ARIA.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 30, in schedule 1, page 10, line 5, at end insert—

“(3) This report must include statistics regarding the percentage of its funding disbursed in each region of the UK.”

This amendment is intended to provide greater transparency about the destination of ARIA’s funding disbursements within the UK.

Amendment 16, in clause 2, page 2, line 10, leave out “in” and insert “across”.

This amendment would require ARIA to have regard for the benefits of its activities across the nations and regions of the UK in exercising its functions.

Amendment 17, in clause 2, page 2, line 12, leave out “in” and insert “across”.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 16.

Amendment 18, in clause 2, page 2, line 14, leave out the first “in” and insert “across”.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 16.

[Chi Onwurah]

These amendments are all concerned with ensuring that the benefits of ARIA are spread across our country and contribute to a more equal and prosperous country. Amendment 14 would insert a new sub-paragraph requiring ARIA’s annual report, for which there is provision elsewhere, to contain details of the geographical distribution of activities funded by ARIA, while amendments 16, 17 and 18, which relate to clause 2, would require ARIA to have regard for the benefits of its activities across the nations and regions of the UK in exercising its functions.

We tabled these amendments in a constructive spirit, to improve the Bill in line with the Government’s own aims, as we understand them. During and since the general election, there has been significant discussion about the importance of ensuring that our whole country benefits from economic prosperity and from the transformational impact of ARIA.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I accept what the hon. Lady says about geographical spread and making sure that we are treating the country fairly and levelling up, but we have to accept that while £800 million over a four-year period is a lot, £200 million a year is not a huge amount. We know that we are focusing ARIA on a small number of projects. The danger is that we dilute the impact that ARIA could have using that money by trying to demonstrate that we are spreading it equally across the country. The danger with that is that we do not achieve what we set out to achieve in the first place.

[Chi Onwurah]

There are two challenges here. ARIA’s funding is between 1% and 2% of the UK’s science spend, depending on whether the aims of the current Government are actually met, so in some respects it is considered too small to be subject to reporting requirements. Yet we also hear of how it is expected—indeed, required—to have a transformational impact on all our lives. If that impact is going to be transformational, surely it is critical that it should be as equitable as possible.

We have tried very hard to reflect those slightly conflicting aims. Amendment 14 is a reporting requirement; amendments 16, 17 and 18 are to “have regard to”. We have not set targets. We have not said that it has to be a certain proportion, but particularly with regard to amendment 14 there can surely be no objection to reporting how the funding has been spent. That is a basic requirement of transparency.

The hon. Member is right to infer that people may draw conclusions from that reporting, but I tend to feel that information is empowering, regardless of what the conclusions are, so the amendment takes a reasonable line between requiring that the spend be in some respects regionally distributed, which it does not do, and ensuring that the information is there to assess the extent to which ARIA is living up to its overriding goal—again, we do not have a mission, so let us say goal—of transforming our society.

The Opposition believe that that goal is possible. We believe that science and research, as I have said, can be the engines of progress for our society, but it needs to be for and by everyone, not simply for the few. It is essential, as I have said, that each region of the UK benefits from the creation of ARIA. The Secretary of State told the Science and Technology Committee that the Government wanted ARIA

“to reflect the wide talent and geographical spread of the United Kingdom”,

but there is nothing in the Bill to measure the extent to which it does that. As we have seen, the Bill fails to mention the devolved nations and does not outline any reflection of the geographical realities of the United Kingdom.

Amendment 14 is simply about requiring reporting so that the Government—whichever Government we have—can measure the impact that ARIA is having on the very important desire to reduce the regional inequalities in our country. It does not tie the hands of ARIA’s leadership; it just imposes reporting requirements. That is really important when we reflect that the Campaign for Science and Engineering found that for every £1 invested by the Government on research and development we receive 20p to 30p back each and every year. Surely we have a right to know where that money is going geographically, as well as which areas it is going to.

As a northern MP, I know that the north receives less than half of the life sciences investment per head that the south of England does, despite having great teaching hospitals and significant health inequalities that truly need to be transformed. We heard an important contribution from Tabitha Goldstaub of CognitionX, who said that

“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…Regional strengths deliver benefits to actual localities.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 56, Q54.]

We also heard from John Kingman, the chair of UKRI, that its structures involve regular consultation with the devolved Administrations. It is important that we see how well ARIA is able to benefit also from that engagement, whether indirectly through the UKRI or through its competitions and other means of funding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I feel passionately about this issue because I represent a part of the country that often comes in for criticism, in the sense that some people, even some of my colleagues, say to me, “You’ve already got everything—you shouldn’t be getting any more.” This is a complex argument. If some areas have a long tradition of doing well and competing internationally, we can hardly deny them the resources to carry on with their work. However, we are painfully aware that there is a danger of overheating in some parts of the country.

I chair the all-party parliamentary group for the UK’s innovation corridor, which is, essentially, London-Stanstead-Cambridge, and there is much discussion at the moment about the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford arc—the so-called golden triangle. The discussion seems to have been going on for years and years—certainly for as long as I have been in this place, and long before that. There is this hope that through the clustering effects we can do much better than we already do, and we look to examples in other parts of the world to see how it is done.

The reason I support this amendment is that this is not simple or easy. There have been many attempts to spread the Cambridge cluster effect. In fact, ironically, it often seems to cluster more and more in particular bits of Cambridge. It is very hard to get people to go to other places, but that is what we want to try to encourage. One of the ways in which we will do that is by having the data and the information. This is a great opportunity for ARIA to be mindful of that in its report. It is not a difficult thing to do. It should tell people what is going on and where it is putting its resources. If it is not working in the first few years, that would give us the opportunity to intervene and make a change.

[Chi Onwurah]

Once again, my hon. Friend has reminded me in his excellent contribution of an important point that I should have made, which was that the regional development agencies, abolished by the Conservative coalition in 2010, did report on regional innovation and science spend. Whenever I speak to the North East England chamber of commerce, I am told that one of the difficulties in making the knowledge exchange framework accessible or understandable is the lack of data on regional science spend. Part of the point of this amendment is to help restore some of that data.

[Daniel Zeichner]

That is absolutely right. One of the many tragedies of the last 10 or 15 years has been the fact that strong attempts by the last Labour Government to have a positive regional policy were swept away. Vince Cable, I think, described the destruction of the regional structures in 2010 as positively Maoist. Astonishingly, Lord Heseltine later came to Cambridge to bang the drum for regionalism outside the very offices that had been shut by his own Government a few months earlier.

We do not have a good record on regional policy in this country. We need to do better in future, for everybody’s benefit. Frankly, my city can do without the overheated house prices and the problems that come with everything being clustered in one place. It would be good for us, but also for everybody else, to get more balanced economic growth across the country.

We could do one small thing today—and I really do not see how it would be difficult for the Government to concede. I do not know how many Bill Committees I have been on—I have never yet had any success, although I live in hope. I make this plea, however, because I really do not see how the concession could be that painful.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her response. I am pleased to hear that she believes that the information requested in amendment 14 is likely to be included in the reporting requirements of ARIA. On that basis, I am—well, “happy” is not the right word, but I will withdraw amendment 14. I do so also on the basis that she understands its importance.

I feel, however, that in her response to amendments 16, 17 and 18, the Minister has had it both ways: she is saying that the benefits will be felt across the nation but that a requirement to have regard for the benefits across the nations and regions of the UK is too much. Its borders may move, but the geographical reality of our United Kingdom as a country of nations and regions will, I hope, remain, and so a requirement to have regard to the benefit across the nations and regions seems eminently sensible—indeed, it is a minimal requirement. I would like to press amendment 16 to a vote later, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 14.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I beg to move amendment 29, in schedule 1, page 10, line 5, at end insert—

“(3) The report must include—

(a) statistics on the gender balance of—

(i) executive board members

(ii) non-executive board members

(iii) senior staff; and

(b) financial information on the gender pay gap among ARIA employees and appointees.”

This amendment is intended to ensure that this public body may be held accountable for its gender representation.

The Minister just made a helpful comment about the memorandum of understanding that will happen between BEIS and ARIA, but her comment was not quite strong enough for me. She said it was likely to include these things—perhaps very likely. Will the Minister tell us that it will include the geographical disbursement covered in the previous amendment, and the gender balance of the board members and senior staff and the gender pay gap, as covered in amendment 29? If we are asking companies to report on the gender pay gap in their annual reports, as we are and should be doing, it is not out of the question to ask ARIA to do the same.

The measure is particularly important because the Government are absolutely intent on excluding ARIA from freedom of information; if ARIA is excluded from FOI, we are not able to see that information. We will not have the level of scrutiny that we normally have over a public body. We have talked at some length— the shadow Minister spoke at some length—about the importance of gender balance, diversity and having women in senior roles. It is also important that we do not have a gender pay gap within ARIA. We know that the glass ceiling in areas such as engineering is very significant. We want to ensure that women are promoted to all levels within the organisation, that women are paid fairly within it and that we are able to scrutinise the information.

I would really appreciate it if the Minister stood up and said, “Yes, absolutely—we will be negotiating that as part of the MOU.” That would be massively appreciated because it is incredibly important.

[Chi Onwurah]

I rise briefly to speak in support of the amendment. As the Bill stands, ARIA will not be subject to freedom of information requests. If there is no requirement to report on gender balance and the gender pay gap, will we have any understanding of the way in which ARIA is reflecting the gender diversity that we hope to see in the organisation?

[Amanda Solloway]

Again, I draw hon. Members’ attention to the existing obligations under the public sector equality duty and the Equality Act 2010, to which ARIA will be subject. Under the public sector equality duty, ARIA must, in carrying out all its functions, have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct; advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it; and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

This is a strong statutory duty that will apply to the recruitment and remuneration of ARIA staff. Should ARIA have 250 employees, there would also be a requirement to publish its gender pay gap information, based on the point at which the data becomes statistically significant and supports a good analysis.

I believe this specific duty is sufficient for ARIA, as indeed it is for all other employers. I do not think that any further provision in the Bill is required and I hope the hon. Member will withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her comments on schedule 1. While I necessarily disagree with her assessment that the schedule contains all the checks and balances, accountability and oversight that are required, I will not oppose it.

The National Audit Office audit to which the Minister referred is a very limited safeguard against some aspects of conflict of interest and the misuse of public money, and the wider concerns that we have. It is limited to providing a true and fair opinion about whether the public body’s financial statement is free from material misstatement, whether caused by fraud or error, and therefore does not address our concerns about accountability. The National Audit Office conducts 400 such audits annually and it would not necessarily prevent the mismanagement of public funds in ARIA or other bodies. I hope that the Minister will reflect on the importance of improving accountability as the Bill proceeds.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule 1 accordingly agreed to.

Clause 2

ARIA’s functions

[Chi Onwurah]

I beg to move amendment 15, in clause 2, page 1, line 7, at end insert—

“(1) In exercising its functions, ARIA must have regard to its core mission.

(2) In this section, ‘core mission’ means—

(a) for the period of ten years after the date on which this Act is passed, undertaking activities which support the achievement of the target established in section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008;

(b) thereafter, that mission or missions which the Secretary of State establishes by regulations every five years.

(c) regulations under this section—

(i) shall be made by statutory instrument, and

(ii) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.”

This amendment would require ARIA to consider its core mission in exercising its functions. For the ten years following the Act passing, that core mission would be undertaking activities to support the achievement of net zero. Thereafter, its mission will be established by statutory instrument subject to the draft affirmative procedure.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 35, in clause 2, page 1, line 8, 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.”.

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.

[Chi Onwurah]

It has been a long day and we have had lively debates covering many important themes set out in this admittedly short Bill. We now come to one of the critical themes: the mission of ARIA. What is ARIA for?

Amendment 15 would require ARIA to consider its core mission in exercising its functions. Under the amendment, for the 10 years following the passing of the Act, that core mission would be to undertake activities to support the achievement of net zero. Thereafter, its mission would be established by statutory instrument, subject to the draft affirmative procedure.

I am surprised that I find myself in the position of needing to argue that ARIA—the Advanced Research and Invention Agency—requires a mission and that that mission should be net zero, which is the greatest existential challenge facing our country and the world right now.

We welcome ARIA, as we have said. We recognise that there is a gap in the UK’s research capability, which ARIA can and should fill, but we believe strongly that ARIA will succeed only if it is given a well-defined mission, which the Government must play a significant role in setting. As we heard in the evidence sessions—and as is, I believe, the opinion of the Minister—ARIA should not try to replace either blue skies research institutions or translational institutions, but should bring the two together to focus on the transformative effects that science and technology can have on society. I am sure that we are all united in the view that ARIA can have a transformative impact.

This is an opportunity for the Government to establish a mission-led funding agency that can benefit us all. With no mission and the whole of the realm of science—the whole of the unknown and the less understood—to choose from, the risk is that ARIA will be directionless, providing no societal return for taxpayer investment, or that it will be prey to vanity projects, providing return only for a few.

In evidence to the Science and Technology Committee, Dominic Cummings—I am mentioning him once again as the original inspiration and architect of ARIA—held up some sort of a diagram and said that general UK research was one bit and that ARIA should look at all the rest. That gave the impression that it would be like the SS Enterprise going off in search of new areas, but even the SS Enterprise—I know that “Star Trek” fans are present—had a mission, which was to seek out new civilisations. It was not a mission to—

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Chi Onwurah]

I am speaking about “Star Trek”, so let me finish my point and then I will give way. It was not a general mission to go around the universe and galaxies. It was not a mission to look at mining new minerals or whatever. It was a mission to seek out new civilisations, yet here we have ARIA being proposed as an agency without any mission whatever.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Just to clarify, I think it was the USS Enterprise. I believe that ARIA has a mission, which is to boldly go to areas of science that we have not gone into before. A focus on impact, high risk and high reward is not what we currently have, and we should not hamper it at this early stage. I would not for one moment deny that climate change is a huge threat that needs to be addressed, but that is not necessarily where the agency should focus. Why would we want to tie its hands before it has even started to look at the transformational science out there?

I also have great concerns, because the hon. Lady said she felt that the Government should have huge input into the mission of ARIA. That would potentially breach the Haldane principle, which Government after Government have applied and stuck to in order to make sure that politicians are not influencing scientists in what areas that they research.

[Chi Onwurah]

I accept that it is indeed the USS Enterprise, and I thank the hon. Member for that correction. On the rest of his contribution, I will say once again that I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Member, but to boldly go where no one has gone before is not a mission. It is not even a direction—it is explicitly not a direction. As I said, the USS Enterprise’s mission was to seek out new civilisations, so it was anthropological rather than another domain of science. ARIA has no mission.

We do think we have to talk about the Haldane principle, given that we have seen the acceptance of mission-oriented research, including the grand challenges that were discussed during the evidence sessions. That makes it clear that we can ascribe a mission to ARIA without breaching the Haldane principle. The Government should not outsource their responsibility to direct the transformative change that ARIA can bring to our greatest challenge, which is one that—the hon. Member is familiar with this—inspires so many young people and that can get public buy-in: climate change and the need to address the impact it will have on our planet.

[Dawn Butler]

Should we not be proud as a Committee to say that ARIA will achieve net zero in whatever project it pursues? That is essentially working on the edge of the edge—looking at forward technology, ensuring that we save the planet and ensuring that we do not add to the erosion of the ozone layer—so is it not progressive and transformative to set a parameter around net zero?

[Chi Onwurah]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend; I think that it is progressive, transformative and very necessary. We heard today that the Prime Minister has decided to set another target for our emissions—I think that it is to slash UK emissions by 78% by 2035—undaunted by the fact that he has not met any of the targets that he has set previously.

This issue is not about setting targets; it is about changing the way in which our economy and our society work, to reduce our emissions. Just think of the role that ARIA could play in that process. My hon. Friend suggested that achieving net zero is not a narrow mission; it is a broad mission, because net zero impacts every aspect of our life. An ARIA CEO would have plenty of discretion in choosing which aspects of the climate and environmental emergency to address.

[Aaron Bell]

That is potentially a worthy mission, but the point is that the hon. Lady said there is no direction. Well, going boldly is going to the frontier—even “The Final Frontier”, if we go to “Star Trek V”. [Laughter.] The edge of the edge is not in one direction. The edge is a circle, or even a sphere—all the areas that we do not know about. Trying to focus on one narrow point, as she is doing with the amendment, misses the point of ARIA and the potential for its transformative effect across a wide range of disciplines and lots of areas of science, technology, engineering and, indeed, perhaps even mathematics.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. Envisaging the edge of the edge, whether it is a circle or an ellipse—whatever it is, it is obviously broad. It is too broad. I think it could be anything. I think this Committee believes that ARIA must have a transformative impact on society, otherwise why are we here? The area where we need a transformative change is in climate change, which is a hugely broad area.

The UK, under this Government, is off track to meet current targets. The Government have no ambitious green recovery plan, they have axed the vital housing retrofit scheme and they have cut subsidies for electric vehicles. They are desperately in need of focusing our activities on the impact of climate change.

We know that two of the great challenges in reducing our emissions are transport and the existing housing stock. Think what impact an inspired programme director in ARIA could have on that great challenge of effectively insulating and reducing the emissions from our 20 million or so homes, or ensuring that transport, which the Government have said will be included in their emissions targets, is green. That is not a narrow mission. Net zero is not a narrow mission; it is as broad and as big as our planet, and it is certainly where we desperately need to focus our attention.

In response to the point about the Government choosing the mission, I would say that only the Government have the democratic mandate—they won the election—to choose the mission, while allowing ARIA’s leadership the operational independence to implement that mission. It is critical that the mission reflects public concerns, to establish buy-in as well as the tolerance for failure. Without a clear mandate from the Secretary of State, ARIA’s leadership will be put in the unenviable position of having to decide which Government Departments and policies to prioritise, and who will have the ear of the ARIA CEO. I say again that the Government cannot outsource this responsibility as they have chosen to outsource so many other responsibilities.

We are at the beginning of the decisive decade, in which the world must avert the worst impacts of climate change, and ARIA could provide much-needed research to help advance the solutions that are necessary to decarbonise our economy rapidly and fairly. In addition, this year the UK will host the critical COP26 UN climate summit. Would it not be a fantastic message to say that our leading high-risk, high-reward agency is focused on climate change? Would it not provide a model for other countries to follow?

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser said to us last week:

“The needs of the country—the priorities that the Government and Ministers set to solve particular challenges for the nation—fall very much within the UKRI remit”.––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 8, Q4.]

Achieving net zero remains one of this Government’s top priorities—demonstrated by the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan—as it is for parties across the House. However, we should continue to successfully mobilise the structures we have in place to respond to the Government’s priorities, including through the industrial strategy challenge fund’s eight clean growth challenges.

We should use ARIA to do something different. Otherwise, I believe we are at risk of causing confusion and duplication of responsibilities. A key difference will be creating a space in the R&D funding system to give autonomy to visionary people. ARIA’s leaders will invite and scrutinise a range of proposals, each of which is defined by a single cohesive and coherent programme objective. That could be a measure towards achieving net zero, or it could be in any other field. ARIA will select the most talented programme managers with the most exceptional idea, and give them the opportunity to discover the next transformational breakthrough.

As we heard in evidence from Nesta and UKRI last week, ARIA is about conducting research in a different way, through new funding mechanisms and giving autonomy to experts. It is not about research in any one field. I agree that is the right approach. It is for that reason that I cannot accept the amendments. I hope the hon. Members will withdraw their amendments. Finally, if ARIA is successful, who knows: we could be saying, “Beam me up, Scotty!”

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her comments, particularly for that final reference, the spirit of which I wholeheartedly agree with. However, I do not find her arguments against the amendment compelling, and I would like to push it to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

Clause 2 sets out ARIA’s functions. As described in the policy statement published on 19 March, ARIA is expected to facilitate a programme manager model. Programme managers lead research programmes designed around highly ambitious scientific or technological visions. Within their overarching programme, programme managers will distribute funding across a range of projects. Individual projects might vary in size, length and scientific discipline, and may be conducted by different institutions or collaborative groups. The projects are not stand-alone, but rather contribute to the overall aims of the programme.

An important feature of clause 2 is ARIA’s power to commission or support others to conduct research, to develop and exploit scientific knowledge, or to collect, share, publish and advance scientific knowledge. While ARIA is expected to perform some research in-house, a significant proportion of its activities are likely to take place externally. For example, programme managers are expected to commission individual research projects from experts across the public and private sectors.

It is vital that ARIA is able to support others contributing to its ambitious programme goals in a flexible way. Subsections (2) and (4) set out the ways in which in exercising its functions ARIA may support others. They should be read in conjunction with supplementary powers, which are set out in paragraph 17 of schedule 1. For example, ARIA may provide financial support through a range of innovative funding mechanisms. That may include making grants, loans and investments in companies or other entities, or any other payment, such as prizes.

A diversity of funding approaches has been integral to the ARPA model’s success in the US—we heard from Dr Peter Highnam—and it will encourage ARIA to experiment even more. However, we will balance experimentation with the need to safeguard public funding. The provision of financial support by ARIA is subject to any conditions that are attached to grant funding given by the Secretary of State to ARIA in clause 4, to which I am sure we will return shortly.

Finally, science is an international endeavour. Accordingly, ARIA will be able to fund, conduct, commission and support research internationally. Sir Adrian Smith and Sir Jim McDonald were clear about the importance of ARIA participating in international research in last week’s evidence session. Clause 2(5) and (6) state that ARIA’s activities are not restricted to the United Kingdom, but in exercising its functions ARIA must have regard to the desirability of doing so for the benefit of the United Kingdom, through economic growth or a benefit promoting scientific innovation and invention, or improving quality of life.

Clause 2 and the functions really get to the heart of the value that ARIA will add to our UK research and development system, and equip it for the exciting role that it will play. I recommend that it stand part of the Bill.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for her comments. It is clear from this afternoon’s debate that clause 2 does not set out what ARIA will do or achieve, or what its real function will be, but we will not oppose it standing part.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Michael Tomlinson.)

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Third sitting)

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I apologise to the Bill Committee for not being here at the start. That was due to a medical appointment that I could not avoid. I am sorry to have missed the opening speeches.

Labour welcomes this debate and the interest and proposed investment in advanced research and innovation through this agency. We have concerns about the Bill as it stands, which will I will go through in some detail, amendment by amendment. We champion our world-leading scientists, and we recognise the importance of giving science and engineering in this country the opportunity to enable us to build back better and create a fairer and more progressive world.

Amendment 9, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends, follows on nicely from the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North. I am sorry to have missed part of her remarks, but I caught most of them. We echo her desire to see diversity on the board of ARIA. I was very drawn to her comments about the oil industry in Aberdeen North. I worked as an engineer for 20 years before coming to Parliament, and I spent some of that time in Nigeria working not in the industry but with oil engineers, so I know about the lack of diversity that she is referring to and how challenging it can be to be the only person of one’s gender, ethnicity or class in the room.

Our amendment seeks to ensure that, in appointing members of ARIA,

“The Secretary of State must…have regard to the diversity of the members including the representation of those with protected characteristics.”

“Protected characteristics” has the meaning given by part 2, chapter 1 of the Equality Act 2010. That would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the diversity of the board when using their powers of appointment.

Labour wants to ensure that agencies such as ARIA are of benefit to the entire nation—indeed, to all nations in the United Kingdom—and every region and citizen. It is clear that, at the moment, diversity is not the strong point of our science establishment. Only 7% of managers, directors and senior officials in academic and non-academic higher education positions are black, Asian or minority ethnic, and only 24% of the UK STEM workforce are women. That has to change if we are to create a welcoming and inclusive culture in United Kingdom research and development. The Government’s R&D roadmap states:

“Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) is a critical aspect of research culture…UKRI will develop and launch bold initiatives to increase the participation, retention and promotion of a diversity of talent into R&D.”

I know that the Minister takes these issues seriously, so why is there no reference to diversity in this new agency? This Bill is a real opportunity for action. If the Government are serious about a forward-looking diversity programme, they must ensure that ARIA has diversity at its heart.

We want ARIA to be world leading and to make breakthroughs of which the whole United Kingdom can be proud. We cannot allow the research breakthroughs of tomorrow to be held back and hamstrung by old attitudes of the past. We are never going to unlock the full potential of our research sector if we do not use the talents of everyone. There are real issues with diversity in the UK science sector, with black and minority ethnic men 28% less likely to work in STEM than white men, and women representing 9% of people in non-medical STEM careers. Yet we face a shortfall of 173,000 STEM workers, which is estimated to cost the sector £1.5 billion a year.

The reason I am so determined that ARIA should reflect the importance of diversity is because when I graduated from Imperial in 1987—a long, long time ago—around 13% of engineering students were women. In my year at Imperial it was 12%. If we fast forward some 30 years—more than a quarter of a century—the figures have increased by 2 percentage points. In a quarter of a century, that is the amount of progress we have made in this critical area. We must not show any complacency or think that this will happen over time. As we have seen, it does not happen over time; it requires action.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Chi Onwurah]

I am happy to give way to an hon. Member who is a great champion of diversity in science.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Does she recognise that the Government have taken steps in this direction, particularly during the year of engineering in 2018 and in the subsequent creation of an engineering envoy to try to continue to promote engineering to everyone, regardless of background, gender or ethnicity? The Government are alive to the issues and take them seriously, so mandating it in this amendment is not the right way forward. We need to do exactly what the hon. Lady said, which is to set up projects that let people decide that engineering is the career for them.

[Chi Onwurah]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. I recognise the sterling work that he did as Chair of the Science and Technology Committee and as the Government’s envoy during the year of engineering, and that he now does as chairperson of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. He is not talking about this issue now simply because it has become more fashionable; he has a long history in this area.

I did not mean to imply that the Government have not taken any action. It is important for the Government to promote engineering, but in this, as in everything, itis the outcomes that matter, not the words. At the heart of this Bill is the creation of an institution. There are many challenges facing our research environment, including the lack of private investment in research and the lack of venture capital investment in early start-ups.

The Government have chosen to respond with an institution, and therefore it should reflect the Government’s priorities when it comes to diversity. If part of the answer to the challenges facing the scientific community is a new institution, at the heart of it must be the diversity that we want to see in the science establishment.

Obviously, I am not the only person to raise this issue; we heard earlier from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North, and it was clear from witness evidence that there was significant support for ARIA acting as an agent of change in this important matter. Professor Leyser, the chief executive officer of UKRI, said:

“I have to think about all parts of the system. I have to think about the people—do we have the right kinds of people in the system, the right mix, the right diversity, the right set of skills, and the right career trajectories and pathways through the system?”

If the person who is in charge of the greatest portion of the UK R&D budget has to think about that, why not ARIA? We also heard from Tris Dyson of Nesta Challenges, who said specifically of the proposed agency that

“we think that there is an opportunity to explore new avenues and do things slightly differently. Some of the opportunities that that presents, both through ARIA and more generally, is around boosting the diversity of people involved in frontier technology and innovation and improving geographical reach.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 5-7, Q3.]

I hope that the Minister will explain how that will be realised if not through an amendment such as amendment 9.

We also heard really important evidence from Dr Dugan of Wellcome, who is a past director of DARPA. She said:

“What I can tell you about diversity from my own experience, both in Silicon Valley and at DARPA, is that for decades we have known that specificity of goal and outcome is a good way to get more equality and diversity in assessment of ideas and in people conducting or pursuing those ideas.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 39, Q33.]

We will come on to consider this in further debate, but currently ARIA has no mission, no specificity of outcomes, and no diversity requirements.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that the Secretary of State will follow the code governing public appointments, which includes the principle that public appointments should reflect the diversity of our society?

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point and it raises two issues. First, how the CEO will be recruited and which rules for public appointment that process will follow is not clear in the Bill, so perhaps the Minister will provide that information. If the Secretary of State has to follow those rules, surely the amendment simply makes it clear what he—he in this case—has to do, and ensures focus on and recognition of the requirements. I do not feel that those two considerations are incompatible.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a fundamental issue. There is a real problem particularly around design, as Caroline Criado Perez identified in her book “Invisible Women: Exposing data bias in a world designed for men”—some of us attended the book launch here a couple of years ago. Extraordinarily, she pointed out that a swathe of design was done without women in mind at all, so crash tests and so on do not work because they are tested on the wrong people. That reflects the danger of having a board without a wide range of people. I read somewhere the other day that the armed forces in some country had only just discovered that women require different underwear from men. There is a blinds pot here, and it goes back to blokes in sheds I am afraid.

[Chi Onwurah]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I agree wholeheartedly. The fact that most technology and science has been designed and developed by a narrow demographic minority has great implications for our society. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking of the wonderful inventions and technologies that we might have in the world had women and minorities been able to play a full part in our scientific development. My hon. Friend gave the example of how, as Caroline Criado Perez said in her book, so much of our world has not reflected the needs or interests of women, which is really important. I say to the Minister: the agency, which we will come back to a number of times, will fail. It is designed to fail. When it fails—not in general, but particularly—it needs to have the support of the public to understand the reason why it failed. To lock women out of the board, which is what it will effectively do, and not reflect the importance of diversity, will be a factor in public trust.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree. This measure should be included in the Bill as a safeguard or a fallback—a failsafe. I appreciate the public sector equality duty exists, but that is not strong enough to give me comfort.

When women do engineering degrees, they get better degrees than men. They get a better class of degree—the statistics prove it. If we want the highest possible quality of people, from diverse backgrounds, pushing innovation forward and trying to, for example, make the renewable energy technologies of the future, we need to ensure diversity on the board and more widely in the staff of ARIA.

[Chi Onwurah]

I echo the disappointment of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North in the Minister’s response, who takes this issue very seriously. The architect of ARIA and the debate around it have focused very much on great individual minds of science, generally men, and how they should be left on their own to go off and discover new and exciting things. These amendments would send a really important message to the science community that ARIA is an inclusive agency and that, regardless of what some may have said or envisaged, this is about the whole of the United Kingdom. I would emphasise that we still have far, far to go to reflect diversity in the science community.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Flynn]

I would like to echo, first and briefly, the sentiments of my colleague in thanking the Clerks for their diligent work in the run-up to this Bill Committee and also to thank all of the witnesses who came to the evidence session last week. I found it incredibly informative and the hon. Member for Cambridge was right to highlight that at the start of today’s proceedings.

Amendment 31 and those related to it are quite simple. To coin a phrase that is oft used by Conservative Members, it is a way for this place to take back control. It is not a phrase that I would use willingly too often, for fear of sounding like them, but in this regard, it is a good way of summarising what is in front of us. It comes back to a key theme that runs through everything to do with ARIA and this entire concept. The hon. Member for Cambridge touched on it in respect of clarity. What is the Bill seeking to achieve? What is going to be the mission and the focus?

We heard during the evidence session that much of that determination of what the Bill seeks to achieve and the direction it takes is going to default to the chair, the CEO and those who are involved. They are going to fill the vacuum that the Government are leaving. That is fine, I assume, from the Government’s perspective, but it is incumbent on us as Members of this place, who are presiding over a significant amount of public money, to have a keen interest in what ARIA is seeking to achieve. The best and a very simple way we can do that is to ensure we have a chair and a CEO in place who we feel are pointing in the right direction. That is an important point to make, because—I am loath to mention him— Dominic Cummings in his evidence session and in the public domain has ties with people whose views are questionable, to say the least. I say “ties”, but he referenced scientists who promote the likes of eugenics and we need to be mindful of these things and that there are people out there who have views that are abhorrent. We do not know who the chair is going to be. We do not know who the CEO is going to be. We can trust the judgment of the Secretary of State or we can all play a part in deciding that. It is incumbent on all of us when we are talking about such a significant amount of public money to do our duty: to take back control and make sure ARIA has the direction that it requires.

[Chi Onwurah]

Amendment 10, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friends, reflects many of the concerns articulated by the SNP spokesperson—the hon. Member for Aberdeen South—and would require the Secretary of State to seek and obtain the consent of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons to the appointment of ARIA’s first chief executive officer. Some members of the Bill Committee serve on the Select Committee and know how well able the Science and Technology Committee is to hold to account the potential—future—CEO of ARIA.

I feel that this amendment is particularly important because, in a response to a parliamentary question that I received just yesterday, the Minister made it clear that the recruitment of the first CEO was under way and that no interim CEO would be appointed. We therefore need to ensure that we get the first CEO right.

The driving factor behind the amendment is the need for greater oversight and responsibility. We are in the midst of a crisis of confidence; a scandal of sleaze is overwhelming this House and many of its institutions. I will start with a quote:

“The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way.”

That is how former Prime Minister David Cameron described back in 2010 the next big scandal to hit British politics. I want all members of this Bill Committee to think long and hard about the way the Bill is currently drafted. It leaves £800 million of taxpayers’ money, and our scientific future, open to just that level of sleaze.

We see in the current cronyism scandal the consequences of placing power and responsibility in the hands of those who are not accountable and do not have the moral judgment to hold that power wisely in the public interest. This Bill places huge power and responsibility in the hands of the CEO of ARIA, with little ongoing accountability, a significant budget and none of the checks provided by the usual public procurement and freedom of information rules. It is critical that there be parliamentary oversight of the choice of CEO if we are to avoid both sleaze and, equally important, the appearance of sleaze. This CEO needs the confidence of the UK’s scientific community: they will have a huge challenge. But they will receive that confidence only if they are appointed on merit. The Bill was drafted before the current sleaze scandal and reflects far too much the “Ask no questions—that’s too much bureaucracy” approach. We see where that has got us.

Labour’s Opposition day debate on 14 April, just last week, highlighted the fact that the Greensill scandal is just the tip of the iceberg of the cronyism rife in the Conservative party during the pandemic and long before. It is laced through the billions of pounds-worth of contracts paid for by taxpayers and of a slew of troubling senior appointments.

Bill Committee testimony from Government witnesses such as Professor Philip Bond, and Dominic Cummings’ evidence earlier to the Science and Technology Committee contained multiple references to trusting the leaders of ARIA with £800 million of taxpayers’ money with no purpose or mission, none of the usual safeguards and complete freedom for the Secretary of State as to whom they appoint. We are concerned that this is a recipe for sleaze in science. There is no detail in the Bill—

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I am listening very closely to what the hon. Lady is saying, but I cannot imagine for one moment—I am sure that she cannot, either—that a chair or chief executive of ARIA would refuse an invitation from the Select Committee on Science and Technology to attend and answer questions. In the 11 years that I have been here, I have not been aware of a single incident of someone from the science community refusing to attend the Committee. To suggest that this could be science sleaze in the waiting is stretching the point way beyond reality.

[Chi Onwurah]

I am always grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s interventions, as he makes interesting—if inaccurate, in this case—points. Let me emphasise how it looks from the outside right now: we have all these friends getting contracts because they have the WhatsApp contact of the Secretary of State, and people appointed to be in charge of procurement also work for big producers. I am afraid that the Bill does not contain the necessary safeguards, and it is incumbent on the Committee to ensure that that kind of sleaze does not taint science.

[Aaron Bell]

One of the reasons why things look that way from the outside is the accusations made by the Opposition. I have an example. The hon. Lady was not here earlier—I completely accept that she had a reason for that—when I referred to Kate Bingham’s appointment, and the £670,000 spent last year on a crucial campaign to get hard-to-reach groups not only to take part in vaccine trials but to take the vaccine. At the time, the Leader of the Opposition said:

“You cannot justify that sort of money being spent”,

and the deputy leader of the Labour party said, “This cronyism stinks.” After what we saw last year, I think it a little rich of the Opposition to go round suggesting that this is the problem, when, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock said, the Science and Technology Committee, and all the science community, are very engaged. The idea that there would be scientific sleaze is frankly risible.

[Dawn Butler]

rose—

[Chi Onwurah]

Before I give way to my hon. Friend or address the latest intervention, I will finish addressing one of the points made by the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock. He said that he could not imagine that any chair or CEO of ARIA would not agree to give evidence to the Science and Technology Committee. I remind him that Dominic Cummings, who was not the chair of ARIA but was certainly its chief architect, refused to give evidence to this Committee on the basis that he had already given evidence to another Committee, and once was enough in terms of accountability.

[Jane Hunt]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Chi Onwurah]

Let me deal with the previous interventions, to which I am currently trying to respond. The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock says that he cannot imagine such a circumstance, but I want undeniable accountability written through the Bill. I am concerned about the level of accountability in the Bill, and in some of the evidence, and in other discussion on the Bill, it has been suggested that accountability is a good thing, because that bureaucracy prevents people getting their own way. Perhaps the CEO might feel that they have better things to do than be accountable. In addition, this is about making the appointment of the CEO subject to the scrutiny of the Science and Technology Committee. What could be wrong with that?

As for the intervention from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, it is the first time that I have heard The Telegraph called the Opposition. The charges of sleaze are far broader than those coming from the Labour party. Indeed, it really cannot be said that we have led the charge when it comes to concerns about multiple examples of sleaze. I was really interested in the vaccine taskforce example that the hon. Gentleman gave. I congratulate the vaccine taskforce, and indeed the NHS. It is interesting that it is never called the “NHS vaccine roll-out” but we do talk about NHS Test and Trace, when the NHS is rolling out the vaccine much more than it is testing and tracing.

I asked about that £650,000 funding at parliamentary questions, and it did not go towards finding hard-to-reach groups—I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the response. It may have gone to good purposes, but to argue that it was for hard-to-reach groups is to take accountability away from that expenditure. That is worthy of criticism.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Hunt]

I have two points. First, UKRI is not broken. It is a great service that offers, through a process of application, grants and so on, a means to research and development. What ARIA does is create an opportunity for exceptional brains to make exceptional decisions and, with some money behind them, to try to develop things. It is not underhand or any of the things being said; it is just an opening and an opportunity. Someone said the other day that the coders in their bedrooms, who do not have the resources to make bids or applications, nor the language behind them to be successful, can get into that system. UKRI is not broken; ARIA is something separate.

With absolutely the greatest respect to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, who was not here at the beginning, for good reasons, a number of Opposition Members have referred to Dominic Cummings. I am sorry, but I am not happy about that; we have before us a highly respected female Minister putting forward the Bill. We should respect her and her position and stop referring to somebody unelected who is not even in the room.

[Chi Onwurah]

There were a number of important interventions. Let me first respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central. She was right and did well to remind us of the normalcy of the Science and Technology Committee looking at important science appointments and how eminently qualified the Committee is to do that. I referred somewhat light-heartedly to The Telegraph not being the Opposition. She did well to remind us that important elements of the sleaze scandals—plural—that are circulating were discovered by investigative journalism of the highest quality, sometimes outside the mainstream press, which is not often appropriately and adequately supported on access.

On the hon. Member for Loughborough’s intervention, first, it is not the Opposition who are saying that UKRI is broken. She does not like my mentioning Dominic Cummings, but I must say that he and others have criticised UKRI and the existing science establishment. Let us remind ourselves that UKRI is only three years old, but they have criticised it as inadequate and argued for the creation of something that is not subject to huge bureaucracy. She claims that this will not be a barrier to the great coder in their garage who has some fantastic idea.

We are trying to prevent ARIA from being used simply by those in the know who have connections. That great coder in their garage is unlikely to know who to apply to for an ARIA grant or prize and will not have the connections to get to the front of the queue. I am sure that the Minister has considered that sometimes bureaucracy is about ensuring equality of access and opportunity. ARIA wants to move fast, and we recognise that, but it needs to ensure that the right accountability and confidence are in place. As other hon. Members have emphasised, we cannot allow the kind of sleaze we have seen elsewhere, particularly with regard to procurement during the pandemic. We cannot allow that in science. I will not allow it to stain our great scientific heritage and hope for the future.

I have mentioned the Minister’s interest a number of times. I hold her in the greatest respect, but she is very misplaced in her argument that I am somehow discriminating against her by referring to the self-vaunted architect of ARIA—he made that much clear during his Select Committee evidence, and he implied that it was one of the conditions for his becoming the Prime Minister’s chief adviser—and to the antecedents of the agency that this Bill is about. That does her credibility no favours.

Let me continue. I am happy to take interventions, although I imagine that the Whips would like us to make progress. With none of the usual safeguards, and with complete freedom for the Secretary of State appointed by the Government, we are concerned that this is a recipe for sleaze in science. There is no detail in the Bill—perhaps the Minister could think about how to approve this—about who, if anyone, will play a role in making or scrutinising the appointments of chair, non-executive members and the first chief executive officer. There must be a concern about cronyism and protecting ARIA’s independence.

Let me consider a point made earlier. We do not know whether the roles of the chair and chief executive of ARIA will be added to the schedule of the Public Appointments Order in Council so that they can be independently regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. If the answer is yes, I would appreciate clarity. Will the significant appointments to the roles of chair and chief executive of ARIA require a senior independent panel member, approved by the commissioner, to sit on the advisory assessment process? If not, how will the Secretary of State ensure a fair and open-minded recruitment process for those positions?

The public are frankly tired of backroom deals between mates who go to the same pub. I want the CEO to have a transformative impact on British society. It is right that at least their appointment should be subject to public scrutiny. There has been much criticism of the revolving door between the public and private sector. We want ARIA to be above such criticism. Let us not allow it to become mired in grubby deals before it has even begun.

Some might say that the Government are taking a rather Stalinist approach to scientific research, where a small group of really smart men, as it always was, are left to decide how best to pursue socioeconomic projects. That is a model that basically entrusts resources to a small group of experts, without democratic oversight. I thought the other side were not over-enamoured with experts. If a Labour Government had done that, one suspects they would have had to face comparison to some of the USSR’s leaders.

I emphasise that I do not believe that the Minister is subject to groupthink, and I am sure, or at least I hope, that the Secretary of State would never compromise himself in the way that the Conservative ex-Prime Minister David Cameron has, by giving jobs to buddies, but the fact is that people recruit people like themselves. Surely we need broader input. Dominic Cummings said in his evidence to the Science and Technology Committee that the agency should have “extreme freedom”. The very least we should expect is that Parliament should be able to scrutinise the appointment.

To emphasise that our concerns are credible and legitimate, I point the Committee to supporting points made in evidence. Dame Ottoline Leyser from UKRI said:

“The whole ability of this organisation to operate in this edge-of-the-edge really visionary way that we are all very excited about is critically dependent on those people; and they are in very short supply.”—[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 8, Q4.]

She added that

“it is crucial for the success of ARIA—it is everything. We need to go into the search process with absolute resolve to wait until we find the right people, and not appoint people just because there is a vacancy.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 16, Q13.]

On the mission, Professor James Wilsdon said that

“in relying on appointing the leadership as the route to answering the question, all you do is move the source of the problem.”

That is why the amendment is so important. The Government are not taking responsibility for the mission, so the mission is with the chief executive officer. Surely the CEO must have some accountability. As Professor Wilsdon went on to say:

“If the Government have not been able to resolve the question of what it is for, how do we identify who the right leaders are?...I don’t see how you can find the right people. If you do find people, how do you avoid it simply becoming a tool, a plaything, of their prior interests and priorities?” ––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 19, Q16.]

The Science and Technology Committee could investigate prior interests and priorities.

We heard from Professor Philip Bond that he is

“a big believer in giving the chair and the director enormous amounts of autonomy. You pick people you are willing to bet on and then hand them a lot of trust.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 25, Q20.]

We are agreed that the Bill hands a lot of trust to the CEO, without making them accountable to Parliament or the public.

Finally, I want to quote from ARIA’s statement of policy intent:

“In shaping the research, culture, and setup of ARIA, the first CEO will have a significant effect on the technological and strategic capabilities of the UK over the course of generations. They will establish the philosophies, working styles, and cultural norms that make ARIA effective and distinct. They will recruit the first cohort of Programme Managers…enable them to launch the first programmes, sign the first research partnerships, and help define the strategic advantages the programmes aim for. They will position ARIA as a distinctive part of the UK’s research funding landscape that complements and expands the UK’s funding capability.”

Given the importance of the role, as clearly set out in that statement, to the science and technology landscape of this country, how can the Minister refuse to allow the Science and Technology Committee to have a role in that appointment?

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (First sitting)

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Q Thank you. Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, please introduce yourself for the record.

Professor Leyser: Thank you. My name is Ottoline Leyser and I am the CEO of UK Research and Innovation, which is an arm’s length body of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Department. We are the major public sector funder of research and innovation for the UK. We fund right across the disciplines and sectors that conduct research and innovation.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Q Given that this is my first contribution, may I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey? I look forward to working with all members of the Committee on the Bill, which is important for our future research and prosperity.

I welcome our two witnesses. I have one general question for both of you, given your broad range of experience in research and development: what is the problem that the Advanced Research and Invention Agency is fixing? Professor Dame Ottoline, do you have a clear understanding of the proposed working relationship between ARIA and UK Research and Innovation, and should that be put on a formal footing to provide clarity? Mr Dyson, Nesta Challenges is based on challenges, so what is the role of challenges and missions with regard to the work of ARIA in driving high-risk, high-reward research?

Professor Leyser: I do not actually see ARIA as being about fixing a problem; I see it as adding something new and extra to an already very high-quality research and innovation system. As I have said, UKRI is the major public funder for research and innovation. We invest £8 billion of public money every year in research innovation, and we have a major responsibility to act as stewards for the whole system in the UK to ensure that it has the right capabilities and capacity to conduct the research and innovation that we need for the kind of inclusive and sustainable knowledge economy that is so important for our country.

As CEO of UKRI, I have to think about all parts of the system. I have to think about the people—do we have the right kinds of people in the system, the right mix, the right diversity, the right set of skills, and the right career trajectories and pathways through the system? I have to think about infrastructures—do we have the right balance of institutes, universities, catapults and national facilities, as well as high-quality equipment within institutions and universities, for example? Are we funding the right mix of ideas, starting from the really high-risk, high-gain research, which will be the focus of ARIA? It is also our responsibility to fund the really important work that perhaps does not fall into that transformative, high-risk, high-reward category, but without which the benefits of that high-risk, high-reward research will not be realised and the foundations for the next transformative ideas will not be built. I also have to think about the connectivity in the system, how to join it up and make it all work effectively. Then I have to think about how we can take that and focus it on particular challenges that we face in the country. The work that UKRI does seeks to balance all of those needs and support all of them to create a really high-functioning system for the UK.

I hope that ARIA will do what you might call an extreme or particularly transformative, visionary version of that focus activity, so it will work in a different way from the way in which we typically work. Because of our incredibly broad responsibility for the system, we tend to work in a way that asks the system, in a very broad and open way, how it can best deliver the things that we think need to happen, whereas ARIA will work on the programme manager model, so it will identify a small cadre of visionary leaders who will have extraordinary ideas, we hope, to drive forward the edge of the edge, transformative, visionary ideas, and they will hopefully be empowered to work in very different, agile ways to take forward those kinds of ideas. That is quite experimental. They should be able to experiment with different ways of funding research, including, for example, the challenge model, which Tris is such an expert on. There is a whole range of opportunities. That is how I see it working. It is a small, agile agency that will bring together these visionary individuals to add something on top of a very high-functioning system. It is not about fixing a problem; it is about adding something new at the edge of the edge to push forward those frontiers.

I absolutely agree that it is very important that activity is properly rooted in the research base for which I and UKRI are responsible, because it will depend totally on that research base. The people employed at ARIA will absolutely need to understand deeply what UKRI is doing and what the opportunities are across that research base in order to deliver their vision. I would expect a very close working relationship with ARIA to allow that to happen.

Tris Dyson: I would agree with quite a bit of that. Nesta Challenges produced a report in the summer called “The Great Innovation Challenge”, which we should share with you. We looked at the funding ecosystem. The current funding ecosystem is pretty good and our main funding mechanisms work quite well. It is not wasted. It includes direct financial support through bodies such as UKRI and also the Small Business Research Initiative. It also includes research and development tax credits and the effect that has.

There has, however, as I think the Government have recognised, been an overall need to increase funding in research and development, which is why the target of 2.4% and the promised increases in Government funding are so welcome. In that context, we think that there is an opportunity to explore new avenues and do things slightly differently. Some of the opportunities that that presents, both through ARIA and more generally, is around boosting the diversity of people involved in frontier technology and innovation and improving geographical reach. If we do have a long-standing problem in the UK, it is perhaps with that feed-in to commercialisation and the connection between university R&D and patenting and things that get picked up by the private sector, so that might be something to look at. We do not think that there is a problem, but I guess that this does present, as Ottoline has said, an opportunity for a new, smaller, dynamic agency to add to the current ecosystem.

We think the advantage of ARIA would be that, because it is smaller, it might be able to generate a culture that is a bit more nimble and a bit more agile, take some more risks, look at things about diversity of innovators, and engage with types of innovation and types of innovation funding that ordinarily might be perhaps a little too high risk. It can also be a little more focused and entrepreneurial, but—to consider the second part of the question—it can also look beyond just grants and R&D tax credits, which are overwhelmingly the main way of funding innovation in the UK.

On the role of challenge prizes, challenges get used quite loosely to mean a lot of things, but what we mean by them is outcome-based funding, where you use the combination of technology foresight and insight with some creativity and understanding of how markets evolve and develop, and what opportunities might exist in the future, in order to identify quite specific problems, where there is a real ability to push things forward in innovation but where it is unclear where the most promising innovation is going to come from. For ARIA, I think that this might be quite a useful tool, because, comparatively speaking, you are dealing with relatively small amounts of money, and outcome-based challenge funding gives you a degree of focus but also allows a degree of payment on results. So, you have milestone payments on the basis of ability to solve problem A, B or C, or of demonstrating some traction in the market.

They have other benefits as well, which go beyond the non-financial. You can use relatively smaller amounts of money in a challenge prize model because you might be building up a deal flow for investors, customers and other people who you want to crowd in and bring in additional funding. They are also quite high-profile because of the nature of the competition or the race towards solving x. That means that the publicity and the promotional opportunities for innovators can be quite significant, above and beyond just the financial reward.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much for those responses. It is great to hear such support for our existing science base. A lot of the discussion around the Bill has been critical of the bureaucracy associated with current research, which has served us so well, particularly in this pandemic.

Both of your responses referred to the role of ARIA in looking at new areas, particularly having new areas of focus that may have been missed and addressing them in different ways. The document of intent that the Secretary of State published leaves the choice of areas of research or the overall mission to the programme managers rather than the chief executive of ARIA, whoever that might be. How will that address our country’s research needs, and do you think that the Secretary of State should have responsibility for identifying the overarching missions that ARIA looks at?

Dame Ottoline, there has been controversy with you over exempting ARIA from meeting freedom of information requests. UKRI meets freedom of information requests. Do you find them to be burdensome in going about your objectives, and what proportion of your budget is taken up by them? I will go to Tris first this time, if that is okay.

Tris Dyson: I think that the question about leaving it up to the team that is put together at ARIA is a very good one. When you ask people about the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the US Advanced Research Projects Agency and so on, you get quite different answers as to what they do—that is probably because they do so much—but one of the common responses is that they have very empowered programme managers who understand and know their fields and are able to pursue agendas with a degree of freedom.

I think that has got to be a model that an agency like this—if it is going to be higher risk-taking and a bit more agile, and is going to look at funding innovation that you might ordinarily overlook—needs to be able to pursue, but it does mean that you need to get the right team in place and empower them appropriately. That means that you need a combination of, obviously, people who understand frontier science and technology; but then you also need a degree of creativity and insight as to what the opportunities might be. You need people also who understand the strengths and abilities within the UK, in order to build on that. So, yes, we are significant advocates of the idea that you would have a small, dynamic, empowered team; but they will also need to be relatively ruthless to stop funding things that do not work quite early on, and stick with things that do. That will have to be a mindset, or a regimen, that is baked in from the start.

Professor Leyser: I absolutely agree with what Tris has said. I think it is widely acknowledged that the success of ARIA—and in many ways the rate-limiting factor—is going to be finding those people. The whole ability of this organisation to operate in this edge-of-the-edge really visionary way that we are all very excited about is critically dependent on those people; and they are in very short supply. So I think the idea of leaving it open to that team of people to decide their focus, to pick the projects that are at the edge of the edge, as it is described, is a really important element.

I also view the notion of this small, agile additional agency as having that freedom in a very positive way. The needs of the country—the priorities that the Government and Ministers set to solve particular challenges for the nation—fall very much within the UKRI remit, and indeed we have very successful programmes doing exactly that, including in a challenge-led model. Those programmes tend to operate on a slightly different basis in the more traditional open call route that Tris describes with grant applications and so on. Again, I would see ARIA as an additional small, agile, free agency that can creatively identify and capture those transformative opportunities that, indeed, are not necessarily thought about in the broader system, and reach parts of the system that our current system does not as successfully reach. It needs to be very experimental and I suppose from that point of view it is not the place where you invest the responsibility for delivering major national priorities.

We are very committed to our freedom of information responsibilities. We get about 30 requests a month and we have a team who deal with those requests and also the other data access requests, and so on, that are part of our responsibility. I am happy to be able to do that. I think that is important for public money, and there is a judgment call about the burden of administration of that, relative to the benefits in transparent use of public funding.

[Chi Onwurah]

I will stop there, because I know many Members have questions.

[The Chair]

I will go to the Minister, and then to Stephen. Can I have an indication—will Members put their hands up—of how many there are? That is four. If you want to ask another question, do you want to ask it now, or come back a little bit later?

[Chi Onwurah]

I will come back later, if that is okay.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)]

Q May I say what a pleasure it is to be here under your chairmanship to discuss such an important subject, Ms McVey? I have two separate questions for both the witnesses. The first question, for Tris Dyson, is about funding mechanisms and how they support the R&D system. Do you have some examples of how a range of funding mechanisms support the R&D system?

Tris Dyson: We put together a document in the summer, which we can share with you, that has examples both from Nesta Challenges and particularly from the United States of outcome-based challenge prize funding. That is obviously mainly the space that we occupy. There were some great examples of where it stimulates and creates whole new industries and sectors. There were also some examples of where there can be quite big mistakes, because you go off down the wrong course.

I know there has been quite a lot of inspiration from DARPA and from the US. One example would be the driverless car in the early 2000s. DARPA ran a series of challenge prizes in the desert around the development of driverless cars. It was literally an annual race where teams from universities would compete to develop vehicles that would outperform one another, and there was prize funding associated at the end of it. That is more or less where driverless cars began. The teams that came out of those universities and the individuals have now been picked up by Google, Uber, Apple and everybody else. It is why a lot of that frontier technology is now being developed on the west coast and the rest of the world is playing catch-up.

Another example would be the Ansari X prize, which was about building a privately funded spaceship that would carry two passengers. It had a very specific target about how high a sub-orbit it needed to reach within a two-week period. That created an enormous race for people to build privately funded spaceships, again in the early 2000s. You can see now what has happened in the private space flight industry in the US. The team that won that is now Virgin Galactic and we see every day in our newspapers what has happened to them.

We are a bit newer to this in the UK, but we also have some examples. We concluded a challenge prize just before Christmas that was looking at lower-limb paralysis. It was essentially saying that there have been dramatic improvements in the fields of artificial intelligence, robotics and sensory technology but why has the wheelchair not changed very much in the last 100 years, except for electrification? That was a global challenge in partnership with Toyota that resulted in some amazing breakthrough systems and products for people with lower-limb paralysis all around the world. A Scottish team called Phoenix Instinct won. They developed a wheelchair that moves with the user, anticipates movement using AI and sensory technology, and has a very lightweight alloy frame that is quite revolutionary from the perspective of a wheelchair user. Those are some examples.

Whether you do a challenge prize or not, I think you would need to do the same thing with ARIA, which has got to focus on areas where there is the most opportunity and where you have a decent hypothesis that technology pathways can be developed in order to solve that problem and encourage activity around that singular thing. That is the whole premise of missions or challenge prizes.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Those were both short answers so, Chi, we have time for you.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q There are two contradictions that I have spotted in what you are saying. Dame Ottoline, you talked about ARIA needing to deliver transformational research and outcomes, but at the same time you said that it is too small to be entrusted with society’s great challenges. Should not the public interest determine what that transformation is? Mr Dyson, you talked about ARIA having a new diversity of funders—regional as well—yet at the same time we hear that it has got to be people who know people and have lots of experience, and we do not have diversity in the base now. Twenty seconds each on those contradictions.

Professor Leyser: I did not say that it would be too small. My point is that if it is really working on the edge of the edge, it is about capturing the extraordinary opportunities that these people see in the system. Those cannot be straightforwardly dictated. They are not to do with those outside requirements; they are to do with what the opportunities are. The smallness of the agency is to do with what proportion of your R&D spend you put into that activity, given that we have major national priorities that need substantial investment, where the target is driven by those national priorities. It is an opportunity—

[The Chair]

Order. I am sorry, but I am going to have to stop you there. They had both been concise answers. I am sorry that we did not finally get to hear your further answer, Tris. Thank you both very much indeed for your time, Dame Ottoline and Tris Dyson.

Examination of Witnesses

Professor James Wilsdon, Professor Mariana Mazzucato and Professor Philip Bond gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

Q I thank our witnesses for taking the time to join us today and bringing us the benefit of your considerable expertise and experience. Professor Mazzucato, you wrote the groundbreaking book “The Entrepreneurial State” and the more recent “Mission Economy”—perhaps there is a clue in the title, in terms of the emphasis on the benefits that mission-orientated research can bring. Indeed, many thought that this new agency, ARIA, was based on some of your work, yet at the same time it does not seem to reflect some of the important context that you set out for it. Can you tell us whether it will achieve the benefits that you set out in your work? What needs to change? What should the Bill Committee look at changing in order to ensure that that can happen? Similarly, Professor Wilsdon and Professor Bond, based on your work on research and innovation systems—particularly in a UK context—what benefits will ARIA bring and what needs to change in order to improve it?

Professor Mazzucato: Thank you so much for the question and for inviting me to give evidence. Without going into the history of the DARPA model—I am sure you have done that already—I think the really important thing is to ask what it is about the UK system that an ARIA could give benefit to. We need to remember that the whole point of having a DARPA or ARIA-type institution is actually to provide that kind of purpose-driven approach to innovation. It is not a replacement for blue-sky research, funded in the United States by the National Science Foundation or in the UK by the research councils. It is precisely that kind of rare moment where you can do high-risk, high-bet research, very much linked between the basic and the applied; it is neither basic nor applied.

Fundamentally, where it has been successful—let us not forget that other countries have also tried this and it has not always been successful—is when it is on the back of a strong system. For example, DARPA in the US would have failed miserably had there not also been a strong military and defence system.

Secondly, it has to work across Government. DARPA in the US, for example, works with the small business innovation research programme, a procurement programme across all the different Departments, which set aside about 3% of their budgets to do purpose-driven research that brings in, for example, small and medium-sized enterprises. Again, that procurement side means that it is fundamentally linked to how Government works; it is not separate from Government.

Thirdly, it has always been linked with a vision or mission of what is to be done. Again, in the wartime scenario, it is clear that the DARPA model was mainly about military goals, but the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E, is about renewable energy and a green transition, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Health is about strengthening the health system and going after big health innovations.

What questions are we asking in the UK that an ARPA-H and ARPA-E or an ARIA would actually resolve? If we think of one of the biggest successes of DARPA, which is of course the internet, they did not obsess about the internet. They were not saying, “Oh, we need a technology.” They needed to solve a problem. The problem at the time was getting the satellites to communicate, and the internet was a solution for that. There were also many other experiments being done at the time, some of which failed. It is about that kind of willingness to take risks, but those being purpose-driven and problem-oriented.

The first question we should be asking in the UK is: what are the big problems? What questions are we asking that would even require an ARIA? If we do not have enough of a national debate on that, and if we do not have enough of a rethink in Government on things like procurement—the everyday of what Government does—and if we do not have strong systems underlying an ARIA, such as health and energy systems and so on, it will be really hard for this agency to be successful.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you. Professor Wilsdon?

Professor Wilsdon: I agree with everything that Mariana has just said. The one thing that many of us have been calling for since this idea was floated as an option for the UK system is more clarity on its purpose—its mission, in Mariana’s language. It is regrettable, in a way, that it has reached the stage of a Bill without that question having yet been properly answered. There are multiple dimensions to why it is regrettable.

First, it is a recipe for confusion. When it does finally decide what it is for, it has to then negotiate and haggle for space in the wider system, as Mariana said. That is time-wasting and is a source of bureaucracy, which this thing is supposed to avoid. Secondly, the Bill and the debate around it sort of vests the choices about purpose and function in the leadership of ARIA. I agree with Mariana that the role of Government in setting up a new agency is surely to undertake and co-ordinate with the public and wider society a discussion of what this would be for—what big priorities we have as UK society to which a new agency can be directed.

I am fully in favour of a new agency. I think there are lots of arguments, as we have heard already from Ottoline Leyser and Tris Dyson, that in a system that is expanding and doubling its budget over a short period of time, there is definitely scope in the budget to do new things, and I would be wholly in favour of that. Without that clarity, we essentially run the risk of setting it up and then there being a delayed period before it actually does anything very effective.

The final point I would make is that in relying on appointing the leadership as the route to answering the question, all you do is move the source of the problem. If the Government have not been able to resolve the question of what it is for, how do we identify who the right leaders are? We have not yet decided what this thing is for and where it operates in terms of the scale of basic to applied. Does it have domain focuses? I don’t see how you can find the right people. If you do find people, how do you avoid it simply becoming a tool, a plaything, of their prior interests and priorities?

In today’s line-up of witnesses, you are going to hear a number of compelling visions from different people for what this thing could do. I do not have a particular vision to sell you, but those visions map on to the prize and the things that you would expect the CBI or the Royal Academy of Engineering to argue for. If you set something up without resolving that first, you are moving it to the site of the leadership. It is a recipe for capture by particular interests in the system, which I think would be regrettable and quite distorting of the role that this thing is supposed to play, which is to be added to existing things.

I worry generally about the process, as someone who is perfectly happy to support the idea. I don’t think it is being executed in an optimal way to achieve the outcomes that the Government wish to see.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you very much. Professor Bond?

Professor Bond: I thank the previous speakers. I think that the idea is about having radical innovation, which is different from grand missions and grand challenges. Certainly the budgets that have been talked about fit an agency doing radical innovation, rather than some very large-scale grand challenges. The discussion over the need for a directed mission is an interesting one. You can do it both ways. The original ARPA started off with the rather nebulous but powerful mission statement of, “Develop strategic advantage”. That is acceptable if you have a good director who understands what that means. DARPA, for example, or IARPA and so on, have somewhat narrower remits, but that does not necessarily make things easier. A really good director can overcome issues around narrowness of mission statement by using the opportunity to do things that span across many domains. In fact, I think it is a rather liberating thing. The fact that we have not at this point had utter clarity on things I regard as extraordinarily good, not bad.

A defining characteristic of all of the US ARPAs is that they have a strong focus on rotating people in and out—about 80% from industry and 20% from academia, or some balance like that—and they do a lot of work with both. I entirely agree with what was said about a link between applied and more fundamental research, but I want to strengthen that statement by saying that with the industry base there is a focus on getting things done as opposed to publishing papers, and it is important to remember that.

On risk tolerance, a lot has been said about DARPA and taking a lot of risk. I personally think that talking about taking a lot of risk is a poor framing of what they do. What they aim to do is have a significant multiplicative effect on what they achieve. In other words, radical innovation simply says, “We want step change. We want to do things that would create a tremendous impact were they to be done.” What DARPA—all the ARPAs probably, but let’s talk about DARPA in America—has always been good at is managing that risk tremendously well. A large part of the reason they have succeeded is their extraordinarily good management of risk.

In terms of deciding what it is for and whether one should necessarily have a public engagement with that, for some things that is very valuable. For others, opacity is surprisingly effective. Most of the US agencies have some degree of opacity, partly because they work on defence and security, but partly because you are going to ask people to stick their neck out and try to do things that they start out by viewing as probably impossible. Step 1 for an ARPA mission specialist or programme manager is to try to get some evidence that it is not impossible and might be possible. If you are asking people to work like that, shining a spotlight on them is more or less placing them under pressure to step back from that plate and become more conservative. I do not think that is a good thing.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much. Professor Mazzucato, you were very clear that it is helpful not to consider this as a replacement institution. We have already heard some confusion as to whether it is cutting edge or transactional. You were also clear about the need for a strong research base, engagement on procurement, and a vision. What should that vision or mission be, in your view? We have heard from Professor Bond that there might be a trade-off between transparency and risk taking. How would you respond to that?

Professor Mazzucato: I just want to clarify what I understand in terms of challenge orientation, because I think there is also a bit of confusion there. Challenges globally are the sustainable development goals. Every country is actually signed up to them, including the UK, so we should hear a bit more about the SDGs in the UK national debate.

Let us just bring it back to the DARPA or NASA kind of model. Broadly defined, DARPA is, of course, challenge-oriented. The key thing is how it can translate those challenges into missions. Take the moon landing, which I wrote about in my recent book. I talked about both what to copy and what not to copy from it—most of it was what not to copy. The challenge was the space race, the cold war, Sputnik—NASA did not have much to do without that. They transformed that into a mission, which was to get to the moon and back again in one generation, so it would be wrong to say that DARPA and NASA are not challenge-oriented.

The point is that how they are structured is much more specific than that. Those are problems that need solving. They did not just say, “Oh, let’s go and compete in space with the Russians.” Again, it was very specific: getting to the moon and back in one generation. You can actually answer the question, “Did you get there: yes or no?” Lots of different sectors got involved; it was not just one big isolated project—that is the whole picking winners problem. It required innovation in nutrition, textiles, materials, electronics, and the whole software industry can, in some ways, be seen as an output of that. Again, how did they organise the thinking and the purposefulness of the organisation? One of the first things they did was change their own internal structure to be much more horizontal, with project managers, precisely to be purpose-oriented.

I just think there is a bit of a false dichotomy between whether you need a challenge or whether it is about a big radical innovation. DARPA has always been challenge-oriented, and that is why they needed those radical innovations to actually confront those challenges. The questions they were asking were much more specific and were framed in a targeted way, so you could actually answer the question, “Did we achieve it or not?”

In terms of the risk, I absolutely agree that it is not about risk for the sake of risk. In a conference I organised back in 2014, called “Mission Oriented Innovation”, I invited Cheryl Martin, who back then was the second director of ARPA-E, and she said that they actually structured ARPA-E in such a way as to welcome as much high-risk thinking, and that the whole point was to matter in the economy. They would actually measure their success both on whether they took those risks, because if they were going for easy things, they were not doing their job, and on whether their successes, of which there would only be a few—they accepted that there would be lots of failures—would have a big impact in the economy. For example, they ended up being very important for battery storage.

ARPA-E is very different from DARPA. It has a tiny budget of about only $300 million a year. One of its problems—it is also really important for the UK to learn about the problems—is that it has been too wedded to industry. It has focused too much on asking industry what it needs and then it ends up almost being this massive technology office, compared with DARPA, which had a very clear Government customer—basically, the Department of Defence. It is important to ask again who the obvious customer for ARIA is and how that is linked to different Departments, so it does not just become a matter of bringing geeks into government—the line Dominic Cummings mentioned. Yes, you want experts in government, but geeks in and of themselves are not what you want to strive for; you want to solve problems that different Departments of a democratically elected Government put out there.

We should also make sure that those problems are not told to Government by experts like ourselves on this Zoom call, or other Zoom calls, as James rightly said, when everyone will just put forward their own pet project. We need to think about the democratic forums and the different types of the debate that are needed in a country, precisely so that the problems and purpose are shared as widely as possible. That includes winning the war, back in the cold war days.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q What do you think ARIA’s mission should be? I will put that same question to the other witnesses.

Professor Mazzucato: I am holding the 2017 industrial strategy, which Greg Clark’s team put together. We very much advised on that and one of my roles was to say stop just making lists of sectors. You will remember that under David Cameron’s team there were five sectors: automotive, aerospace, life sciences, finance/financial services and the creative sector. I said not to make a list of random sectors, which can easily get captured by those sectors with the loudest voice, but to think about what their problems were. They solved that in the industrial strategy—they listened, and I was very happy—and decided on four challenges, namely, healthy ageing, clean growth, the future of mobility and the opportunities that AI and the data economy provide to us.

In terms of identifying the missions underneath those, I set up a commission co-chaired with Lord David Willetts entitled the Commission for Mission Oriented Innovation and Industrial Strategy. We worked very closely with the different challenge teams in BEIS precisely to answer your question. It is definitely not the role of an economist, academic or business person to tell you what the missions are. That must be co-created within Departments alongside different stakeholders, but surely the first answer is that those missions must be those that respond to those four challenges.

On clean growth, the answer must be carbon-neutral cities all over the UK; or take a global challenge such as clean oceans—sustainable development goal 13—and getting the plastic out of the ocean. What is the UK’s contribution to that? What about the digital divide, under the challenge of AI and the data economy? Just think back to when the BBC had a mission. Back in the 1980s, it wanted to get every kid to code, before it was sexy—today it is very sexy to talk about coding. The BBC was doing that back then, and its own procurement strategy helped to deliver that by producing the BBC Micro computer. The BBC did that not because it was obsessed by technology but because it needed it to fulfil that mission. So, this strategy is not completely new to the UK, but we should not pursue it as a siloed project; it must answer the big questions such as the digital divide, carbon neutrality, health ageing and so on. But you have the 2017 industrial strategy, so start there; we cannot keep rethinking from scratch each time.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you. Professor Wilsdon?

Professor Wilsdon: I do not have a mission in my back pocket that I want to push. My argument is simply that the thing needs to have more clarity. I do not really mind what it ends up doing, as long as we go into it with a better sense of what we are trying to get out of it, as Mariana said. It is worth going back to some of the other strategic documents that operate and run the UK system, including the industrial strategy, as Mariana says.

In July last year, the UK Government published its draft R&D roadmap. Again, that is a good idea and it is something that many other countries do. It set out a longer-term planned direction for the system, and tried to explain to the system and to wider stakeholders how the different parts fit together and their different functions. To me, the logical sequence of events would have been to conclude that process—I realise it has been a difficult year for everyone for obvious reasons—and then to identify the particular gaps and priorities to which a new funding mechanism could be directed. What we have done is fixate on a particular institutional model, imported from the US in the late ’60s, and dumped into Britain today, as the way in which somehow, magically, we are going to cut through all sorts of real or perceived barriers and obstacles in our existing research and innovation system. I just think that is a very flawed way to do this.

We are where we are. The Bill is in front of Parliament. We need to focus at this point on how we can amend it, or you can amend it, to improve it. I think that trying to bring more clarity, or at least a sense of how this issue will be addressed through the governance of this new thing, is really important. Otherwise, you or your successors, and we or our successors, will be back here in a few years’ time, asking ourselves why it did not work. I know that it has a tolerance of failure—we are all in favour of that—but the thing has to at least succeed in some respects, alongside its appetite for failure.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Professor Bond, did you want to comment?

Professor Bond: I just want to make a remark, if I may, on scale. Talking in the same breath of putting man on the moon, which cost up to 5% of US GDP, so roughly 60% of UK GDP, and ARIA, for which the figure is £200 million a year, is, I think, an issue.

I agree that there is confusion about challenge. The grand challenges are really better structured in different ways, which is why NASA has a director and why the Manhattan project had very strong, firm leadership. I want to use that to emphasise, first, that ARPA/DARPA mainly does not use challenges. There are some fields where it has done—robotics, autonomous vehicles and a few others—but that is not its main way of doing things. The issue about the word “challenge” is that for some things, particularly in computer science, it can be a very good way to bring together people in different teams that would not normally operate in that way, but it is just a mechanism for doing that.

The question you have asked me is about the mission for ARIA. I totally agree, by the way, with what was said: it is much easier in life if you have a customer. But if a really good director is picked, they are going to go out and get some customers—probably within Government. There is so much that can be done in government; there are so many good things to be done that if you have an imaginative and intelligent director—I am sure that will happen—that person can find plenty of sensible things to do. I therefore think you do not need to be overly prescriptive; you can try to leave it open.

I was also involved in the structuring around the industrial strategy grand challenges. First, they are another step up in scale. Secondly, I do not think we should be binding anyone to having to focus on those at all. It is rather obvious that there are many interesting and important problems societally. It is obvious that there are many, many ways in which somebody could look to do things, whether with education and helping kids to learn better, or with the NHS or anything else. I would leave it up to the director and the mission folk to do. The whole point of a DARPA is really to leave it open.

What you want these people to do is one thing: you want to demand of them that they make their best attempt to do radical innovation—to do things that, were they to work, would mean a step change in what should be done. It is going to be easier if that can get implemented in some efficient and effective way, so how that is done is a great question, especially as it will be a small office. That is somewhere that the office is clearly going to have to work with Government and find customers within Government, and do things that are so impressive that that will work. That is a challenge, but that is why you get a director.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Minister?

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Second sitting)

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you for coming to this important evidence session. You are all very welcome. We will start the questions with our shadow Minister, Chi Onwurah.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. May I also echo your thanks to our witnesses for taking the time to join us for this important session? I am in awe of the range and breadth of your experience in innovation and scientific research, and all the more grateful to those of you with experience of DARPA for joining us this afternoon, as the architect of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, Dominic Cummings, the previous adviser to the Prime Minister, has apparently refused to give evidence to the Committee. We are able to go only by what he has said previously, and there seems to be some confusion as to what ARIA is and whether it should be engaged in cutting-edge research or in the translation of existing research. You might be able to comment on that.

Dominic Cummings said:

“The purpose of ARIA ought to be to sample in this broader design space, to do things differently, and to learn from the things that have been super-productive in the past. That means in very simple terms extreme freedom.”

Dr Highnam, does DARPA have “extreme freedom”? What does that mean in cultural terms? Does complying with, for example, US freedom of information laws or procurement regulations—it is proposed that ARIA would be exempt from them—impact on that freedom?

Dr Highnam: That is a great question. DARPA is an agency in the Department of Defense in the US Government. We have a number of regulations and laws that of course we operate within. We have a number of special authorities that allow us to operate a little faster and with a little more independence, but with oversight. It is a place that moves quickly. As you are probably aware, when you show up at DARPA, you have an expiration date on your badge, as we say, so you move fast and the whole place is geared to do that. The agency now has a record of 63 years of production—again, with oversight at all times. It gets the job done, in that context.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q I will follow up on that and then bring in the other witnesses. You speak about oversight. Would it be possible to give a bit more detail on that? In particular, the UK Government are currently mired in a cronyism scandal; indeed, that is what is being debated in the House today. DARPA is well known for having exchange between itself and the private sector, but how do you prevent projects or programmes from going to friends, mates and those with, if you like, special interests, without some degree of oversight?

Dr Highnam: I can speak only to how DARPA operates. We have very rigorous review processes—technical, financial and others. We have conflict of interest rules and so on that we all follow. There are robust processes and independent looks at those processes. Again, we could not operate any other way.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much. Could I ask our other witnesses to respond?

Professor Azoulay: If I might add one element to the question that the hon. Member asked, the programme managers at DARPA and also at ARPA-E—the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy—have a fixed expiration date, which means they will need to go back to academia or to the venture capital firm or large firm that they left, and generally they want to do so with their head held high and their reputation intact. I think that that has created over time a norm of correct behaviour, if you will, and the absence of cronyism. That norm element is also very important, in addition to the formal regulations.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q When they go back, are they allowed, for example, to direct finance at the companies to which they return?

Dr Highnam: No.

[Chi Onwurah]

That is very clear.

Dr Dugan: I served as the 19th director of DARPA and echo Peter’s statements that there are indeed oversight and regulations that govern the behaviour at DARPA. We have free and open competitions. One of the things it is important to understand is that part of the reason that innovation is so robust at DARPA is that there is a sense that there is an equal opportunity for many to apply to the programmes and to be fairly judged. As a result, many bring their ideas to DARPA. That is part of the robustness of the ecosystem that has developed around the agency. It is a very important element of the work.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much for your responses. May ask one more follow-up question? I have spoken about some of the concerns about oversight and so on, but may I ask each of you what you think is the key positive element of culture? You have spoken about the desire to return with your head held high. What should we be looking for in the directors and programme managers as the key positive part of the culture that ARIA should seek to build?

Dr Highnam: Honour in public service is top of the list.

[Chi Onwurah]

Honour?

Dr Highnam: Yes. You join a place like DARPA to change your field and make a difference for defence. We are a defence agency. When you come to DARPA, we give you the lever arm, we help you position the fulcrum, we give you the mass to make things happen, and we give you the processes around you to make sure, as Regina said, you do it fairly, openly and robustly. We do exit interviews when people leave DARPA, and one of my favourite quotes is, “If you don’t invent the internet at DARPA, you get a B.”

[Chi Onwurah]

Fabulous.

Professor Azoulay: I second that entirely, but I would also say credibility in both the scientific world and the business world. It is a relatively rare breed of individuals who have credibility in both domains at the same time, but that is to quite a large extent the X factor in the typical DARPA or ARPA-E programme manager.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much. Dr Dugan, I will ask you the same question. The tech sector and science and innovation are not known for their diversity, but we have heard that diversity of thought is very important in the agency. As shadow Minister, I would like to see a broad range of diversity in the people who are recruited, in terms of gender, class and race. I am asking this question of you because you are the last person that I came to. How can the culture promote diversity as well as being positive?

Dr Dugan: Let me take the questions in order. I would add that DARPA and ARPA-like organisations are optimised to create breakthroughs. Those breakthroughs happen at the intersection of some science and engineering that we are pulling forward in service to a new capability or a new problem solution. We design the programmes such that we have a very clear and ambitious goal that is also measurable and testable. Programme directors have a finite period in which they collect a group of performers from a mix of organisations and disciplines in service to that goal, and there is passion, spirit and urgency that comes with that. It cannot be created in the abstract; it has to be real in order to engender the kind of genius and collaboration that is characteristic of these programmes.

The programme directors are themselves scientific or engineering experts. They are great musicians, as you might think, but they are not playing an instrument at the time of conducting the programme; they are rather conducting an orchestra of expert musicians who together make a symphony. That is very important.

What I can tell you about diversity from my own experience, both in Silicon Valley and at DARPA, is that for decades we have known that specificity of goal and outcome is a good way to get more equality and diversity in assessment of ideas and in people conducting or pursuing those ideas. We know that across academic institutions and across companies. One of the things that is important is to set crisp and clear goals, because the ideas are then measured against them, and they can come from many different individuals and organisations. As I said previously, I believe that is central to building that ecosystem out, and for that ecosystem to be diverse and more equitable.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you very much. I know that others have questions to ask so I will leave it there, but I just want to say how inspiring it is to hear such positive reference to the power of public service, science and research, and to oversight as being an enabler rather than a burden.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)]

Q It is a great pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mrs Cummins. I want to acknowledge the excellence of our witnesses and to thank them. With your permission, I will ask one question to each witness.

I am going to start with Dr Peter Highnam. How do you ensure evaluation and scrutiny of DARPA’s programmes outside what is mandated in legislation? What information do you gather to assess when to start and stop projects and programmes, and how are these decisions made?

Dr Highnam: That is a surprisingly big question. The p in DARPA stands for “projects”, which is critical for a place like DARPA. We are not doing technology area x or y just because, and we do not do it for the long term. We have projects that are well defined at the beginning. A case has to be made. They are monitored, they have metrics and all manner of independent evaluation associated with them before we go out to find the best teams we can to participate and to be funded to work on that research. Then that project ends. That is very important: things begin, and they end.

To make the case for a project to get off the ground, we use a structure called the Heilmeier questions, named after the DARPA director in the mid-70s, George Heilmeier. They are five very important questions. They look easy, but they are very hard to answer well. In my view, that is the creative act in the DARPA model—to answer those questions well and make that case. Once the project is approved and teams are onboard, you then have regular evaluations. As things change in the world around us, in science and technology, with us in defence, and in other aspects of our environment, they may be overtaken by events. That is very rare, but it would be grounds for no longer continuing. Were we too ambitious in certain aspects of the programme? Do we need to change it or change some of the people participating in the teams? And so on.

This is a constant process. It is not about starting it up and letting it run until it finishes. It takes a lot of effort to make sure you know what you are doing when you start with taxpayer funding and the opportunity cost that comes with that. Then you keep an eye on it, especially during the transition of the results to our national defence.

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[The Chair]

Thank you very much, both, and welcome. Our first set of questions will be from shadow Minister Chi Onwurah.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much to our guests for joining us and bringing your experience. It is a real pleasure to have an all-female panel. It is a real rarity when it comes to discussions of science generally.

There is some confusion about what ARIA should be. Should it be focused on cutting-edge research, should it be about the transformational translation of existing research, or should it bring the two together? What I would like to know from both of you, with your wide experience, is what you think ARIA’s goal or purpose should be. What problem should it fix?

Ms Goldstaub, you have experience of artificial intelligence, which could be a critical area of research. Do you think it is going to change the nature of research, how we research and how scientific research occurs? How should we envisage ARIA responding to that?

Tabitha Goldstaub: First and foremost on your point around focus, really it needs to be about imagining how funding is done to find the breakthroughs that others describe as being at the edge of the edge, with freedom—testing, for example, things like the lotteries, the grants, the speed of contracting, loans, prizes and all the things that we have heard about throughout the whole of today. I really think that ARIA is about exploring these ideas.

If you are looking for a single focus, I believe wholeheartedly in Mariana Mazzucato’s mission-driven approach to innovation. The AI community was incredibly catalysed by the industrial strategy grand challenges. And of course there are these urgent missions. Alondra Nelson said in her first speech post being nominated by Joe Biden that all science should address social inequality. That said, it is still unclear to me if there needs to be one challenge enshrined in law or whether the programme managers should have the freedom; I think we will hear more from others on what their decision is there. The most important thing is that I just kept hearing time and again from the community I spoke to, similarly to what the gentleman from DARPA said, that this is a time to serve. People really want to find a place to do research that saves people’s lives, especially in the AI eco-system.

I think that your question about the impact that AI has on research is a very good one. AI is impacting research, just as it does all areas of the economy, both in disrupting the fabric of its own self and advancing research. We have seen AI create state-of-the-art information-retrieving capabilities, sift through vast amounts of data and speed up the publishing process, so it is changing the process of research, but also in itself it is obviously making discoveries and scientific advancements.

Three per cent. of all peer-reviewed journals are now AI-related and this new trend of AI plus another science is really booming. So biology is currently experiencing its “AI moment”. We saw in the State of AI report that there is a 50% year-on-year increase in papers; 25% of the output since 2000 is a biology and AI collaboration. DeepMind’s AlphaFold is a really good example of that. Demis Hassabis has publicly said that one of the drivers at DeepMind is AI that could win a Nobel prize, so he has already set the bar for an ARIA.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much. And Professor Dame Anne Glover?

Professor Glover: You were asking if the UK’s ARPA or ARIA should have a single purpose, or focus, and in terms of subject area, I would argue not, because you do not know where the good ideas are coming from. It would be really valuable to have quite a wide and informed debate from a very broad spectrum of interests as to where the calls should come from regarding ARIA. Therefore, when they are looking for a call for research, what are the big areas? In a way, this is quite similar to looking at the grand challenges, which Tabitha has already mentioned.

However, there is an opportunity here in looking at grand challenges, because who decides what those grand challenges are? Voices that are very frequently missing in that debate are citizens’ voices. If I think of some of the big grand challenges—certainly a number of those were funded at the European Commission—often they would be narrowed down, so that there would be three absolutely superb proposals in quite different areas of research, which would have come through the review process. Then it would be a decision about which one we should fund. And that is an ideal time to say to citizens, “What is it that you’re interested in?”

Of course that makes the research very relevant; it would tend to make it translatable into the economy, the life/wellbeing environment and so on; it also then has a substantial buy-in from citizens. That is not unimportant, because at the moment we are enjoying a big buy-in from citizens around science, as they see the relevance of what funding science over a period of years actually does, in being able to deliver us—in this case—from a pandemic, and of course there is climate change there, as well. So that is important.

The focus of the purpose needs to be crystal clear, so that there is no confusion with other funding agencies. That would just lead to mini-chaos, or things falling through the gaps and being shuffled around, which is not at all helpful.

The last thing I would say in this context is that there is an opportunity to look at how you fund. For perhaps quite understandable reasons, current research funding is quite formulaic; it is box-ticking to get the funding. What sort of projects will be funded? Normally, low risk. There is an opportunity to look at high risk, high reward. I would hope that the leadership of ARIA considered that, to fund things that are really innovative, you yourself have to be innovative. We will need to think and be imaginative about how you go about sourcing and funding projects, so that we do not just get a modified version of what we are currently seeing, but can fund in a way that is more bespoke. By doing that, we are opening up what I hope would be exciting possibilities.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Just to follow up with two brief questions. The points you raise, though different, have raised similar questions in me. First, in terms of deciding what areas of research and challenges should be addressed, what if we rely on the leadership, as you suggest, Professor Dame Anne? What ARIA seems to support is what I would call the “big man” model of research: choose five or six great men—generally, they are men—and give them the freedom to be geniuses and to choose what they want to research, to have, as Dominic Cummings says, “extreme freedom”.

Ms Goldstaub, you say that AI is changing how research happens, and also the scale, I would say. Is it possible that we can find five or six great people who know all the different potential areas of research, who can make these kinds of choices on behalf of the British people, using public money, and can integrate the changing nature of research, while at the same time being innovative and having, we would hope, diversity of thought and hopefully also of gender, region, discipline, etc? Is it possible to find five or six people like that? What elements of the structure of ARIA are important to promote that?

Tabitha Goldstaub: It is totally possible to find those people. I cannot speak across all science, but I definitely feel there is a generation of young, mid-career AI talent that feel they are in a sort of gap—the fuzzy middle, as Andy Hopper calls it. They are asking themselves, “What am I doing? The planet is burning, I don’t want to work at the big banks or the big tech giants.” They want the academic freedom of the universities but they do not want to work alone. They see the financial reward of successful start-ups, but they want to take long-term bets. Generally, they want to make the world a better place.

It is people like that who fit into the mould that we are looking for. I worry also about the lone genius model. We are well beyond individual success being seen like that. This is all about community. One of the things I have heard time and again is that people do not want to be funded as individuals but as groups of people. It is a community that would come together around a programme manager that is really important.

Yes, we have to find four or five of those individuals, but it is the people who work with them who make a huge difference. It is the open science, open data and spirit of openness that will go a long way to finding those people who will culturally fit and enable us to engage well beyond just those five individuals and find the edge-of-the-edge breakthroughs that we really need. I hear people saying, “I have ideas that I just don’t even put forward right now; they are unthinkable, because they are unfundable.” Once people can come together, you start to unlock that, which saves you from this lack of diversity where you are just funding individual after individual and effectively asking people to compete with each other.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you. Professor Dame Anne?

Professor Glover: Just for easiness, can I ask Committee members to just call me Anne? Otherwise it is a bit of a mouthful.

On the idea of five or six individuals, I would caution on that slightly. I am partly bought into the idea, but if you are identifying five or six individuals, you have already pinned your colours to the mast in what you want. You have already prejudged the areas you want to work in or the ideas that you are interested in.

Where the five or six people might be really important to identify is for the running of ARIA itself. Whether it is the overall director of ARIA or the research leaders in the different themes that might be funded in ARIA, they will be key people and they need to be credible, trusted, very effective at communication and really open-minded. In my view, a large part of the success of ARIA will come from having quite inspirational leaders throughout.

In terms of how you fund and who it is that you are funding, I would go back to what I was alluding to earlier. There needs to be a big conversation about this. There are often older men who have got a reputation in research, so they are naturally the ones we go to, but as I know from bitter experience, as you get older, sometimes your thinking closes off in particular areas and you are less open to ideas. I am thinking of Professor Donald Braben, whose comments the Committee would probably be very interested in. He set up a venture research unit in BP, back in the ’90s I think, and has written several books about this kind of blue skies research area.

What Braben said is that we should look for “irreverent researchers and liberated universities”. Do not look for people who have a research area that we think is really important and we must go there. Debate widely among researchers, of course, but also Government Departments, devolved Administrations, foresighters, businesses, citizens. Let us imagine the future. ARIA could be the stepping stone, if you like, to inventing that imagined future. For a future to exist, you have to imagine it in the first place and you have to convert it into what you would like. There are lots of different ways of doing that. With inspirational leadership, you can move towards that. You can probably increase dramatically your chance of getting it right by having an irreverence around what you do, and not the usual measures of success.

[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.

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[Chi Onwurah]

Q As my first question was for both the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineers, I will start with a question to Ms Burch. Neither the ARIA Bill nor the explanatory notes refer to private sector investment. Is that an issue, and is it possible for ARIA to achieve its mission without engaging with the private sector? Can you suggest improvements to the Bill or its context in order to ensure that that happens?

Felicity Burch: That is a really important question. It is definitely the view of the business community that ARIA needs to be designed with the business community and the private sector in mind. When we think about some of the challenges that we are trying to solve in the UK, as well as the science superpower ambition and the goal of spending 2.4% of GDP on R&D, we will not hit any of those targets unless businesses are involved and engaged. The design of ARIA will be quite important to whether it will work for businesses or not.

The wording of the Bill is less important than the design and make-up of who is involved in ARIA and in thinking about what challenges the institution is trying to solve. Thinking about the individuals for a moment, we would very much like to see industry represented alongside the science base. Thinking about the design of it, we would be making sure that we do not focus too much on whether we are looking at basic or applied research or commercialisation, but flipping that on its head and thinking about what market problem we are trying to solve, who the end customer is, and then working back and thinking about who you need to engage along the way.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Just to come back briefly, you have made an important point that echoes some of what we have heard already today. In terms of setting out a mission, or where ARIA should be looking, do you feel that more direction needs to come from Government or from public engagement, or should that be left more generally to the executives? As to ensuring private sector engagement, we echo the Government’s ambition to reach 2.4% of GDP spend on R&D; indeed, Labour wants us to go from the average to the excellent, and reach 3%. The private sector is integral to that, so perhaps there could be a little more detail on how to ensure the new agency supports that ambition.

Felicity Burch: Definitely. It is great to hear an even bolder ambition for R&D investment. I am sure the majority of the business community would support that as well.

Thinking about the role that ARIA can play, particularly in the role of missions, what is really exciting about a mission, a problem statement or a challenge is that it not only does gives an opportunity to bring together cross-sectoral players—we just heard about the role that AI and biotechnology can play when you combine them, and having a really clear mission helps to bring together those cross-sectoral players—but it also helps to advertise what you are doing.

One of the really exciting things for me about ARIA is that it is a big play—a big investment—that the UK is saying we are now making in science and innovation: “This is a change in the way that we are doing things, and this is the problem that we are trying to solve.” I do not think it matters, necessarily, if that problem is defined now or by the challenge director, but we need to think quite carefully about what the problem or challenge might be, and about some of the criteria that sit around that.

For me, there are probably two things that stand out as vital. The first is the sense of a market for a product at the end. One of the strengths of ARPA and DARPA in particular in the US is that customer relationship and an end customer saying, “This is the challenge that we need to solve, and probably we will buy it in the end if you do that really well.” The other thing that we want to think about is what challenges we need to solve as a society. What are the really thorny issues, where we know we need some game-changing steps forward in technology and where potentially Government can play a big role and have a big lever? A couple of areas that stand out in conversations with businesses are things like net zero and health, where clearly we have some big commitments that we want to reach as well.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much, those are excellent answers. I see that we have been joined by Professor Sir Jim McDonald, so before my next question I want to welcome all three witnesses and say how much we appreciate your joining us this afternoon.

For Adrian Smith and Professor Sir Jim McDonald: we have, very recently indeed, achieved some clarity on this year’s science budget. I know that that was a matter of concern for both the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. There has certainly been a sense, and I wonder whether you would echo that sense, that we need long-term funding certainty—that it helps in the support of science and research more generally. Where do you see ARIA sitting in providing that long-term funding certainty, and how do you feel it can or should fit into the wider research environment? I will first ask Adrian Smith, please. It is nice to see you.

Adrian Smith: Thank you. Going back to the allusion to recent uncertainty about next year’s funding and where the Horizon Europe fee would come from, I stress that we need a coherent narrative and plan, not chopping and changing, and creating uncertainty. Uncertainty is bad, both within the community and for those who have to plan in the UK, but also for what we hope and assume will be our narrative of the UK being a global science and innovation player. Clarity of narrative and sticking to the plan is fundamental.

Where does ARIA fit? The starting point that most have accepted and signed up to is that having a new kid on the block in the high-risk and high-reward long-term space is welcome. Even though we have a plethora of agencies in the current ecosystem, there is nothing that sets out defines itself in that way. However, if this is to work, there are a number of things still to be clarified. I will mention a few, and Jim can pick up on this. ARIA has to have operational independence, if we are in the high-risk and long-term space, but it also has to have high focus. If we are aiming for £22 billion by 2024-25, £800 million is not a large sum of money, so if we have a plethora of missions, then I think we will go wrong. ARIA has to have focus of mission and a commitment to the model over the long-term, but also, and fundamentally, leadership.

This is an incredibly difficult agency, given the multiple stakeholders out there, and it will only work if it has the image and the street cred to attract and retain talent. I welcome the addition to the landscape. We need long-term commitment, but the recent experience of uncertainty about next year’s funding, the chopping and changing, and the lack of clarity about Horizon, would not bode well for this. We need absolute clarity on the plan and how this is going to fit into that.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much. Professor Sir Jim McDonald?

Professor McDonald: Just to echo what Adrian has been saying, I welcome Felicity highlighting net zero and health. The additional funding is absolutely welcome. As you have pointed out, there was great concern about the uncertainty around the funding generally. The Government’s commitment to making the UK a science, engineering and innovation superpower is exciting. It is built on what is a genuinely world-class research base here in the UK, but of course traditionally we have not done the D in research and development terribly well, so ARIA coming forward to fit into the landscape is key.

To Adrian’s point on longevity, it would be good to get a planning horizon that was long—10 years de minimis and hopefully even longer, because many of the technological developments that come through these accelerated high-risk, high-reward programmes can take decades to come to fruition. Felicity mentioned the concept of a customer, and I could not agree more. The customer might be a Government Department but, for this acceleration of technology for solving challenges of scale at pace, we would increasingly need to see agencies, companies and industry sectors that can take these technological advances into practice. Late-stage R&D, which costs a lot of money, would be counter-productive. In fact, it would be even more damaging if we start the journey to have this innovation acceleration, this high-risk, high-reward agency, only to discard it within a few short years. I think that would damage business confidence, and we would also miss out on the opportunity to get the translational ability to feed out from the UK’s great research base to create new technologies.

Of course, there are a number of schemes that are suggested—Felicity touched on them—and there is the exciting legal commitment that the UK Government have made to net zero. There is an economy and opportunities to build around that. Healthtech, and the whole piece around global health and how we deal with that, is another great opportunity for the UK to mark out its capability.

ARIA should fit and integrate within the existing landscape. It should be a disruptive innovator, but it should not necessarily damage the existing system, much of which is working well, but there are gaps that ARIA can hopefully fill in the coming years.

[Chi Onwurah]

Can I follow up briefly with Adrian and Sir Jim? Thank you very much for your responses—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order. The sitting is now suspended. I shall resume the Chair at 4.9 pm. I apologise to the witnesses; it is how this place works. If you can just hang on, we will see you in 10 minutes.

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[The Chair]

This session will now be slightly extended, for another 10 minutes. It should finish at 4.40 pm. We will start where we left off, with shadow Minister Onwurah.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much, Mrs Cummins. I shall endeavour to restart the exact sentence I was saying. It is noticeable that, while the Bill provides a minimum length of time for ARIA’s existence of 10 years, there seems to be no provision for a minimum length of time for funding. Those research scientists who have recently lost their funding at very short notice because of cuts to the overseas development aid budget may not feel reassured by that.

I have three very specific questions. Adrian represents the Royal Society; Jim represents the Royal Academy of Engineering. We have had some discussion about whether ARIA should be looking at blue-skies research or transformational translation. I assume that you both think it should do both. Or maybe not—will you let us know?

Secondly, the Bill makes provision for public sector R&D funding to be spent by ARIA internationally. I understand that there might need to be collaboration —collaboration drives research—between UK and international bodies, but do you think it would be appropriate for ARIA to fund exclusively international research programmes?

Thirdly, do you think the UK should get some kind of tangible return from this level of investment in high-risk, high-reward research?

Adrian Smith: The answer is both, of course. If there were no research element, it would be something we completely understood and all that was left would be to deploy it, in which case this does not seem to be the right kind of agency to do it. I think it starts off with a substantial element of R, but that is perhaps pointless if it does not end up with the D.

Internationally, it is hard to think of anything really, at scale—even if it were only in terms of being a magnet for global talent of one sort or another, an international dimension is almost inevitable and appropriate, but if it were all offshored, that would make nonsense of the agency.

I have now forgotten what your third question was.

[Chi Onwurah]

Should the UK get a return on this investment?

Adrian Smith: High risk, high return is the mantra, isn’t it? So I think an expectation of substantial transformational return is implicit.

Professor McDonald: First and foremost, ARIA should be a funding mechanism that delivers innovative solutions to ambitious, real-world challenges, bringing together and developing breakthrough research and technology. It is worthwhile reiterating that. Of course, that has to be driven by substantial funding. The flexibility—I am sure we will come back to this—the independence and autonomy for this agency are going to be fundamental to its success.

Adrian has mentioned skills a few times. I absolutely agree with that. While the fundamental research is not viewed as the primary focus of ARIA, it should be keying into a rich base to draw from in the UK research base. Of course, there is an opportunity here for international collaboration as we drive development towards application. However, it is not unreasonable to imagine that ARIA could commission basic research work that emerged as it sought to solve some of these major challenges.

The international connectivity is important, even at the highest level. Telling the world about our ambitions around being a science superpower and trying to become one of the world’s most innovative nations is not something that we should keep to ourselves. We should be promoting that, showing confidence in the UK that we are building on our outstanding research base but we now have another mechanism through which we can drive technologies, find solutions and indeed build economies. So I echo Adrian’s point: this could be a great magnet for talent into the UK and those excellent international individuals who want to come here, some of them pursuing research but many of them also engaging in that exploitation, in that high-risk, high-reward programme. So I would encourage international connectivity, but, speaking as an engineer, I would like to see good outcomes that impact on the economy positively, build industry, support the creation of supply chains, support indigenous supply chains and create new ones around new technologies, whether in net zero, health tech or AI, to build an industry through which we can drive the economy to keep that virtuous circle of driving economic strength so that we continue to invest in science, research and innovation. There is a circularity here, and I would suggest that we do not fragment and see these things in a systems perspective—that is what engineers will propose in any case—but see ARIA as part of a larger system. But driving that through to economic and societal benefits is key for me.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you very much for your answers.

[Amanda Solloway]

Q Welcome to the witnesses—it is lovely to see you this afternoon. I have two questions that are relevant to all three of you, please. Given that we know how important ARIA is to the UK economy, what importance do you put on patience when we think about funding high-risk transformational research? How necessary is it that we have a long-term view?

Felicity Burch: As I know you are aware, I think having a long-term approach to funding R&D matters hugely. From the perspective of the business community, having institutions that are in it for the long run that they know they can come back to and that they are aware exist is really important for their own confidence to invest.

Thinking about the agency slightly more specifically, when it comes to its own patience, one of the things that CBI members have highlighted to me as a particular benefit of the DARPA model is the commitment to funding their programmes for significant periods of time. For example, there might be 10-year funding with three-year gates to check if the project is working. Those commitments, with that 10-year view—so long as everything is going more or less according to plan—is hugely important for bringing business funding alongside that. So if we can bake a long-term view and patience into ARIA from the start, it will certainly help it to be successful.

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[The Chair]

Thank you. We will have a very quick sneaky question from the shadow Minister, Chi Onwurah.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you very much. Adrian, I was very interested in what you said about the number of people in organisations who want to influence the terms of the mission. Obviously, if the Government set the mission, they have a democratic mandate. If the CEO or the director sets the mission, how would you suggest that we can test that he or she is not simply being influenced by their pet projects and preferences? What kind of test could we set out?

Adrian Smith: Whoever is chosen to be the chief executive and whoever surrounds that person in governance must be people the rest of us will trust. They will have the stature to be trusted. Without that, I think we are in trouble.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q So you think it is only trust, and there has to be trust in governance?

Adrian Smith: I think it is an essential element. As I said earlier, I think genuinely that whoever is going to lead this and oversee the governance has to think very hard about how you interact with both the hard-nosed stakeholders and, as Jim and others have alluded to, the public, in terms of taking them along with the idea that this is a mission that is ultimately for the good of all of us.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. If there are no further questions from Members, then we are dead on time. May I thank the witnesses for their evidence before we move on to the next panel? Thank you very much.

Examination of Witnesses

David Cleevely and Bob Sorrell gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. I will start the questions with Chi Onwurah, the shadow Minister for the Opposition.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Hi, David and Bob. It is great to see you both and thanks for giving your time. I do not know whether you have been able to follow our evidence sessions, but we have had a lot of discussion about the purpose and remit of ARIA and the extent to which it addresses fundamental failings—if there are fundamental failings—in how the UK chooses and commercialises research. I would like to ask you both your opinion on the remit and purpose of ARIA. What is the failing that you see ARIA fixing? How does it need to change to fix that? Are there things that it is not addressing that it needs to? I will start with David Cleevely.

David Cleevely: Thanks, Chi. I would like to start by saying three things rather briefly. First, serendipity does not happen by accident, so we need systems and processes to enable the network diversity and uncovering the unexpected. I am hoping that the new agency will do all of that.

To begin to address some of your other points, we need to improve the whole of the national innovation system. That means not putting in late stage R&D, translation and, in particular—this is something of a bugbear of mine—procurement. If you do not have revenue and if you cannot get product into market, no amount of R&D at the front end will necessarily get you anywhere. If we do not do that, we are always going to be trapped into saying that we need more and more R&D and simultaneously mourning our inability to translate this into economic growth and productivity.

I have one other thing to say, which is slightly cheeky, but I have been listening to the proceedings so far, and they are extremely interesting—it is one of the most interesting sessions I have ever attended. All the examples given of contributions that make a difference have all been, it strikes me, about engineering, so I suggest that we rename this the “Advanced Research and Engineering Agency”. To be honest, “invention” strikes me a bit like something in the 1950s, with somebody emerging from a shed with a gadget that has just blown their hair off. Peter Highnam pointed out “projects”, so we might actually consider it to be the “Advanced Research and Engineering Projects Agency”. No doubt we will get on to why I might say that. The point is that we need to think about this, as Felicity said, in a coherent way, including all the way through to procurement.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q As a chartered engineer, I am always happy to put engineering in anything. The Advanced Research and Engineering Projects Agency would be AREPA. Your point, which has come up a number of times, is whether this is about, if you like, cutting-edge research, or whether it needs to be looking at transformational translation of existing research, or whether it needs to do both. Certainly, the economist Mariana Mazzucato, as you probably heard, made the point that having the basis there is important, and you seem also to be saying that it needs to look at both, and that it needs to get its purpose right. Let me go now to Bob, and then we will come back.

Bob Sorrell: Thank you very much. Picking up on David’s comments and your question, I am very excited about the potential creation of ARIA. Having something that can respond to the types of challenge that we face, which quite frankly do not respect sector or skills boundaries, is really important today. In particular, there are real opportunities to learn off the back of the covid experience, which has allowed us to really accelerate innovation at quite an incredible pace. If we can take some of that and operationalise that within an ARIA-type environment, that would be a very positive thing.

One thing I have heard, because I have also been listening to the sessions through the day, is mention of crossing the valley of death. For me, there needs to be a matching market pull for the wonderful research products that will come out of ARIA. To get that in place would mean having a really good dialogue between academia and industry and all parties involved to understand what those challenges really are. I also suggest, looking at the DARPA model, that we should back this up by having a really strong public procurement model. Again, we have seen that in covid, and we could see it here, providing a first customer and enabling some of these technologies to be developed. That would be really key.

The final thing I will say is about the personnel involved in this, because that has also come up several times. They really need to have autonomy; they need the ability to make the decisions and choices on what projects they pursue. Equally, they need to be able to start and, critically, stop things. I have much more to say, but I will stop there.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you for both of those responses. To follow up, you both emphasised the importance of procurement and market pull. It seems to me that there is such a vast range of areas, issues or challenges that ARIA could look at. What are your views on who should decide what it looks at? Is there a need for a mission, and who should that be set by? If it is left to four, five or six individuals to set the missions, how do we ensure that it is not simply about vanity or pet projects, and that cronyism—we are having some challenges with that at the moment—is not promoted? How do we avoid cronyism and support diversity?

David Cleevely: I notice that this came up in the previous session. I think the answer is, in one sense, very straightforward. I think it is for the Government to set the priorities where they feel that there are specific challenges. We have talked about climate change, for example. That is one, and there may be others that one would want to address, either in health or in other topics. That is the point at which the handover occurs and whoever is running ARIA takes that particular domain or challenge. I have been involved, for example, in the Longitude prizegiving, and it was very interesting how we focused down on antimicrobial resistance and testing. A lot of interesting things came out of that. By the way, all the solutions were engineering.

The point is that we should listen to Peter Highnam’s testimony really carefully. Honestly, that was one of the most interesting insights into DARPA that I have had. He talked about the way in which there is autonomy within DARPA to do things within a general area set by Government. Then, within that, there is a peer-review system that enables us to overcome some of the cronyism that you talk about. The more open you are about what you are doing, the less easy it is to hide the fact that you have let particular contracts and so on, so there ought to be a mechanism within the governance structure of the agency to do that.

There is a two-level thing here, but it is up to the Government to decide where the UK’s priorities are. Are we, for example, really concerned about climate change? Can we specify challenges within climate change that will make a difference? In the same way, for defence it was to not be surprised by innovation and to make sure the technology was available for defence in the United States. Within that, DARPA went ahead and looked for things that met that overall goal.

Bob Sorrell: I think there needs to be an overarching structure set for the areas ARIA pursues. In identifying these grand challenges, there is a list that we could reel off right now that would fit the scope. Earlier, I heard conversations about having six wise people who would make these decisions and cover these areas. I worry about that approach. I think you need people who are really up for engaging people to understand the nature of the problems and translating them into meaningful challenges.

The other part that is often missed in this is the social science aspect, because there has to be a level of public acceptance around the things that people are developing on their so-called behalf, and that part is also incredibly important. We need to have a very open process for how we decide on those projects so that we avoid, as you say, falling into the traps of vanity or pet projects. If you have clear criteria from the outset and stick to them, you will be fine in that regard.

[Chi Onwurah]

Thank you. I could ask you lots more questions, but I will stop there and hand over.

[The Chair]

The next set of questions is from Minister Solloway.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q To summarise slightly—I do not want to become a grim AREPA—what we need is not only an ARIA that can do the things that we have been talking about today, but possibly other things alongside it to make it work. Would you agree with that?

David Cleevely: It is fine tinkering around with the engine and putting another turbocharger on it, but if the chassis, the transmission system and the wheels will not deliver what you need, all that energy and power is going to go somewhere. In an international system, all we will do is to help to accelerate other countries that are willing to buy our stuff from us. That is fine; I am all for international co-operation, but I really would like to see a bigger contribution to economic growth and productivity improvements in the UK.

Bob Sorrell: To pick up on what David is saying, ARIA is part of the solution. We need all the things that we have, effectively, to put us in a position to lead against the challenges that we face. We would not be in this position if we did not have such a brilliant research community in the UK to start with. It is fantastic that we are having a conversation about how we capitalise on that. It is not just £800 million for ARIA, which is just seed money to start it, but the investment in the overall infrastructure that will make many of these things possible. We need to commit to doing that as well, if the UK is really going to lead and be the test bed and demonstration centre for the technologies that it can lead in and deploy globally.

David Cleevely: I think Bob and I are absolutely in agreement on that.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q If nobody else has a question, I will take the opportunity to come back on that point, particularly on procurement. I remember having a great deal of difficulty persuading the Prime Minister that the American Department of Defence was far better at buying stuff from UK small businesses than the UK Ministry of Defence, as the figures show. What do you think we could do, or what should Government be doing, to enable, require or ensure that ARIA, or AREPA, better supports small business growth and, at the same time, addresses the issue of market pull?

David Cleevely: The general thrust of what AREPA—if we are going to adopt that word—is trying to do is right. There are a number of things going on in bits of defence, for example. You have DASA and various others playing around with projects within the different services, for acquiring different kinds of technology. I think the phrase “a bit more coherence” was used by Felicity. I think we need to understand what the map of that innovation system looks like.

I am pretty convinced that people are pretty smart—they will make the right decisions. You just need to give them the right structure, hence my point that serendipity does not happen by accident. These kinds of things happen because you have constructed systems and processes so that people bump into and talk to each other, and will exchange ideas. ARIA is fine as it stands, but it sits within quite a complex system. I would like to see much more recognition within Government about how complex that system is, and how it actually operates. I completely agree with you that it has been far easier, in all my companies, to sell stuff into the United States—particularly into the United States defence market—than it has ever been to sell into the UK.

Bob Sorrell: To build on that, I did a couple of terms at Innovate UK and we tried stimulating public procurement during that period. I think a lot of it is about the culture and getting it right, to allow people to invest in those smaller companies and different technical solutions, to move them away from the existing ones. We got that to work during covid. We managed to get it to work, and we managed to get ourselves investing and procuring things in a different way. That is why I keep coming back to that and looking at what we did differently then that allowed people to make those different choices. I think we have to take some of that learning to see how we can get public procurement to work in a better way going forward.

[The Chair]

We have one last very quick question from Sarah Owen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

As I have previously mentioned, the discussions around this are ongoing and the funding will be announced in due course. I would like to point out to the hon. Lady that we have an ambition to be a science superpower and, in fact, we have committed £22 billion by 2024-25.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]]

Everyone who has had a coronavirus vaccine knows of the deep sense of gratitude to scientists. In facing the challenge of climate change, future pandemics and technological change, we look to science. At the general election, the Prime Minister promised to double science spend. Instead, we appear to have a £1 billion cut to the science budget plus a £120 million cut to our overseas development science as part of a “new settlement” that protects

“the most effective research programmes.”

Can the Minister say which programmes will be cut, which scientists will lose their grants, and which institutions will close? The Government who clap the NHS but impose a real-terms pay cut now plan to praise science and cut scientists.

[Amanda Solloway]

BEIS regularly has talks with Her Majesty’s Treasury on these issues. Let me reiterate that we plan to be a science superpower by 2024-25, with a £22 billion investment. We also have a Second Reading debate today on a high-risk, high-reward agency. Furthermore, in terms of the spending review, more than £40 billion across Government was spent on science.