Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend always champions industry and innovation in his area. We recognise the UK’s significant capabilities in the nuclear fuel cycle and the benefit this provides to our energy security and to realising export opportunities. Through the nuclear fuel fund, the Government are investing in Springfields and other parts of the supply chain to further expand essential capabilities so we can realise benefits for the UK and abroad. The £6 million medical radionuclide innovation programme will also develop capability in the production of radionuclides for medicine.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The life sciences sector is very exercised by the unintended but very high levy being paid to the Government for branded medicines in the NHS. The risk is that investment and jobs will go elsewhere, so what is the Secretary of State doing to make sure that that does not happen?

[Paul Scully]

We are negotiating hard on this. Obviously, the negotiations are sensitive at this time, but we are aware of the fact that we are ahead and we want to stay ahead in life sciences, which are part of our key technologies.

Research and Development Funding and Horizon Europe

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

It is good to see you again so soon, Mr Hosie. I think that, when we were interrupted in such an untimely way, I was talking about the AMRC in Sheffield. Its partnership with Boeing and Rolls-Royce has shown how universities and industry can work together effectively, and participation in Horizon and the earlier framework programmes was vital to its development.

It is not just big companies—for example, Footprint, which is a tool-making SME with hundreds of years of history in Sheffield, has been involved with several Horizon-funded projects, including as a lead industrial partner working with companies and researchers across Europe to develop new additive manufacturing processes for metal components for the aerospace sector. Its chairman, Christopher Jewitt, said of Horizon that

“it’s important to rub shoulders with other manufacturers in Europe…we are competing with the world”.

There is a lot at risk if we fail to associate with Horizon Europe.

Let me use another example. EU-funded research and collaboration laid the foundations for the University of Sheffield’s gene therapy innovation and manufacturing centre, which is now leveraging private investment to develop promising treatments for millions of patients with life-threatening illnesses.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Everywhere I go in Cambridge, the issue that is raised is collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. I think that that is the point that my hon. Friend is making. Does he agree that without that collaboration UK science and research will be the poorer?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come to the point that much of the debate around Horizon is focused on the funding, but it is collaboration that is so important—not only in the way that my hon. Friend describes but, as in the case of the gene therapy innovation and manufacturing centre, in creating hundreds of highly skilled local jobs.

Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 17th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

My interest in this debate comes from my representing a science and research city, where data, and transferring it, is key, and from my long-term background in information technology. Perhaps as a consequence of both, back in 2018 I was on the Bill Committee that had the interesting task of implementing GDPR, even though, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones)—my good friend—pointed out at the time, none of us had the text in front of us. I think he perhaps had special access to it. In those long and complicated discussions, there were times when I was not entirely sure that anyone in the room fully gripped the complexity of the issues.

I recall that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) persistently called for a longer-term vision that would meet the fast-changing challenges of the digital world, and Labour Members constantly noted the paucity of resources available to the Information Commissioner’s Office to deal with those challenges, notwithstanding yellow-vested people entering offices. Five years on, I am not sure that much has changed, because the Bill before us is still highly technical and detailed, and once again the key issues of the moment are being dodged.

I was struck by the interesting conversations on the Conservative Benches, which were as much about what was not being tackled by the Bill as what is being tackled —about the really hot issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) mentioned in her Front-Bench speech, such as ChatGPT and artificial intelligence. Those are the issues of the moment, and I am afraid that they are not addressed in the Bill. I make the exact point I made five years ago: there is the risk of hard-coding previous prejudice into future decision making. Those are the issues that we should be tackling.

I chair the all-party parliamentary group on data analytics, which is carrying out a timely review of AI governance. I draw Members’ attention to a report made by that group, with the help of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West, called “Trust, Transparency and Technology”. It called for, among other things, a public services licence to operate, and transparent, standardised ethics and rules for public service providers such as universities, police, and health and care services, so that we can try to build the public confidence that we so need. We also called for a tough parliamentary scrutiny Committee, set up like the Public Accounts Committee or the Environmental Audit Committee, to make sure the public are properly protected. That idea still has strong resonance today.

I absolutely admit that none of this is easy, but there are two particular areas that I would like to touch on briefly. One, which has already been raised, is the obvious one of data adequacy. Again, I do not feel that the argument has really moved on that much over the years. Many of the organisations producing briefings for this debate highlight the risks, and back in 2018—as I think the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) pointed out—there were genuine concerns that we would not necessarily achieve an adequacy agreement with the European Union. Frankly, it was always obvious that this was going to be a key point in future trade negotiations with the EU and others, and I am afraid that that is the way it has played out.

It is no surprise that adequacy is often a top issue, because it is so essentially important, but that of course means that we are weakened when negotiation comes to other areas. Put crudely, to get the data adequacy agreements we need, we are always going to be trading away something else, and while in my opinion the EU is always unlikely to withhold at the very end, the truth is that it can, and it could. That is a pretty powerful weapon. On the research issues, I would just like to ask the Minister whether, in summing up, he could comment on the concerns that were raised back in 2018 about the uncertainty for the research sector, and whether he is confident that what is proposed now—in my view, it should have been done then—can provide the clarity that is needed.

On a more general note, one of the key Cambridge organisations has pointed out to me that, in its view, it is quite hard to see the point of this Bill for organisations that are operating globally because, as the EU GDPR has extraterritorial effect, they are still going to need to meet those standards for much of what they do. It would simply be too complicated to try to apply different legal regimes to different situations and people. That is the basic problem with divergence: when organisations span multiple jurisdictions, taking back control is frankly meaningless. Effectively, it cedes control to others without having any influence—the worst of all worlds. That organisation also tells me that it has been led to believe by the Government, as I think was echoed in some of the introductory points, that any organisation wishing to carry on applying current legal standards will, by default, meet those in the new Bill. It is sceptical about that claim, and it would like some confirmation, because it rightly wonders how that can be the case when new concepts and requirements are introduced and existing ones amended.

There is much, much more that could be said, has been said and will be said by others, including genuine concerns about the weakening of rights around subject access requests and some of the protections around algorithmic unfairness. Those need to be tested and scrutinised in Committee; frankly, too much cannot just be left to ministerial judgment. Huge amounts of data are now held about all of us, and the suspicion is rightly held that decisions are sometimes made without our knowledge, decisions that can have a direct impact on our lives. I think we can all agree that data used well can be transformative and a power for good, but that absolutely relies on confidence and trust, which in turn requires a strong regulatory framework that engenders that trust. It feels to me like this Bill fails to meet some of those challenges. It needs to be strengthened and improved.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), although I gently remind him that it was the UK that left Horizon Europe, not the other way round.

We can, however, probably agree that innovation and science are critical to building strong and resilient national and regional economies, and our universities play a key role in fuelling that vital innovation. I could cite many examples, but I would particularly pick out the Whittle Laboratory at Cambridge, which is spearheading cutting-edge work on improving the aerothermal performance of turbomachines. Those machines are the principal technology in the world’s energy-conversion processes, and improving their efficiency is key to reducing the environmental impact of power generation and aviation.

London Economics recently calculated—it said this in a report launched on the estate this evening—that Cambridge University’s net total impact on the UK economy is a staggering £29.8 billion annually, supporting more than 86,000 jobs across the UK. A high percentage of that economic impact is generated by companies spun out from, or closely associated with, the university. That has been made possible by the university’s long-term strategy of investment in innovation and commercialisation activities over decades.

However, universities and businesses cannot do these things alone. There is a vital role for Government in creating the right environment and culture for innovation and entrepreneurialism to flourish. That includes a strategic vision, stability, sustained investment and a tax regime that incentivises innovation and knowledge creation. However, I am afraid that the Government have fallen well short on those criteria in recent years. We have had nine changes of Science Minister in five years, and 26 months of Horizon uncertainty. The UK has lost out on investment and research projects across the country. Scientists have left international projects or have been told to relocate. The Royal Society—this point was also raised in a recent review by Paul Nurse—has strongly urged the Government to deliver on their pledge to associate to Horizon Europe, as that is vital to restoring the confidence of global research talent and investors in building their futures here in the UK.

Frankly, the Government have not put their money where their mouth is. Despite repeated promises to UK scientists that funding has been set aside and ringfenced for UK research and development, £1.6 billion that was previously earmarked for Horizon Europe association, or the alternative, has been taken back by the Treasury, and the science community is deeply disappointed by that substantial loss.

As for the tax regime, we witnessed a complete botch of the R&D tax credit system only a few months ago in the autumn statement. Leading experts queued up to express their exasperation that such a backward move would hinder growth for the early-stage and research-intensive tech companies that are key to the UK’s future. According to auditor BDO, it would have meant support for loss-making companies dropping from an effective 33.4% subsidy to an 18.6% subsidy.

The Government did try to clear up the mess in last week’s Budget, but all the damage has by no means been repaired. SMEs and start-ups are still worse off than they would have been before the changes that were made in the autumn. The Government are still cutting support for R&D in start-ups and small businesses—to the tune of £2 billion over the next five years, according to one estimate.

Further, the justification for the cuts—fraud and misuse —has not been addressed, and the high bar of 40% R&D expenditure leaves thousands of small firms out of scope. Start-ups spending below the threshold would, on average, receive £100,000 less in support under the new scheme—equivalent to a 30% to 40% reduction in funding. The threshold will also penalise companies that are scaling up as they begin to spend money on more mainstream business expenses.

The funding gap between early and late-stage businesses is simply too large. The bottom line is that most start-ups will still find it much harder to claim R&D tax credits than they would have before the Government took over. In the words of Russ Shaw, CBE, founder of Global Tech Advocates, the R&D tax rebates are “short-sighted” and will “simply not suffice”.

I am afraid that this partial, half-hearted U-turn has not convinced our leading entrepreneurs and knowledge creators that the Government are serious about science and innovation or about the economic growth it stimulates. Indeed, the OBR has confirmed that the UK will be the weakest economy in the G7 this year and the only one that will see negative growth. No other G20 economy, apart from Russia, is forecast to shrink this year.

This Budget was the chance to repair some of the damage and to give us a fighting chance in the global race for advancement in science and technology. Instead, I am afraid that we have had more tinkering and short-termism. Now, more than ever, we need a Government who are firmly committed to generating a green, tech-driven recovery for the nation and to unlocking our potential as a real science and innovation superpower.

Science and Technology Framework

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Part of the framework is about our international collaboration with partners. Of course we need to grow our own talent, a point made earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), but we also need to attract talent, and to ensure that our visa system—as well as many other factors—enables that to happen. I will continue to work on that issue across Government.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Horizon is about collaboration, not just money. May I urge the Secretary of State to impress that on the Prime Minister? She will also be aware that confidence in the life sciences sector is fragile at present, whether it be in relation to R&D tax credits, the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access, or Horizon, and that we have fallen from fourth to 10th among the best countries in which to conduct late-place clinical trials. What is she going to do about that?