Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and George Freeman

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

I am delighted that the Bill to create this exciting new agency has returned to this House and that I am able to speak to it for the first time in my role as Minister for Science, Research and Innovation. I pay tribute to my ministerial colleague Lord Callanan for his work on the Bill in the other place. Not for the first time in matters scientific, their lordships have kept our Minister very busy on the Front Bench. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway), who so capably led the Bill when it was first before the House.

There are 15 amendments for our consideration tonight. Fourteen of those were tabled or supported by the Government. I will summarise them quickly. Amendments 2 to 8 relate to changes the Government made in response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report on the Bill. In doing so, we demonstrated the seriousness with which we take the DPRRC’s recommendations and the Government’s commitment to acting upon them. The effect of those amendments is to omit clause 10, which contained a broader power to make consequential provision, and to replace it with a narrower, more specific power in clause 8. The new power can be used only in consequence of regulations dissolving ARIA. Other amendments are needed to tidy up the rest of the Bill and reflect that change. I hope that the changes are, in general, welcome.

Amendments 9 and 10 remove a power for ARIA to pay pensions and gratuities determined by the Secretary of State to non-executive members. We have tested that thoroughly and are content that in ARIA’s specific case, that power is not needed. Again, the two amendments reflect the usual process of improving the Bill in response to scrutiny and the expertise that colleagues here—and in particular in the other place—have brought to bear.

Amendments 11 and 13 remove the amendments previously included in the Bill that had the effect of reserving ARIA. I have had productive discussions on this with my ministerial colleagues in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, to reiterate the importance of ARIA and our broader science policy to help strengthen the Union. I am delighted that they share my vision and ambition for ARIA and that we have reached an agreement on the independence of ARIA—a memorandum of understanding that is a shared commitment to safeguard the organisation’s most important characteristics, and which means the reservations are not needed. I am delighted to be able to report that legislative consent motions have been passed in all three devolved legislatures on the basis of that agreement, and I similarly commend it to the House.

Government amendments 12, 14 and 15 apply some relevant obligations to ARIA that would normally apply automatically to public authorities listed in the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The amendments provide for ARIA to be treated as a public authority for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018, the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, the Enterprise Act 2016 and the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. They also amend various regulations and the UK GDPR to reflect that. That ensures that ARIA is treated in the same way as a public organisation normally would be treated in those important areas.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The Minister will know from previous discussions that the question of freedom of information has come up before. Would it not be much simpler just to make ARIA subject to the Freedom of Information Act? In the current climate, would that not reassure the public?

[George Freeman]

It may reassure the public, but we also have to take into consideration the fact that to succeed, world-class scientists have been recruited to ARIA to lead in cutting-edge science. That very small staff need to be sure that they will not be tied up answering 101—often spurious—freedom of information requests from the media, who are keen on running stories. We want to make sure the agency is accountable properly but not bogged down in what can be hugely onerous freedom of information requests.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and George Freeman

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

At a stretch, Mr Speaker, I think that Buckinghamshire touches the east-west corridor. I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to look at a place-based solution for sustainable housing and transport.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Martin Tugwell of England’s Economic Heartland sub-national transport body described the expressway as a 20th century solution to a 21st century challenge. Is it not absolutely clear that the real answer is a public railway, an electrified railway, with an interchange with HS2?

[George Freeman]

The hon. Gentleman is bowling outside my off stump, but he knows that we are deeply committed to rail, to connectivity, and to sustainable transport. I cannot pre-empt the Secretary of State’s announcement on the expressway, but let me be very clear: we are committed to sustainable integration of housing with public transport, and that rail link is an absolute priority.

Cambridgeshire CCG and UnitingCare Partnership

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and George Freeman

Monday 18th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

That is right. As both questions have highlighted, the change in the care pathway is being pursued by the CCG and there is no reason for patients—the users of the system—to fear any dramatic change to the service. The remaining issue is the residual issue of how the contract came to be put in place. The dispute between the parties is about their different conceptions of the financial and contractual situation. I do not want to prejudge the investigations, but the service reforms will continue.

The final decision to terminate was taken after extensive discussions between the CCG, UnitingCare, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, NHS England and Monitor. Prior to escalation to NHS England and Monitor, the CCG, CUH and CPFT worked hard to try to reach a resolution locally.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Could the Minister enlighten me on the role played by Ministers in that final decision? Did they know it was happening? Who ultimately terminated the contract?

[George Freeman]

As I will come on to say, due process was followed in the correct way. One of the reasons for listing all these acronyms is so that the hon. Gentleman can be reassured that the right bodies carried out their due diligence. I do not believe that there was any reason for Ministers to be concerned at any point until the dispute between the parties became clear. Indeed, the reforms had been generated locally by clinicians and an accountable CCG led by clinicians. As the questions I have been asked have illustrated, the reforms were and remain very sensible. This is a better care pathway, with improved outcomes.

The issue is contractual and relates to a dispute between the parties about liabilities in the contract. As I have said, I do not want to prejudge the ongoing investigations, the point of which is to work out what should have been done differently. I can absolutely reassure the hon. Gentleman and the House that we are hungry to learn any lessons from that commissioning experience. We need novel commissioning. We need commissioners around the country to look into different ways of commissioning the reforms to our integration of health and care, and lessons need to be learned when it goes wrong. I emphasise that this was a contract between the parties. As I have said, the Department is looking forward to the reviews and wants to hear the lessons that others can learn.

The CCG has now taken over all relevant contracts with providers that were previously held by UnitingCare, to ensure that there is no service disruption to patients and carers. In addition, the CCG and CPFT, which employ the majority of the affected staff, have worked closely together to ensure that frontline staff are clear that, while the contractual model has now changed, the service model remains in place.

Of course, I agree with hon. Members that it is a matter of extreme concern that the new arrangements lasted barely six months. That is not ideal. We need to work out how the parties got it wrong and what mistakes were made. There are questions for the reviews to address. For instance, there is the question of why, given full procurement and assurance of the process, the result fell so far short in practice, along with other associated questions.

To describe modern commissioning as back-door privatisation is wilfully to misrepresent what is going on. These are clinician-led improvements to the care pathways, and I do not believe that most service users would consider it privatisation. We are talking about two public sector organisations coming together to form a company for the purposes of jointly commissioning care pathway innovation put together by clinicians in the local CCG. If Labour considers that privatisation, it has a serious problem, because most people would consider it enlightened commissioning for modern care pathways. This is a contract issue. The parties to the contract did not get it right, and we are keen to understand why and what can be done to make sure it does not happen again. I want those answers as much as the hon. Gentleman, and I repeat my invitation, to him and other hon. Members with an interest, to meet in due course to learn the lessons and make sure that the benefits of commissioning for integration go ahead without the contractual errors that have bedevilled this project.

Question put and agreed to.