Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Kwasi Kwarteng Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

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

I should like to start my remarks by drawing attention to the much-celebrated work of Edward Jenner. I am sure that many of us appreciate his work. He is often referred to as the father of immunology; he was a British physician who created the world’s first vaccine. As I am sure all hon. Members know, he was an apprentice to a surgeon in Chipping Sodbury in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall). Mr Jenner essentially discovered immunisation. When we consider the coronavirus that has devasted our country and the world this year and last year, Jenner’s work takes on a particular resonance.

Thanks to the UK’s historic funding for research and the groundbreaking action of scientists at Oxford University, a British vaccine is once again helping us to return to a more normal life. It has shown us all the incredible benefits that breakthrough science and technology can provide. Building on our country’s proud history of wonderful inventions, I was particularly pleased to announce the creation of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency last month. I am sure that it will play a unique and exciting role in the UK’s research and development system.

The new agency will be characterised by a sole focus on funding high-risk, high-reward research. It will have strategic and cultural autonomy. It will invest in the judgment of able people, and it will also enjoy flexibility and a wide degree of operational freedom. I have spoken with many of our leading scientists, researchers and innovators and their message has been absolutely clear. I am convinced that these features will make ARIA succeed.

The creation of ARIA is part of a concerted action by this Government to cement the UK’s position as a science superpower. With £800 million committed to ARIA by 2024-25, the new agency will contribute extremely effectively to our R&D ecosystem. As set out in our policy statement published only last week, we have to give ARIA significant powers and freedoms and a mandate to be bold. To deliver that, we have introduced the ARIA Bill.

The Bill recognises that funding transformational long-term science requires patience and a high risk appetite. The Bill explicitly states that ARIA may give weight to the potential of significant benefits when funding research that carries a high risk of failure. This freedom to fail is fundamental to ARIA’s model, and the provision will empower its leaders to make ambitious research and funding decisions. When we look back in history, to the 1950s and 1960s, we see that with this approach a US agency called the Advanced Research Projects Agency developed GPS as well as the precursor to the internet.

The Bill will also signal a 10-year grace period before the power to dissolve the agency can be exercised. The agency will be focused exclusively, as I have said, on high-risk research. It requires patience and a laser-like focus as necessary conditions for success.

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

My right hon. Friend is making a strong case and refers to the work of the Vaccine Taskforce. In the past year, we have seen astonishing science conducted at breakneck speed because we have been in a crisis. Does he agree that for ARIA to work we need somehow to harness that sense of crisis and continue to use it in a normal period to get this sort of high-risk and high-reward research out and developed in Britain?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The circumstances in which we have developed the Vaccine Taskforce have been really unfortunate, with this terrible pandemic, but the very thin silver lining around the cloud has been this remarkable vaccine rollout. My hon. Friend is right that ARIA needs to learn from what we have learned collectively from the vaccine rollout.

Our objective is for ARIA to fund research in new and innovative ways. The Bill provides the agency with significant powers that are necessary for it to perform its function.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman says that the agency is modelled on the American example, but the American example very clearly has a client. Which is the client Department for this Bill?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Forgive me, I did not say that it was modelled on that example. I said that it was inspired, and I referred allusively, in my usual way, to historical precedent. I never said that it was modelled exactly on the American example. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will make a fuller contribution to the debate.

Let me make some progress. Different funding methods obviously suit different projects. ARIA may seek to use seed grants. It will have inducement prizes. It may make its own investments in companies. All of these different approaches will drive innovation, and that will allow ARIA to target, for example, a Scottish university or a semiconductor start-up in Wales and to ensure that researchers across the UK can contribute to developing the key technologies for tomorrow.

ARIA will also have strategic independence. It will, as I have said, have the freedom to fail; it will have the freedom to take a long-term view and to experiment with new ways of funding the most ambitious research, which experience tells us is a necessary ingredient for some of the best results. A key part of this freedom will be trusting the leadership of ARIA to identify and decide on areas of research with perhaps the greatest potential. The Bill limits the ability for Ministers, as it should do, to intervene in ARIA’s day-to-day operations or to direct funding decisions. Instead, ARIA will have a highly skilled team of leadership programme managers who, supported by the board, will ensure strong strategic oversight over the portfolio of programmes. As the Bill makes clear, ARIA must have regard to the benefits of that research to the UK—to the people of this country—in terms of not only economic growth but trying to ensure that innovation can improve the quality of life of all our fellow subjects.

Our response to coronavirus as a nation has shown that agility is crucial in funding research in this fast-moving world. All of this work builds on action already taken by the Government and by UK Research and Innovation to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy in the wider ecosystem. We have learned from agencies such as DARPA in the US—the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) will be pleased to learn that—which has shown that we need to go several steps further in creating a culture that is primarily focused on pursuing high-risk research. There is a cultural need in such an organisation for autonomy and a measure of dynamism, which can be achieved through exceptional leadership and, perhaps most importantly, through a flat, streamlined structure.

ARIA will benefit from being a small and nimble agency. It will create a unique environment for its programme managers to be completely focused on their particular research proposal. The Bill therefore provides ARIA with some additional but proportionate freedoms, which are not generally found in the rest of our system. For example, it exempts ARIA from public contracting rules. That will allow ARIA to procure R&D services and equipment relating to its research goals in a similar way to a private sector organisation. To ensure that that process is transparent, it sits alongside a commitment in the Bill to audit ARIA’s procurement activities.

In order to further this research-intensive culture, ARIA has been given extensive freedoms. However, we will ensure, as the Bill does, that the organisation submits a statement of accounts and an annual report on its activities, which will be laid directly before Parliament. Those commitments to transparency will sit alongside the customary and necessary scrutiny by the National Audit Office.

It is clear that ARIA will be a unique and extremely valuable addition in our research landscape. It will create a more diverse, more dynamic and creative funding system, which will ensure that transformative ideas, wherever they may come from, can change people’s lives for the better.

I am very conscious that there is a huge amount of interest in this debate on the Back Benches on both sides of the House. I have committed myself not to go on for two hours or whatever the customary length of time might be. Having been a Back Bencher myself, I know that it is often frustrating to hear Front Benchers trench on parliamentary time. As a consequence, I hope that hon. and right hon. Members will agree that, as we build back better, we can have a full debate today about the merits of ARIA and its necessary existence. I hope that the Bill will show the Government’s strong commitment to building on a wonderful research base. On that basis, I commend the Bill to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

This is an opportune moment for me to give notice to people who are hoping to speak in the debate—those here in the Chamber, but particularly those at home who perhaps might not pick up the atmosphere and be tempted to do the opposite of what the Secretary of State has just said by taking rather longer than they ought to take. I am going to try to run this Second Reading debate without a formal time limit, in the hope that Members will act reasonably and unselfishly towards their colleagues, and keep their speeches to about five to six minutes, or less. I say this particularly to people who are at home, because I cannot nod to them or grimace at them to let them know when they have spoken for too long. Five minutes would be just about right for everyone who wishes to speak to have the opportunity to do so.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

Let me start by saying that across the House we share the admiration for British science. It is one of our most brilliant national assets, employing nearly 1 million people directly and generating extraordinary value for our country. As the Secretary of State eloquently said, the work on vaccines has been truly remarkable. We commend our scientists and everyone involved for their work. Indeed, I hope the Secretary of State will not mind my saying that it is a successful example of an industrial strategy; the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) probably shares my view.

I turn to the details of the Bill. I should say from the beginning that we support the Bill; we have some issues with it, but we certainly support its aims. I just want to say something about the wider context, because I found it slightly remarkable that the Secretary of State did not mention the fact that we are two weeks from the start of the next financial year but the scientific community does not know its budget, and the Government appear to be contemplating significant cuts to its programmes.

The Secretary of State said last week to the Science and Technology Committee, which is chaired by the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells, that the Government

“are talking the talk of a science superpower…but…we also have to walk the walk.”

Quite. We support the intent of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, but hon. and right hon. Members across the House should be aware that while the ARIA budget is £800 million over this Parliament, UK Research and Innovation’s annual budget is £9 billion. Last week, UKRI published a letter confirming that the BEIS official development assistance allocation will lead to a £120 million gap between its allocation and the commitments that it has already made. It warned of cuts coming on that scale, and the House should be aware of where those cuts are going to be. Potential areas include climate change, antimicrobial resistance, pandemics, renewable energy and water sanitation. Those are the kinds of things that that funding addresses. Mr Cummings was also at the Select Committee meeting—I will return to him shortly—saying that ARIA would solve the problems of civilisation. That is all very well, but I fear that these cuts seem to be coming right here, right now; and we cannot launch a successful moonshot if we cut off the power supply to the space station.

The other fear that we have is that the threat of cuts does not end there, because there is no clarity on how to cover the huge cost of the UK’s ongoing participation in Horizon Europe programme. To be clear, this programme used to be funded not from the science budget, but from our EU contributions. I say to the Secretary of State that it surely cannot be right to take money from the science budget to fund our participation. He will know that there is real fear in the scientific community about that.

I will give the Secretary of State the chance to intervene: does he not agree that cutting the science budget to fund Horizon would be exactly talking the talk but not walking the walk? I will happily give way to him if he wants to tell us. Maybe he can tell us when we will get clarity—when will the scientific community get clarity on how the Horizon money will be funded? He does not want to intervene, but the science community deserves clarity. We support ARIA but it deserves clarity. These are people’s jobs. This is incredibly important work and I hope he is fighting with his friends in the Treasury as hard as he can to give people that clarity and avoid the cuts.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

rose—

[Edward Miliband]

Maybe he is going to tell us the news.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The right hon. Gentleman will know from his years in government—appreciably, many years ago now—that these conversations with the Treasury are ongoing, and we hope to get a satisfactory result.

[Edward Miliband]

We shall look forward to the Secretary of State getting a satisfactory result. I am not sure that I always got a satisfactory result with the Treasury, although I was in the Treasury at one point, at least as an adviser. This is very important and, as I say, people’s jobs and livelihoods and the scientific base of this country, of which we are all so proud, depend on it.

Let me come to the Bill, which we support. The Bill is important—the Secretary of State said this—because there is incredible work going on in the scientific community, but there is consensus that there is a lack of a mechanism to identify, build and fund truly ambitious, high-risk, high-reward programmes. We recognise the case for an independent agency that operates outside the established research funding mechanisms, but we feel that the Bill requires improvement.

I guess our concerns cohere into a different view about the role of Government and the lessons of DARPA, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) talked about, on which in some broad sense—maybe not in the Secretary of State’s mind, but in others’ minds—ARIA is modelled. It is impossible to ignore what we might call the spectre of Dom in this debate. He was at the Science and Technology Committee—chaired by the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells—and he does rather hang over this Bill. He is its sort of governmental godfather. In his telling, DARPA’s success—I think this is important—is simply because the Government got out of the way and let a bunch of buccaneering individuals do what they liked. It is definitely true, as I understand it, that DARPA has important lessons about the need for the culture that I talked about, including higher reward and, of necessity, a higher chance of failure, but it is simply not true that DARPA was somehow totally detached from Government. DARPA had an obvious client—the Department of Defense—a clear mandate around defence-related research, a clear synergy in its work with the procurement power of the US DOD and, incidentally, abided by laws on freedom of information.

I want to suggest that there are two different views about ARIA: one is that we should let the organisation simply do what it wants, relying on the wisdom of a genius chair and chief executive; and the other subtler and, in our view, more sensible approach—one more consistent with the lessons of DARPA—is that Government should set a clear mandate and framework for ARIA and then get out of the way and not interfere with its day-to-day decision-making. I also believe there is a democratic case, because the priority goals for the spending of £800 million over this Parliament should be driven by democratic choices; not about the specific items that it funds, but about the goals and mission.

That takes me to the three points that I want to make: first, about the mandate for ARIA; secondly, about its position in the wider R&D system; and thirdly, about accountability. I will try to emulate the Secretary of State’s brevity—perhaps not exactly his brevity, but as much as I can.

The deputy director of DARPA says about its success that

“having national security as the mission frames everything.”

The Secretary of State said to the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells at the Science and Technology Committee:

“If I were in your position, I would be asking what the core missions of ARIA are.”

I think the point that Dominic Cummings made, or I am sure would have made, is that this will be a job for the people we hire who are running the organisation. The Secretary of State went on:

“It will be up to the head of ARIA to decide whether he or she thinks the organisation should adopt what the innovation strategy suggests…or reject it.”

I really understand the wish to give freedom to ARIA, but surely it is for Government to shape and not shirk the setting of priorities, and it is not just DARPA where we can learn that lesson. Moonshot R&D—the Japanese agency established in 2019 to fund challenging R&D—has seven specific moonshot goals set by the Japanese Government, and my understanding from the evidence taken by the Science and Technology Committee is that the UK scientific community agrees with that idea.

I notice the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) putting his head in his hands. He has done that before when I speak, but let me just make this point in seriousness: £800 million is not in the scheme of things a huge amount of money, certainly when compared with UKRI’s budget. The concern is that unless, as the Select Committee said, ARIA focuses on a single or a small number of missions, it will dilute its impact.

Take the net zero challenge. I believe it is a challenge of political will and imagination, but it is also a technological challenge. If it is the No. 1 international challenge, as the PM said last week, and if it is the No. 1 domestic challenge, as I think it is, why would it not be the right mandate for ARIA for at least its first five years? Indeed, Professor Richard Jones and Professor Mariana Mazzucato, who perhaps have even greater claims than Dom to being godfather and godmother of this idea, said that climate change would be an ideal challenge on which an agency such as ARIA would focus. To be clear, providing a mandate does not mean micro-managing decisions, and it would be grossly simplistic to suggest otherwise.