Engineering Biology (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, at the weekend I was reading a history of Dartmoor prison, which I live quite close to. In the last century, the prisoners were allocated candles to read by, but in fact they were so hungry that they had to eat them. We have not yet been allocated candles in this Room, but we could probably do with them to see by.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and the rest of the committee on this report. I am a bit of an ignoramus—I am just a civil engineer—so I listened with great interest to the witnesses, my colleagues on the committee and our special advisers. Like other noble Lords, I have learned a great deal.

I will concentrate on something I have been following for years: the fact that we need more scientists, as everyone has said. It is good that we got the Minister’s helpful responses so quickly. Some members of the committee gave those responses marks out of 10 based on whether they were helpful or not. That was probably very unfair on him, but he got very high marks most of the time—except for the immigration issue, which I assume came from the Home Office. In a subsequent letter to the Home Office, we described the UK visa policy towards scientists as

“an act of national self-harm”.

That is pretty strong for a letter from a committee, but it was justified. I hope that he does not take it personally, because it is not his fault—but let us hope that one or two others do.

I have been looking at how to get more scientists here. This is impossible to separate from our general problem with immigration, which gets very nasty in the press sometimes, and what we can do about it. Last week I came across a report, which my noble friend Lord Dubs gave me, from a marine pilot who has come up with a solution to the immigration problem across the channel. Many colleagues think that, if we stop immigration across the channel, all the problems will be solved—that is a load of rubbish. They will not be solved; they will be mitigated.

This eminent marine pilot came up with the solution that what is missing is a legal basis to take immigrants and their handlers to court if they come, and that we should reorganise search and rescue, the coastguard and everything else under one body so that they work together rather than separately. It is very simple, but it needs doing. He said:

“Prosecutions under existing laws, such as the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, are non-existent”.


If there are no prosecutions, nobody will be found guilty. I saw this paper only last week, so I shall send it to my noble friend the Minister. I suggest that he might like to pass it on to the Home Office and the Department for Transport. It is not his problem—he has said that he wants more scientists, and I believe him—but we have to find a way of getting them here; if we do not, we will be in serious trouble.

The question will come: who will pay for this? That retired captain has come up with a very sensible solution: it will be funded by the harbour dues payable by all the ships that go into harbours. I got involved in that about 10 or 20 years ago, in your Lordships’ House, when we found that ships going into British harbours were funding the maintenance of Irish lighthouses, which did not seem a good thing after 100 years of Ireland’s independence. That is one way of doing it—and it can be done without any government expenditure—so I shall pass it to my noble friend Minister. I congratulate all noble Lords on some really interesting speeches.