Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I spent 20 years working in high-tech industry in the USA at the interface of research and product development. I then moved to Cambridge for 20 years, and during my final seven years as vice-chancellor did what I could to maintain the excellence of teaching and research across the full breadth of subjects studied at that great institution. But I also did what I could to build links with industry so that the university’s science output would have a better chance of being brought to the benefit of society. One of the most outstanding things I did was to appoint my noble friend Lord Mair to his professorship. He has gone on to do outstanding things, including delivering outstanding speeches in this House.

One of the things I now do is chair an international advisory committee for a large collaboration between Monash University and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia that is also trying to increase the effectiveness of Australia’s science base. Turning scientific advances into useful products is an obsession with me, despite the fact that it can be extraordinarily difficult.

I will talk about Innovate UK, just as my noble friend Lord Mair and the noble Baroness, Lady Rock, did. In the UK we have a world-leading science base, and there is no real need to change the way we fund and administer our science—provided of course that we sustain funding at an internationally competitive level. Our weakness is in turning our scientific ideas into products and processes that benefit society and our economy. This is where action is needed. But even here it is not clear that we need to change the way we are doing things; we simply need to do more. It is also necessary to remember that product development is completely different from scientific research. It is driven by cost, by schedule and by the market, all of which are factors that would be destructive if applied to research. The means of assessing and funding are also completely different. Research and product development should maintain strong links but be kept separate.

I am pleased to say that we have made progress in product development in the UK in recent years—the noble Baroness, Lady Rock, cited an example. I refer both to development funded by the taxpayer and development funded by industry. The Technology Strategy Board, now Innovate UK, has been successful in stimulating research and development, especially development, through the introduction of catapults and innovation centres and through a variety of funding competitions. All of this has been accomplished with relatively modest resources that have grown slowly to £560 million, which is less than one-fifth of the amount received by the research councils, which is £3 billion. Up until now, Innovate UK has been an independent corporate entity funded directly by BIS and now by BEIS. It has been free to set its own strategy and to decide how to use its money, which has allowed it successfully to maintain the distinct business-facing focus referred to in the Bill.

The question is whether the Bill will sustain IUK’s independence and allow it to expand its activities so that more ideas are brought to market. Bringing IUK into UKRI will enhance links with universities, which is good, but may endanger its funding. It seems that the responsibility for its funding is going to be transferred from BEIS to UKRI. If the funding comes as a block grant, the Haldane principle will presumably prevent the fraction that should go to IUK being predetermined, and IUK will have to compete for it with the other eight members of UKRI for its share—and yet its requirements are quite different. This is clearly unsatisfactory.

The problem would be overcome if the funding to UKRI were divided into two tranches, one for research and one to IUK for business-facing innovation. It would also be essential for IUK to have its own accounting officer. Strategically, IUK would of course still be a member of UKRI, to ensure that our industrial strategy was joined up from research through to product delivery, which would clearly be extremely valuable.

Another problem is that the Bill states that IUK will no longer be able to fund research. At present, 20% of IUK’s funding goes to academics to pursue research in support of industrially led projects, which seems to me sensible and necessary. The best way to deal with this issue is to remove Clause 90(2), which imposes this constraint. If it is to remain, then it would seem necessary to include a reciprocal restraint on the research councils preventing them from developing a distinct business focus and thereby confusing their role with that of IUK.

In conclusion, I regret that it appears on balance that, without amendment, the Bill is more likely to impair our ability to transfer more of our science to the market than to enhance it—despite the very strong and excellent leadership being provided by Sir John Kingman and the support of Jo Johnson.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord’s comments, because I have the greatest possible difficulty with this amendment, for a reason that nobody in the Committee has stated this afternoon. The amendment, as drafted, risks disqualifying—and hence turning some into sheep and some into goats—a whole group of bodies that have been given degree-awarding powers and the title of university since the legislation enabling that in 2004. I should declare an interest in that I am chancellor of BPP University, which is one of the biggest of the new, private universities. We were given degree-awarding powers in 2007 and, much to our great pleasure, were awarded the title of university in 2013.

What do I find when I read the proposed new clause? We would be supposed to provide a full range of subjects—but we do not and never did, although we have a full range of business subjects. Many of my colleagues in the 60 or 70 institutions that have gained degree-awarding powers are in the same place. This clause would just put us somewhere else. It gets rather worse as it goes on, with the second proposed new clause, at which point “UK universities” become separated from other, for-profit universities. We would somehow have ceased to be UK universities, but surely we are constituted under the 2004 legislation—so what would happen? Would we all be universities, with the title, or would we in some way not be, as UK universities become the sheep and the rest of us become the goats?

I have a real problem with this proposed new clause. The legislation was perfectly all right as originally drafted, when we were all higher education providers, but this clause would, for I think many of us, throw a real spanner into the works right at the beginning of the Bill. I would have to oppose the amendment were we to take a vote.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as a past vice-chancellor of Cambridge, but more importantly, I have associations with universities all around the world and other universities here in the UK. I support the proposed new clause but also support the need to give it further consideration. I will make just one point: it does not mention governance, and whether universities not only are autonomous but have the right to determine how they govern themselves. This has been a matter of some consideration over the years in various universities, and we debated it intensely in Cambridge at one time. Universities should be allowed to determine their own form of governance, and some words need to be included in a clause like this to say that. It would be a good idea not to go ahead immediately with the proposed new clause but to discuss it much further, particularly taking into account the independence of universities in determining how they govern themselves.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Stevenson for tabling this important amendment, and I join others in supporting it. I declare the interests that I declared in my contribution at Second Reading.

This is the first major Bill on higher education for a generation, and it will have far-reaching consequences. One of its aims, as we have heard, is to extend university title considerably. It is a matter of great concern to me that this legislation has so far made no attempt to define what a university is, its role in society more widely or, particularly, what we expect these new universities to do.

There has been so much change in the sector that I can see there is a need for regulatory reform, and I am in favour of it. I am in favour of raising the profile of teaching and of providing incentives for high-quality delivery. I am certainly not against change or challenge—universities have always changed in response to perceived social and economic needs—and new entrants to our higher education sector throughout its long history have ensured its diversity and the spread of excellence that we are so rightly proud of today.

We will have an opportunity to discuss university autonomy specifically and in detail in the next group but the threats to it contained in the Bill, and its proposals regarding university title, seem to undermine what we understand as the function and value of a university. They will endanger both the quality of our universities and the reputation of UK higher education overseas. So although I acknowledge the difficulties in providing a definition, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, and others have suggested, I think we have to go down the path of having this clause at the front of the Bill. I believe it is an essential step in mitigating the risks that I perceive.

As others have said, the Minister could go some way to alleviating my anxieties by responding to some questions. Does he agree that offering an extensive range of high-quality academic subjects, delivered by excellent teaching and supported by scholarship and research, is what has given our universities world-leading status? Does he recognise that universities’ contribution to society, through the pursuit, dissemination and application of knowledge and expertise locally, nationally and internationally, is made possible by their status as autonomous institutions, free to act as critics of government and the conscience of society? Does he agree that UK universities must uphold the principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech and ensure that they promote freedom of thought and expression? Will he tell us what his Government mean by a university and, if he cannot, will he allow the amendment, or something like it, to stand?

Attempts to articulate the meaning of a university have a distinguished history, from Humboldt and Newman in the 19th century through to the 1963 Robbins report and the Dearing inquiry in 1997. The proposed new clause echoes some of what Robbins said. He defined four objectives essential to any “properly balanced” higher education system. They included “instruction in skills”, balanced by the objective that universities must also promote the,

“general powers of the mind”,

to produce “cultivated men and women”. He said that teaching should not be separated from the advancement of learning and the search for truth, since,

“the process of education is itself most vital when it partakes of the nature of discovery”.

Robbins’ final objective was,

“the transmission of a common culture and common standards of citizenship”.

Some of the wording may now sound arcane, but the principles are still profoundly right. Robbins recognised the importance of universities’ autonomy and the principle of academic freedom. He included in that the right of academics to be active citizens and to pronounce on political questions, making universities the home of public intellectuals and a creative and independent cultural force.

The Bologna declaration, signed by the heads of most European universities in 1988, further enshrined principles that the university is an autonomous institution with the distinctive mission of embodying and transmitting the culture of its society; that teaching and research must be inseparable; and that freedom in research and training is the fundamental principle of university life. For Dearing, the central vision was the need for the UK to develop as a learning society in which higher education would make a distinctive contribution through teaching at its highest level, through the pursuit of scholarship and research and, increasingly, through its contribution to lifelong learning.

Clearly, we attach a great deal to “the university”. Having the title “university” carries significant reputational implications because of all that is meant by the word. As UUK and others have warned, it is essential that new providers can demonstrate that they can provide high-quality education. Any new higher education provider awarding their own degrees or calling themselves a university must meet the same high requirements as existing universities. The bar to entry must be high in order to protect students and the global reputation of the sector. We need robust criteria for new entrants that reflect the role of universities in teaching, research and scholarship, as well as wider civic and social roles. I believe the new clause will help to achieve that.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury]

My Lords, in supporting the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I cannot hope to match the eloquence of many of the contributions that we have already heard, especially those from the noble Lords, Lord Bilimoria and Lord Puttnam.

I shall focus on two brief points relating to the enrichment of the overall student experience that foreign students bring to our universities. First, we surely want, especially in our leading universities, to attract the very best students doing the very best work, challenging each other and their teachers in the most formidable way. If we put obstacles in the way of attracting those best students coming from overseas, we are going to be the poorer for it. Secondly, students learn not just from their teachers but from each other. They learn from discussion, debate, association, collaboration and taking part in all sorts of activities with their student colleagues. Having overseas students as part of that mix enormously enriches their experience, opens their eyes, widens their horizons and makes the experience of being at a university much more powerful than it would otherwise be. So not only do we as a country lose out in terms of our soft power and our influence, standing and reputation around the world if we make it difficult for overseas students to come, but we also diminish the possibilities and the experience for our own indigenous students by so doing.

I know the Minister for Higher Education knows all that; he is on our side in this. By passing this amendment or something like it in due course in our discussions in this place, we will strengthen his hand in the battles he faces with the Home Office and the rest of the Government. I suspect that we will be united across all parts of this House in seeking to do this, as we try to ensure that this country lifts its head just a little higher in its relationships with the rest of the world.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, many noble Lords have spoken very eloquently about this matter. I add my support to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and those that go with it. There is a simple pragmatic fact that we seem to have got wrong here: many of the brightest students are actually of huge immediate financial benefit to this country. In Cambridge we have raised vast sums of money from overseas. Very famous people overseas like to see students come to this country. We look ridiculous in this extraordinary situation, which has gone on for years.

To bring up an anecdote, I was vice-chancellor at Cambridge at the time of 9/11. After that event the Americans threw up barriers against students by placing immigration restrictions on them. The silver lining was ours; all of a sudden, the students we would normally have lost to some of the great American universities were all flooding to our door. It was a very fast process. The American universities reacted to it very fast and cured that problem—rather too quickly for us, in fact—but it was a good example of how rapidly you can create damage in this field. I hope the Government come to their senses on this issue.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, as somebody involved in the governance of Newcastle and Lancaster universities, I must say that in Lancaster we regard ourselves as extremely fortunate to have as pro chancellor my noble friend Lord Liddle. I was present at the meeting on Saturday when he made a terrific contribution and people listened with real sincerity to what he said.

There is a lot of importance in the point that the noble Lord just made about the north of England. If there is to be a regeneration in the north of England, the universities will be crucial to this. It is therefore essential that we ensure that we stop talking about regeneration in general terms and start doing concrete, specific, identifiable things to support that regeneration. This area is one that will obviously be crucial.

What attracted me to this particular amendment is that, as someone who is both a Scot and an Englishman—my mother and my brother were both at Scottish universities—I am very conscious of the high-powered and distinguished contribution that has been made by universities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It seems to me quite extraordinary that we should not as a matter of course say that that tradition and wealth of experience should be represented in the governing councils—as of right and as essential. That is very important.

If what I have been saying about regeneration in England is true, we are also these days discussing the need and importance of a greater sense of cohesive community in the devolved parts of the United Kingdom. We need to show that we are serious about this where it matters. The amendments help in that respect. It is very difficult to look at the Scottish universities, for example, and not see the whole story of the British industrial revolutions of the future. They have made profoundly important contributions, and continue to do so.

I do not know intimately, or so well, the story in Wales or Northern Ireland, except that I know that it is powerful. There is an area that is not central to our immediate considerations, but perhaps it should be. One of the things that I have always been struck by in Wales is that Aberystwyth was the first university in the United Kingdom to make the study of international relations and international affairs a recognised, serious degree and postgraduate subject. That has been terrifically important in our history.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for introducing the amendment, and I hope that the Minister will take it very seriously.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 502. Indeed, until I saw it I had been minded to submit a similar amendment myself. My desire is to ensure that Innovate UK receives appropriate funding and the amendment happens to fit that rather well.

I believe that while the distribution of money across the research councils should to a significant extent be determined by UKRI, the allocation to Innovate UK which, I remind noble Lords, is to benefit persons carrying on business in the United Kingdom and improving quality of life in the United Kingdom, as laid out in the Bill, should be determined by the Secretary of State, and then not interfered with. It is important to emphasise that this allocation cannot be altered by UKRI without the specific approval of Parliament, by means of a resolution of each House. The criteria used by Innovate UK to determine which projects to fund are of a completely different nature from those used by the research councils. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, mentioned this, and I shall mention it with other amendments; they are different from those used by the research councils to determine excellence in research in science, the arts and the humanities. While it is important that UKRI ensures that there are strong links between the research councils and Innovate UK, the allocation to Innovate UK should not be balanced against that to the research councils. It should be determined as a separate matter of national concern in consultation with industry and others by the Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I also support Amendments 479A, 480 and 481A to 481D. I remind the House of my already declared interest as a so-called lay member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

The case for a non-executive chairman has been made extremely cogently by both the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and my noble friend Lord Selborne, and I hardly need repeat what they have said. Certainly, anyone who has read the corporate code knows that the case for non-executive chairmen is spelled out extremely clearly and cogently and that the notion of having an executive chairman is roundly condemned. The first works much better than the second and avoids conflicts of interest. The two functions are different and should be carried out by different people. Innovate UK will be much stronger in its performance if it is chaired by someone who has a science-related background but is also in the business community. It is crucial that we should make that link.

As to membership, having had personal experience of council membership—I am not the only person in the Chamber so to have done—the EPSRC has one of the bigger budgets and one of the bigger boards. I talked to the chief executive, who told me that there is a limit of 18. He said it operates customarily on about 15 or 16. I do not think the boards need to be quite as large if we have UKRI also on the scene. However, we should be practical about this. All of the members of the board of the council have full-time careers and are doing a full-time job—this is something extra that they do—and some are very pressed indeed. The noble Lord, Lord Darzi, is a good example of someone who does multifarious things. The thought that the board can operate with the subcommittees that it has, with the travel it engages in and the consultations that it has with the universities, and that it can do so without having both numbers and variety of people on the board—businessmen as well as people like myself and academics—is fanciful. It will weaken the total structure if one does not allow the councils to fulfil the remit that UKRI is meant to create and enable them to do.

It is important that the Government do not limit the size of the council to that which would make it difficult for it to be effective. I am not going to suggest a limit—if you want to put in a minimum, put it in—but, on the whole, the figure for the councils, certainly for the larger ones, should be in double figures.

[Lord Broers]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 479A and 481A. I understand the concern about the appointment of non-executive chairs because that would introduce an additional level of management, which is clearly undesirable. I feel that the disadvantages of not having a non-executive chair are quite serious, and they have been put extremely well by my noble friends Lady Brown and Lord Mair and by the noble Lord, Lord Willis.

However, one case has not been mentioned. A non-executive chair becomes absolutely critical when the members of a board feel that the CEO is not performing adequately. In that instance, under the current arrangement, presumably it will have to be the UKRI CEO, who would not have watched that person performing as the members of his or her council would have done. Although the UKRI CEO could consult with the members, the UKRI CEO will not be nearly as familiar with the situation as they are. That is, as I say, quite serious.

A possible solution, but perhaps not a satisfactory one, would be to appoint a senior council member in a somewhat similar way to the senior non-executive directors who have become fashionable on corporate boards. That senior member could act as an adviser to the CEO and perhaps chair meetings where there were concerns that the CEO had a serious conflict of interest.

[Lord Sharkey]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendments 480 and 481 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Willis. The Bill proposes what is really quite a radical reduction in the size of the existing research councils, which are to have between six and 10 members. The existing councils have between 10 and 17 members, with an average of 15, of whom four or five are lay members. It would be good to hear from the Minister an explanation of the rationale for this reduction in the size of the research councils. In particular, could he point to evidence that their current size has led to inefficiencies or undesirable outcomes? If that is not possible, can he say what the evidence base is for suggesting how a reduction in the membership would actually improve their performance?

I note here in passing that the membership of UKRI itself is proposed to be at least 12 and at most 15. Why is it desirable that the membership of the research councils should be smaller than that of UKRI itself? I am not arguing that it is not, but I would just like to hear the reason the Government think it is.

Of course, it is not just the numbers that matter but the experience and the mix of the members. The practice of having lay members is an important part of our current councils. As I say, each of them has four or five lay members, except for the STFC which has three or four, depending on whether you count people as lay or not. We know from experience in other fields, especially financial services, how important it is to avoid groupthink and to have outsiders challenge established or entrenched views. Can the Minister set out what approach UKRI will take to the appointment of lay members to the research councils? Is it the intention that the present balance should continue?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, I shall briefly speak to some of these amendments. I think the Government, perhaps through infelicitous drafting, are creating unnecessary anxieties, given the way that these clauses are currently formulated. I particularly welcome two of the amendments. First, Amendment 484AB tackles a rather peculiar feature of Clause 87, which may well be due to the way in which the parliamentary drafting developed. The phrase,

“research into science, technology, humanities and new ideas”,

is not the way in which the science and research community would list its activities. It is regrettable that social science is not specially identified in that list. We are all familiar with the term “arts and humanities”. Many of us are lay people, but we nevertheless understand the distinction between life sciences and physical sciences. This is a rather peculiar way of formulating it. I suspect a parliamentary draftsman said, “Well, social sciences are a science, so they must be covered by ‘science’. We don’t need to say ‘social sciences’ as well”. I suspect that that is the conversation that happened. We have ended up with something that, for people in this community, looks a rather peculiar list. It would be better if it were closer to the way in which we think of the range of research activities carried out in the UK.

Secondly, Clause 89(4) currently lists,

“contributing to economic growth … and … improving quality of life”.

Again, that seems to promote unnecessary anxieties. It has not been my experience that any science Minister from any political party represented in this Chamber believes that there is no value in pure research. I do not think that people sit around saying, “All we’re interested in is the immediate consequences for economic growth”. There is a great story about Margaret Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister, receiving a brief advising her not to invest in the large hadron collider because it does not have any useful economic effect. She scribbled on the brief, “But it’s very interesting, isn’t it?”, and the public funding went ahead. That is the approach that I hope all of us take to science funding. I do not believe it will be any different under this new structure. However, it would tackle a concern if the Bill were explicit that, alongside the promotion of economic growth and the quality of life, we also believe in simply extending knowledge and research in this country.

There may be other areas. I listened with great interest to what the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, said, about what can also be improved on. These are unnecessarily narrow formulations that do not adequately capture what the Government intend with the new structure. As we have heard the Minister’s willingness to reflect, I hope that this is an area where he reflects with particular energy and concentration.

[Lord Broers]

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, said. I have my name on Amendment 495B, to which my noble friend Lady Brown of Cambridge has spoken so excellently. In trying to distinguish what Innovate UK and the research councils do, Clause 90 states:

“arrangements may not be made under this section for the exercise by Innovate UK of UKRI’s function mentioned in section 87(1)(a)”.

When you look at Section 87(1)(a), you will find it states:

“carry out research into science, technology, humanities and new ideas”.

Innovate UK spends 20% or 30% of its resource, I believe, on research that underpins the product programmes it is supporting, which is only appropriate. In Amendments 484A and 484B, which are in this group, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, suggests adding “basic, applied and strategic” before “research”, which really steps into Innovate UK’s territory. There is no specific amendment on this—I just point out to the Minister that there is concern about the wording. It is misleading if you take it just as it reads.

[Lord Sharkey]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly in support of Amendment 495, which was tabled by my noble friend Lord Willis and to which I have added my name. It amends Clause 89(4). Clause 89 defines the fields of activity for each of the research councils. It goes on, in subsection (4), to say:

“Arrangements under this section must require the Council concerned, when exercising any function to which the arrangements relate, to have regard to the desirability of … contributing to economic growth in the United Kingdom, and … improving quality of life (whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere)”.


The requirements are a little vague, and the obligation to “have regard to the desirability of” is very weak. But the intent seems to me to be clear, and the two desiderata seem to need a third to achieve any kind of balance. The priority for any research council should surely be to increase the UK’s science and knowledge base. Contributing to economic growth and improving the quality of life are good and desirable objectives, as are the others that we have discussed this afternoon, but they must be subordinate to the objective of improving the science and knowledge base. That must come first.

My noble friend’s amendment adds improving this base to the list of have-regards, so that it is explicitly clear that this is a desirable function of research councils. We need this additional requirement, or something very much like it, to avoid distorting the priorities of research councils and to make clear, in the Bill, what their primary purpose is.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I support this case as well. Innovate UK has been very successful and should not be constrained in any way. It may be useful to talk about three examples of where institutions, excellent in the purest of research and in applied research, do similar things. I will start with Cambridge. I declare my interest again as a past vice-chancellor and head of the Department of Engineering, and I remain chair of the International Visiting Committee for the department—a point about internationality came up recently.

Cambridge University established Cambridge Enterprise about 10 years ago to aid the transfer of knowledge from the university through commercialisation. Its mission is to achieve this through intellectual property management and licensing, investment in university spin-outs, and consultancy management and advice. It has been a big success. Similarly, the Royal Society—I declare my interest as a fellow—launched the Royal Society Enterprise Fund in 2008, with the objective for it to become a financially successful contributor to early-stage company support and a role model for the translation of excellent science for commercial and social benefit. Again, the Royal Academy of Engineering—I declare my interest as a member and past president—recently established its Enterprise Hub, through which it offers a number of grants aimed at identifying and supporting the next generation of high- potential entrepreneurs and prizes celebrating success in innovation and entrepreneurship. Innovate UK should also, as the amendment says,

“participate in forming or invest in a commercial arrangement including a company”.

One of the reasons that some of us are worried about bringing Innovate UK under UKRI is that it is so different from the research councils, and we do not want to harm the research councils or Innovate UK. This is therefore a plea to give Innovate UK its true freedom, which it enjoys at the moment.

[Lord Mair (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 482C, 490A, 495C and 495D, to which I have added my name, and support what has been said by my noble friends Lady Brown of Cambridge and Lord Broers.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred earlier to the industrial strategy. This is highly relevant to the Bill and to Innovate UK. The industrial strategy has 10 pillars. The first is:

“Investing in science, research and innovation”.


The Green Paper clearly acknowledges the serious problem we have in the UK with commercialising our outstanding science. It states that,

“historically, we have not been as successful at commercialisation and development as we have been at basic research … We have already taken action to address the UK’s … relative weakness in commercialisation, through the establishment of new, more industrially focused institutions such as Innovate UK”.

This group of amendments addresses the freedom of Innovate UK within UKRI to operate successfully and with full autonomy—otherwise there is a danger that it will not be as effective as it should be. I fully support the point made by my noble friend Lady Brown of Cambridge. Paragraph 16(1) of Schedule 9 states:

“UKRI may do anything which appears to it to be necessary or expedient for the purpose of, or in connection with, the exercise of its functions”.


However, paragraph 16(3) states that UKRI may not,

“form, participate in forming or invest in a company, partnership or other similar form of organisation”,

except,

“with the consent of the Secretary of State”.

That seems unnecessarily restrictive on Innovate UK. It should not have to obtain the consent of the Secretary of State whenever it wishes to make an investment in a company, partnership or similar organisation. A very similar point was made earlier by my noble friend Lord Oxburgh in relation to forming joint ventures. Innovate UK should have the freedom and flexibility to invest as necessary to promote research and innovation to the greatest economic benefit of the UK—although, clearly, financial limits should be set periodically by the Secretary of State. That is the purpose of our Amendment 482C.

The world is changing very rapidly and it is therefore vital for the economy to have a high level of UK R&D investment in science and engineering. The UK must continue to be world leading in innovation. We cannot afford to slip behind, and UKRI must be made to work really effectively. Innovate UK, with its strong business-facing focus, along with the science and engineering community, must therefore be allowed to continue to play a key role in promoting research and innovation. Innovation is an inherently risky process with an uncertain outcome. To be really effective, Innovate UK must be allowed to promote high-risk and disruptive innovation.

This House’s Committee on Science and Technology, chaired by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and of which I am a member, heard in evidence that many businesses have concerns about the status of Innovate UK in the proposed UKRI, especially in relation to risk and the backing of new companies. Innovate UK must be allowed to invest in commercial arrangements, including companies or partnerships, if it is to be fully effective in promoting innovation and commercialising research—and this should be in the Bill.

Innovate UK operates in a quite different way from a research council, so I urge the Minister to reflect on and give careful consideration to this matter, and to ensure that the proposed structure of UKRI is not unnecessarily restrictive on the crucial activities of Innovate UK.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

I will speak on behalf not only of the universities but of our industry. The amendment is extremely important to capture research students where we need them. I cite the nuclear industry: Dame Sue Ion, who chaired the Nuclear Innovation and Research Advisory Board, recently pointed out that over 20% of PhD students working in that industry, which is moving forward very fast, were from overseas. There is a much higher percentage of the post-doctoral research fellows, who are PhD students in the next stage of life. That is not covered by the amendment but we must address it. The Americans do this all the time. You get very bright overseas students to do PhDs, then you make it easy for them to stay on. They are the life-blood of high-technology industry. If we do not resolve this problem—and the best starting point is this amendment—our industry is going to be in trouble, not just our university research.

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

I strongly support Amendment 150, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others. The noble Lord rightly posed the question, “Why should we bother?”. As a former associate vice-president of the University of Manchester and now an honorary special adviser to that university, I am well aware of the huge benefit of international students to it and to the city of Manchester and of why they should not be treated as long-term economic migrants to the UK. As we have heard, there are currently 437,000 international students studying in the United Kingdom, including 125,000 from the EU. There are currently nearly 11,000 international students studying at the University of Manchester and a further 2,500 EU students. As we have heard, the Government’s international education strategy, published in 2013, estimated that international students brought £13.6 billion into the economy in 2011. For Manchester, direct income from international students—for fees alone—will be £200 million in 2016-17. Furthermore, Universities UK estimates that international students lead to the creation of over 170,000 jobs across the United Kingdom. Independent analysis undertaken by Viewforth Consulting found that the University of Manchester’s international students created over 1,100 jobs in the local Manchester economy.

International students allow UK students to appreciate diversity and develop a global perspective. They also act as great ambassadors for Manchester and the United Kingdom when they return to their home countries. Manchester has contact with over 400,000 alumni, of whom 25% are based outside the UK, including many in leading positions in business, government and universities. I have been proud to visit Manchester alumni in Hong Kong, China, South Korea and many other parts of the world. A recent poll before the last general election indicated that 91% of the British public think that international students should be able to stay and work for a period after their graduation. We should do nothing to further undermine the attractiveness of British universities for such international students. As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others, the arguments are unanswerable. Please will the Government at last recognise the value of such students to Britain and accept Amendment 150?

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Broers Excerpts

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, echo the thanks of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, to the Minister, the Bill team and the honourable Member for Orpington for the fruitful discussions and for listening to the points we raised at earlier stages of the Bill. I strongly support the government amendments in this group. There are two amendments with my name on them, which have already been discussed: on the establishment of an executive committee of the executive chairs of the research councils. I should declare that I am a former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, so I have first-hand experience of this issue.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, both mentioned the importance of Amendment 181, which sets out that one of the research councils’ objectives is the advancement of knowledge. In fact, I would go further and say that the core objective of research is to advance knowledge. The fruits of that may be to improve the economy or quality of life but, as I said at Second Reading, one can never predict where those fruits will grow. I quoted the words of Nobel Prize winner Andre Geim, saying how important the advancement of knowledge for knowledge’s sake was in helping to promote the well-being of society and of the economy.

Amendment 164A concerns a senior independent member. I would have preferred to have a non-executive chair because I know from my own experience as the chief executive of a research council that it is quite hard to fill the roles of both the chair of the board and the proposer of initiatives to the board, but I understand that for various reasons the Government are not willing to go down that road. The role of the senior independent member who can be a mentor to the executive chair, and in difficult circumstances perhaps chair the board if it wishes to take the executive chair to task, is an important addition.

Also from my own experience, I strongly support the notion of lay members on the council as set out in Amendment 165A. There were occasions when I was the chief executive of the NERC when disputes between the warring factions of the academics—the earth scientists, the oceanographers, the ecologists and the atmospheric scientists—became so severe that I had to call upon the lay members to act as brokers in order to resolve them. I can hear the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, laughing at that remark, so obviously he has seen that kind of phenomenon before. The lay members of the research councils will have a key role to play and we should certainly support their inclusion among the 12 board members.

That is all I want to say at this stage, other than to repeat my thanks to the Minister and to noble Lords on these and other Benches with whom I have worked in trying to improve the Bill; I think we have significantly improved this part of it.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I compliment the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, and the noble Lord, Lord Prior, on their willingness to talk about these issues and on the changes that have been brought about in the Bill. In the end, it has been a very positive experience. I too would like to support Amendments 164A and 166A, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Prior, as they resonate with the opinion that I expressed on Report. Those points have reached a satisfactory conclusion.

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, in Committee certain clear governance gaps were identified which the Government have addressed in some measure, and we thank them for their positive response. Indeed, we have signed the government amendments and we are pleased that such a positive response has been forthcoming. We would like again to associate ourselves with Amendment 165A tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, which addresses the important point about the valuable contribution which can be made by lay members.

Amendments 164A and 166A tabled in my name propose that each council should comprise a senior independent member alongside an executive chair and the other council members. This would ensure an element of independence and balance in the governance of the council, complementing the role of ministerial appointees. We believe that there is still a weakness in the governance of the research councils with the establishment of executive chairs and the UKRI governance structure. We also feel that without a proper governance role, the membership of research council boards will be denuded of talent if they believe that they are not part of an effective operating board. In Committee we discussed whether appointing chairs to research councils might address this weakness, and Amendments 164A and 166A, as the noble Lord, Lord Broers, has just pointed out, mark an evolution in the debate.

We believe that this is a sympathetic and effective change which is consistent with the Government’s objectives and is likely to benefit the governance of research councils. The senior independent member is modelled on the practice in public companies of having a senior independent director. The title in this case is “member” specifically to ensure that the role is not confused with the duties of a director, which would raise structural issues that are not appropriate to the Bill. In the private sector, appreciation of the important role played by the senior independent director has grown in recent years. It was introduced in 2003 at the time of the Higgs review of the combined code, and the idea was that the senior independent director should be available to shareholders if they had reasons for concern that contact through the normal channels of the chairman and the chief executive had failed to resolve. Over time that remit has changed and the senior independent director is seen as a versatile intermediary who is in part ambassador, conciliator, counsellor, senior prefect and kingmaker. Most importantly, it establishes an address that stakeholders are able to go to and takes away the sometimes divisive politics of trying to find an appropriate address.

It is in this area that the role would be most useful in the context of UKRI. The senior independent member would ensure that there is a recognised channel to use from the level of the board of the research council to the board of UKRI to make sure that matters can be solved and conflicts and issues resolved. It is about not establishing new lines of management but creating a governance structure which is flexible enough to resolve issues as they arise. We have not set out a detailed role or job description, and certainly the latter is not appropriate for legislation, but there is flexible scope to ensure that such an individual can play a useful role in many different circumstances, from deputising in situations to leading aspects of succession processes to reviews of board effectiveness and other such matters. I hope that the Minister will see this amendment as a useful and flexible suggestion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Oxburgh (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 173A. On the face of it, it appears that the provision, under “Supplementary powers”, in paragraph 16(3)(b) of Schedule 9 prevents the research councils from doing a number of things that are important to their fundamental function. Clearly, they should be able to continue to do them. I hope the Minister will be able either to explain to us that this amendment is unnecessary because of provisions elsewhere in the Bill that I have not spotted or to accept that this is something that needs to be changed.

[Lord Broers]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 173A. Although the wording of the amendment does not say it, this applies especially to Innovate UK. In its functions, Innovate UK very often has to collaborate and work with industry, so it would seem unnecessary to forbid it from setting up joint ventures.