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.

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[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?

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[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.