Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Report stage
Tuesday 14th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

I speak principally to support Amendment 17 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Morse, to which I added my name, but having heard the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, twice—in Committee and today—on Amendments 15, 16 and 18, I am persuaded by her simple, accessible and convincing explanation that changing the Bill in this way would be to its benefit. Hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Morse, that the amendments reflect current practice, I am even more convinced, so I have corroboration and I support them.

I have had the benefit of having had the noble Lord, Lord Morse, explain his amendment to me on a number of occasions. If I was going to be partisan about this, I could think of a lot of contemporary examples of behaviour which the existing ACOBA system has manifestly failed to deal with. Apart from anything else, recent history has damaged significantly the reputation of politics and politicians as a group, and it has bled into civil servants because of the apparent practice of senior civil servants taking positions in private industry while continuing to work in the Civil Service. I have no intention of going through all of them. I am just convinced by the argument made by the noble Lord, whom I have known for a long period, that if we do not recognise that this could become a problem, and if it does become a problem, it will seriously damage ARIA and we should protect it—at the very least by including these provisions in the Bill and indicating that Parliament decided that people who have had those experiences should not move to other positions where it looks as though they are exploiting the information that they had for their own personal gain, and therefore operating in a way that most people in the country would think unethical. If in these circumstances we do not have a narrative that says, “We in Parliament are concerned that this may happen and took the steps that we could to prevent it from happening”, we will be complicit in the damage that will inevitably be done not only to ARIA but, yet again, to those who work in the public service as officials, civil servants, Ministers or just politicians.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I recognise the expertise of noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, on issues of corporate governance and, like my noble friend Lord Browne, I have enjoyed listening to her in Committee and again today. I will be interested to hear what assurances the Minister is able to give as a consequence of her amendments. I have learned a lot from her through this process and I look forward to learning more in the future.

I welcome Amendment 17 from the noble Lord, Lord Morse, whose case is no doubt bolstered by his experience over many years. It is a real joy to me that we have come to this House at more or less the same time. This is our first Bill together, and I am very pleased to add my name to his amendment.

There have long been concerns about “revolving doors” in politics—it is not something that started with this Government—but my noble friend Lord Browne was correct to observe that concern about issues such as those dealt with by Amendment 17 is growing, and frankly the Government have brought it on themselves. There is deep concern in the public mind about these issues and we shall see on Thursday what the people of North Shropshire make of it all.

I am struck by the fact that the Minister has taken the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Morse—a very good amendment which we support—and has directed us to look at paragraph 11 of Schedule 1, which states:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the procedures to be adopted for dealing with conflicts of interest.”


They may, but “may” is doing a lot of lifting there, and obviously they may not as well, so there is nothing to give us any assurance that the danger of which the noble Lord, Lord Morse, is correct to warn us could be averted by that provision. We are just not buying it. Although the Minister has, for illustrative purposes, provided a suggestion of how the regulations might look, that does not provide us any assurance whatever.

Given the Minister’s reluctance to accept any of the suggestions that we have made—none of the suggestions, from FoI to reporting, have been taken up by the Government—he is somewhat leaving ARIA exposed, in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Morse, explained so well. We want this organisation to succeed, but because of the Government’s rigidity on these issues, the fear is that we are setting it up with a weakness: this lack of transparency and ability to challenge.

The Minister is kidding himself if he thinks that these issues will not be scrutinised and that some of the problems that may emerge will not somehow get out. I am sure that the Public Accounts Committee will enjoy crawling all over this when it gets the opportunity to do so. We want this to work, but I am afraid that the Government’s approach is not doing ARIA any favours.

I want to hear what the Minister has to say and whether something can be done to provide us with the assurance we are looking for that ARIA will not be characterised—or mischaracterised, I hope—as some sort of secret agency. That would only cause this fascination and determination to probe into its activities to grow.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Committee stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

It was slightly surprising to get this agreement so late in the day. Although I have seen that it exists, I cannot pretend that I have properly digested it or discussed it with colleagues in, for example, the Welsh Assembly. I would have been very keen to do that. It is very clear that a legislative consent Motion was not going to be forthcoming as things stood and that if the Government wanted ARIA to embark with support from the devolved Administrations they had to do something. There is now this agreement.

I would accept the Minister’s assurance, but can he clearly confirm that this agreement is not just his but has been reached with the devolved Administrations and that they are all fully signed up to it, before we allow this to go through? My life will not be worth living if I go back to my office and find that we have agreed to something that has not secured the full support of—to pick one at random—the Welsh Assembly. I would really appreciate it if the Minister could confirm that. Can he also speak to this issue of Barnett consequentials, which I had not considered would be part of the debate? How do the Government think this would or would not have any consequentials for funding for the devolved Administrations?

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to be genuinely helpful to the Minister. It appears that I am the most privileged Member of this Committee; everyone’s correspondence seems to be copied to me, although I am not sure if in this case it was a privilege, as I got it exactly one hour and five minutes before the Committee was due to sit. It has a draft agreement of 19 clauses, one of which refers to other agreements—too many for me to count in the small print I have on my phone—so I have not given it any serious consideration.

I think it was copied to me because I raised a question in an intervention to seek assurance that all aspects of this legislation that engaged with devolution issues had been agreed with the devolved Administrations. It turns out that there were at least aspects still under discussion. I understand that that can happen. I suggest that, because of the complexity of this, the Government arrange a meeting, between now and the next time most of us meet again at the next stage of this Bill, with interested parties to explain the situation with devolution. If the Government agree that there are Barnett consequentials—even if they do not, but can be persuaded that, in not agreeing, they are wrong—they can then say how they will deal with that significant complexity.

We must thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for raising in some detail last time we met where we stand on all these issues. None of us was comfortable with any of this and none of us was as sited as the Government were of everything that is going on. At the very least, there should be the offer of some engagement with Members of this Committee who are interested in these issues and would raise them in some context on Report. This should happen in sufficient time before Report for it to be meaningful, so that some of these matters, which may lend themselves to simple enough explanations, can be put to bed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Committees go in cycles: they can get very serious, but we are now getting towards the end, where consideration can descend into banter, if we are not careful. That is not something that I thought I would experience at this end of the building, but it is quite welcome.

I understand exactly where the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Clement-Jones, are coming from with this, taking into account what the noble Baroness said. The framework document has been referred to so many times during our consideration; it has done a lot of heavy lifting, yet we have not been able to see a draft of it. That is something that I regret, because it would have been useful to know about it. We got lots of assurances about what it will and will not do, but we have not seen a draft that will enable us to test that or tease it out. That is a shame, and I think that is what is behind the amendment.

It is not great when the Government do this and ask a Committee to take these things on trust, or to take the intention. It is not how it is best for us to work. We take these things and our role in this process seriously, and we want to know how ARIA will operate in relation to the departments and bodies outlined in the amendment.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

I remind the Minister that, not so long ago, he secured Amendments 37 and 40 on the basis of the sight, by a limited number of us, of a draft agreement. It is not unreasonable to ask him to at least consider reciprocating.