Life Sciences Industrial Strategy (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Patel]

That this House takes note of the Report from the Science and Technology Committee Life Sciences Industrial Strategy: Who’s driving the bus? (1st Report, HL Paper 115).

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege and a pleasure to open this debate on the Science and Technology Committee report, Life Sciences Industrial Strategy: Who’s Driving the Bus? The strapline is not intended to cause offence and I will explain its origins later. I begin with a sincere thank you to all who helped with the report: our specialist adviser, Professor Graeme Reid, professor of science and research policy at University College London; our clerk, Anna Murphy; our policy analyst, Dr Daniel Rathbone; and the committee assistant, Cerise Burnett-Stuart. I also thank all the hard-working committee Members who constantly attended the meetings and contributed. I thank the Francis Crick Institute, particularly Sir Paul Nurse, for arranging a visit to the institute and allowing us to use the place for evidence sessions. I thank the 127 people who sent in written evidence, amounting to hundreds of pages, and the 66 who gave oral evidence. I thank the Minister of State for BEIS, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, and the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, from the Department of Health, for giving oral evidence. We were disappointed that neither the Secretary of State for BEIS nor the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was available to give evidence, particularly as their role in driving the delivery of the strategy will be crucial, and because we do not get opportunities in the Lords to hear from Secretaries of State—certainly not in the Chamber.

Our report is a distillation of the views and evidence that we received—a genuine attempt to help inform the delivery of the life sciences industrial strategy and to make it a success. The UK’s life sciences sector is high-tech, research-intensive, scientifically diverse and innovative. It is a global leader. It contributes more than £30 billion per year to the economy and employs more than 480,000 people. It is because of this that this and previous Governments have recognised its importance. In January 2017, as part of the industrial strategy, the Government announced that they had asked Sir John Bell to produce a report on a strategy for life sciences. With this as a background, we launched our inquiry in July 2017. Sir John Bell published his report for the Government in August 2017; it was widely welcomed, including by us. It is comprehensive and thorough, with a long-term vision. It identifies the strengths and weaknesses in the system if the strategy is to be successful.

The Government published their sector deal in December 2017. Our report was published in April 2018 and the Government responded in a timely fashion in June 2018. The Government response, almost 28 pages long, is comprehensive and detailed, but it is not much of an approval of our recommendations. In fact, much of it showed disapproval—there was not much that they liked. I am pleased, however, that since then some of our messages and recommendations have been, or are being, progressed; perhaps the Government were simply shy at the time of responding to our report. I have no doubt that the Minister will have more to say—maybe he will accept some of our recommendations.

Our report covered five main areas: the challenges of implementing the strategy; the role of the NHS; the availability of finance for innovative companies, particularly those commercialising innovations; access to a skilled, trained workforce; and, lastly, scientific excellence. I will now briefly cover some of the issues that came up in these areas, and I have no doubt that others will pick up the details later.

Lack of a clear plan for implementing the strategy was a theme that came across over and over again. Evidence also highlighted the need for independent monitoring and scrutiny of the strategy. Without a clear implementation plan, it is difficult to see how the strategy can succeed. In the light of this evidence, we made several recommendations, including the establishment of a statutory body—the office for industrial strategy—to scrutinise, monitor and report regularly on how well the strategy is being implemented.

The Government did not think that this was a good idea and did not accept the recommendation. However, in their response they said that the life sciences industrial strategy board will,

“review the detailed … plan … with milestones, key metrics”,

clear lines of accountability and,

“a report on progress”.

As yet, there is no such implementation plan. Perhaps the Minister can answer my questions. When will this plan be published? How often will the board report? Will the report be published and will Parliament have an opportunity to discuss it?

While the Government did not find favour with our recommendation, I am pleased to note that they have appointed Mr Andy Haldane, chief economist at the Bank of England, to chair the Industrial Strategy Council, which will provide independent scrutiny and monitor performance. Will the Minister say how often it will report? Will these reports be published and in the public domain?

I am pleased too that there will be a representative from the Treasury on the board, which was one of the recommendations that we made.

Let me now briefly turn to the NHS and its role in the delivery of the life sciences industrial strategy. Much was said about the vital role the NHS will have to play if the strategy is to be successful, but many commented that it is currently unable to do this and questioned its ability to deliver. It is in this context that, when asked, Sir John Bell said:

“Whoever is driving the bus, the windscreen wipers do not work and the exhaust is falling off”.


That is why we included the strapline in the title: who is driving the bus?

In his evidence, the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, said that,

“the NHS part is critical”,

to the strategy. One often-repeated comment was that the NHS is poor at adopting innovation and poor at being innovative. Acknowledging that, the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, said that,

“one of the concerns is not that innovations cannot get a foothold but that they do not often get beyond that”.

I recognise that much progress has been made since our report, and in line with our proposals. Planning is going on, and the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, is personally leading on that. That is good news. The NHS and Simon Stevens will now be represented on the implementation board, together with other senior managers. That is also something that we asked for and that we welcome. The government response says that a review is under way to simplify the innovation landscape under the NHS. My question to the Minister is: when will the outcome of the review be published, and will it be in the public domain? I understand that, as a BEIS Minister, he may not be able to answer that, but I hope that the question will be answered by the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, in a written reply and be put in the Library.

Importantly, much was said about the NHS as the sole provider of healthcare in the UK. It has a huge amount of health-related data—data that is relevant for research and innovation. We as a country lead globally on that. However, while it is true that the NHS is data rich, much of the data is not collected in a standardised way, nor is it easy to access. That is a problem, but not a problem that cannot be solved. It can be solved by cleaning up the data. That will make the data enormously important for both research and innovation in the future. In their response, the Government made it clear that they have an important role in supporting the NHS to lay the foundations for maintaining a secure and trusted data environment that will support a flourishing data-driven health economy in the life sciences. The recent development of six or seven digital hubs based at the Wellcome Trust is welcome.

In the light of all that, the recent development whereby individual trusts are signing data-sharing arrangements with the private sector, with varying levels and terms of data access, has to be a concern. Individual trusts are making individual contracts which include terms of data exclusivity. I have experience of this and know that the same data can be used by several researchers for different reasons. If there is data exclusivity, other researchers will not be able to access it. My own feeling is that such a development has to be stopped now. It must be stopped until we are able to work out, after debate, who is the owner of NHS data, and who is the guardian of that data and decides who can use it. There is no suggestion that industry will not be able to use it, but the ownership is important. I hope the Minister will comment on that.

The recent Department of Health publication, The Future of Healthcare: Our Vision for Digital Data and Technology in Health and Care, is welcome. It is an extensive, well-rehearsed document. The NHS has a vital role to play in terms of data if we are going to develop the use of artificial intelligence for new drugs and diagnostics, in particular in the diagnosis of cancer. However, there is an important issue around who owns the data. By the way, we have in this House the chairman-designate of NHS England and the chairman of NHS Improvement, along with several board members of both of those institutions. It is a pity that we cannot hear what their views might be. However, I understand that they have difficult jobs to do and that they are busy people.

Let me touch briefly on the issue of a skilled and well-trained workforce. The UK’s strength in biomedical science has made us a destination of first choice for scientists at all grades and from all parts of the world. I could give the numbers, but rather than bore noble Lords with those, let me just say that, for instance, in the past some 50% of postdocs at the Wellcome Sanger Institute came from the EU. However, the percentage has now begun to decline. It is important that we maintain our ability to attract scientists from abroad for our strong science base. We heard how important it is to the science sector that it should be able to access talented and skilled people from around the world. It is good that the Government have acknowledged that in their response to our report. Whatever the outcome of Brexit, it is vital that universities, businesses and the NHS can recruit people with the necessary talent and skills both from within the EU and outside it. Without the ability to do this, the life sciences sector will suffer and the strategy will not succeed.

Given that, I am very concerned that the Migration Advisory Committee has recommended that after Brexit, the Government should extend the existing migration visa system for non-EEA nationals to EEA nationals. Sir Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute, told us that the system is,

“expensive, tedious and it puts people off”.

We were also told that without a simple system for talented individuals to come to the UK, we will lose out to other countries and make it easier for people to move to them. Today’s report of a letter signed by 29 Nobel Prize winners from the UK and the EU to the Prime Minister and the President of the EU Commission suggests exactly that—that the EU-UK relationship in science must be maintained. The key reason is that in science, Europe is currently the only credible challenger to developments being made, particularly in biomedical science, in the USA and China. Europe alone or the UK alone may not be as strong. I hope that the Government will not agree with the report of the Migration Advisory Committee.

In the time I have to speak, I have not been able to cover the issues related to the need for finance, in particular for the development of innovations on to commercialisation. We have made some important recommendations and I know that in their response, the Government are in favour of some of them. However, it will be the Treasury that ultimately decides, particularly on the proposal for whether pension funds could be used for risk investment. I hope that other contributors to the debate will pick up on that point. Equally, I have not been able to cover the need for science excellence, which is an important issue, and I hope that some colleagues will deal with it.

Some of my questions clearly relate to the Department of Health and therefore a different Minister. I hope that I can receive a written response if the noble Lord, Lord Henley, is not able to answer all my points. In conclusion, I thank all those who have put their names down to speak in the debate and I look forward to hearing their contributions. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, the time is late and this has been a long, but very useful, debate. I thank all noble Lords who have so enthusiastically taken part. There have been some excellent speeches. Debate on any report of a House of Lords committee should not be confined only to members of the committee. The rest of the Members the House should be able to take part, and the speeches we have heard show that other Members have been able to take part.

I do not want to be ungenerous to the Minister. I well understand that, in a long debate with lots of questions, he did not have time to absorb them and produce a response that we might find satisfactory. I am glad that he has committed himself and the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, to take on board all the comments that were made and all the questions that were raised, and we look forward to a full response.

As we all want to support this strategy to be a success, we will no doubt come back to this. It may even be that the Science and Technology Committee may look at this again in a year’s time to see how the strategy is progressing. I thank all noble Lords.

Motion agreed.