Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Roger Mullin]

Apologies again; I am quite happy about apologising to the House.

The hon. Member for Gloucester pointed out several of the challenges that he felt we faced, but I want to suggest several things that could be done, given that he berated us for not coming up with ideas. If he gives me a few moments, I shall suggest a number of points that I would like the Government to address.

I am especially interested in how some of the Government’s decisions on this front do them no good, because this is about not just funding, but strategic choice. When faced with an opportunity to be a world leader in the development of carbon capture, it is just insane to pull the rug on that if the Government are trying to say that we want to ensure that we are at the forefront of such development. Several Members may have received emails from one of my constituents—he emails many people, and he recently wrote to the Prime Minister—about smart meter technology. When I spoke to him, he echoed what others have said about our technological choices, including on smart meters. He wondered why we were not investing in the most up-to-date technologies to ensure that they are the very best to meet the country’s needs, rather than going for what seems to be good enough at the moment.

Recent work, most notably by Dr Stephen Watson of Glasgow University, has pointed out the huge importance of infrastructure spend to the Government’s investment in science, and research and development. Our universities in Scotland punch well above their weight in attracting funds from the research councils, but we do poorly compared with elsewhere in the UK, especially the golden triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London, in attracting UK Government infrastructure spend on research and development, which is fundamental to the future of a healthy research and development community. We need to map out such investment much more, both thematically and territorially, although that has never been done by any Government.

Let me give hon. Members an example of the problem, although I will speak about something that the Government are doing that is good, not bad. I applaud the way in which they have invested large sums to create the Francis Crick Institute, the biomedical research centre in the heart of London that is a consortium of three London universities—Imperial College, University College and King’s College. It is funded by the Medical Research Council and bodies such as the Wellcome Trust. Its initial investment was £650 million and the operating budget is £130 million a year. On one level, this is to be applauded, but is it not strange that Dundee University, in the city of my hon. Friends the Members for Dundee East and for Dundee West (Chris Law), is the world leader in biomedical research, yet is not part of the Crick Institute? Indeed, no one in the north of England is part of the institute. My first suggestion to the Government is that when they consider infrastructure spend for research and development, they would do well to think about the distribution of such investment throughout the whole UK.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman says, but would it make sense and would it produce as much bang for the Government’s buck, if that is not an unparliamentary phrase? Would it not be better to have geographical centres of excellence specialising in various things, rather than dotting institutions around the UK to meet some sort of regional agenda?

[Roger Mullin]

One alternative would be to base the centre in Dundee. That would solve the hon. Gentleman’s problem.

In addition to university research, there is business research. The need to encourage business investment has been mentioned, particularly in manufacturing, where we have fallen behind. I mentioned earlier the UK spend on research and development at 1.7% of GDP. We all know our manufacturing sector faces some real challenges. North Korea’s manufacturing sector is doing pretty well by comparison with many countries in the world. Its GDP spend is 4%. [Hon. Members: “North Korea?”] Sorry, South Korea.