Moved by Baroness Brown of Cambridge That the Grand Committee takes
note of the Report from the Science and Technology Committee
“Science and technology superpower”: more than a slogan? (1st
Report, HL Paper 47). Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB) My Lords, I
am delighted to introduce for debate this Science and Technology
Committee report on the UK as a science and technology superpower.
Before I start, I declare my interests as a non-executive director
of two...Request free trial
Moved by
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the
Science and Technology Committee “Science and technology
superpower”: more than a slogan? (1st Report, HL Paper 47).
(CB)
My Lords, I am delighted to introduce for debate this Science and
Technology Committee report on the UK as a science and technology
superpower. Before I start, I declare my interests as a
non-executive director of two UK technology companies: Ceres
Power and Frontier IP.
The Science and Technology Committee is highly engaged, and I
thank everyone on the committee at the time for their significant
contributions to the final report. As ever, huge credit is due to
the committee’s staff, our former clerk George Webber, Thomas
Hornigold and Cerise Burnett-Stuart, who did so much of the hard
work in managing the consultation and the witnesses and in
preparing the report.
The committee conducted a broad-ranging inquiry into the UK
science and technology ecosystem, centred around the Government’s
ambition to make the UK a science superpower by 2030. The inquiry
considered: defining UK priorities as part of a science and
technology strategy; international aspects of the strategy; the
organisational structure of UK science, including the roles of
UKRI, government departments, Cabinet sub-committees and the
Civil Service; the target to boost R&D spending to 2.4% of
GDP; and the role of government as an investor in technology
companies.
The inquiry also motivated a shorter follow-up inquiry into the
people and skills in STEM, concluding with a letter to Ministers,
to which we may also refer in this debate. The inquiry ran from
February to July 2022, taking evidence from a wide range of UK
and international science policy experts, researchers, public
research establishments, universities, private companies,
start-ups and technology investors. We also heard from civil
servants, chief scientific advisers—including Sir and Dame Angela
McLean—the chief executive of UKRI, research council heads and
Ministers.
I will summarise the key messages from our report. There is a
strong consensus that science, technology and innovation have a
key role to play in the delivery of economic growth, improved
public services and strategic international advantage. It is
clear that the UK still has a strong science and technology base
to build on. When the report was written, some welcome steps had
already been taken, such as setting the 2.4% target, increasing
funding for UKRI in government departments and establishing new
bodies like the National Science and Technology Council—NSTC—as a
sub-committee of the Cabinet, and the Office for Science and
Technology Strategy, the OSTS. My apologies in advance for the
acronym soup that this speech will now turn into.
However, the report identified many key concerns about the
implementation and delivery of a science strategy, many of them
familiar—indeed, some we might even call perennial problems. The
first that concerned us was that the “science superpower by 2030”
slogan was vague and without specific outcomes. We did not know
what being a science superpower was intended to feel like. How
would it be different?
Although numerous sectoral strategies exist across government,
they did not appear to fit into a clear, prioritised plan. The UK
cannot be “world-beating” at everything. We urged clarity about
which capabilities the UK wanted to develop domestically and
where it would collaborate or access. These debates remain
lively, with the announcement of £900 million for exascale
computing and the debate over a sovereign AI model, for example.
Linked to this was the lack of a joined-up international
approach. We cannot be a science superpower in
isolation—collaboration and scientific openness are
fundamental—but the UK remained out of Horizon Europe, and other
changes, such as the reduction in ODA support, high visa costs
and complex processes, risk the UK’s reputation as a destination
that welcomes top international science talent and as a desirable
partner in international collaborations.
On increasing complexity and lack of clarity, the committee felt
that bodies like the NSTC and OSTS would provide strategic
direction, but their interactions with other key bodies like UKRI
were unclear and risked adding to bureaucracy. There has been
inconsistency and short-term thinking, which is anathema to
R&D and developing new sectors of the economy. This is
exemplified by the scrapping of the industrial strategy after
just a few years.
There is an urgent need for scientists, technologists and
engineers, both trained domestically and welcomed from abroad.
There is the challenge of scale-up: although some
commercialisation metrics, like numbers of start-ups, are
improving, it remains challenging for companies to scale up here,
especially for those requiring significant capital investment.
The recent comment by Oxford PV’s chief technology officer that
the UK was the “least attractive” place to build its new factory
for perovskite solar cells is a stark reminder that we continue
to see companies built on ground-breaking UK science listing
overseas.
As regards engaging the private sector and increasing private
sector investment in R&D, a range of areas for policy reform
have been identified but details of how this will work—indeed, of
how the impact will be different from previous approaches—have
not been set out, and the Government’s own role as a direct
investor in technologies was also unclear. Disappointingly, the
private sector witnesses we heard from indicated that the sector
did not feel that it had been engaged in the development of the
UK’s science and technology strategy. As inflation worsened
during the course of the inquiry, concerns were raised about the
cost of conducting research and that R&D budgets may be an
easy target for departments and Governments looking to make
short-term savings at the expense of long-term prosperity.
Our report made a number of recommendations. We asked for further
definition of the science and technology strategy, with specific
outcomes in priority areas and, critically, with an
implementation plan so that it was about not just targets but
action. We wanted the science and technology superpower ambition
to be defined with specific metrics and suggested an independent
body to monitor progress. We wanted more Cabinet-level agreement
and focus on science and technology policy with a Science
Minister in Cabinet and more frequent meetings of the NSTC. We
wanted to see the UK rebuild its reputation as an international
partner, starting with association with Horizon Europe.
We asked for clarity on how the Government were going to use
their range of policy levers to stimulate private investment in
R&D and more detail how tax credits, pension fund rules and
procurement would need to change to support private investment in
R&D and especially in scale-up companies. We suggested that
reforms could be driven by specific taskforces in each area,
headed by clearly accountable individuals, providing a single
point of contact for stakeholder engagement. Our people and
skills letter focused on four key areas: the domestic skills gap;
the precariousness of research careers; visa policy for
scientists and STEM workers; and our ability to retain and
recruit science teachers and educators.
A great deal has happened in the year or so since this report was
published, some of which I am sure some of us would rather
forget. However, more positively, this includes the establishment
of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the
appointment of a Secretary of State for Science. This is a
positive development in giving science and technology a strong
voice in Cabinet, but cross-departmental co-ordination through
NSTC will remain critical. We look forward to hearing more from
the Minister at a future appearance before our committee about
her role and responsibilities and how the new department will
interact with the rest of the science landscape in government and
further afield.
The Windsor framework has allowed Horizon Europe negotiations to
resume, and the committee urges the Government to associate at
the earliest possible opportunity. The Government have published
Science and Technology Framework, which sets some key targets and
outcomes across 10 different science and technology areas and,
although not all of them are measurable metrics, substantially
builds on and defines the science and technology superpower
agenda, as we urged in our report. We are promised a
“clear action plan for each strand”
by summer 2023, so we look forward to seeing them soon. Given
that delivery will be overseen by the NSTC, we also hope to hear
that it is meeting more regularly.
Science and Technology Framework also sets out new, if broad,
priority areas including quantum, AI, engineering, biology,
semiconductors and future telecoms, alongside
“life sciences, space, and green technologies.”
That is a slightly odd mixture of specific technologies and whole
industry sectors, but it is a start in defining priorities for
the UK. The Government say that DSIT will oversee strategies in
each area, with some, like the semiconductor White Paper and AI
White Paper, recently published, and associated packages of
funding for semiconductors and life sciences announced.
This goes some way towards addressing our concerns that the UK’s
science and technology strategy was insufficiently specified, but
concerns about the scale of investment remain. For example, the
semiconductor strategy announced £1 billion in funding, compared
to the US support under the CHIPS Act, which totals some $52
billion, and the EU equivalent, which will amount to about €43
billion. Cambridge-based Arm is still planning to float in the
US, despite government efforts. On green technologies, the
approximately $400 billion investment under the Inflation
Reduction Act in the US and efforts by the EU are driving a step
change, which the UK has not yet responded to. It is difficult to
see how we can be world beating without at least world-class
investment. One has to ask whether the UK may be spreading itself
too thinly by trying to compete in all these areas of science and
technology. In this context of renewed industrial strategies
worldwide, Make UK’s recent criticism of the UK’s lack of a
long-term industrial strategy, and hence lack of pull-through for
commercialising technologies, echoes the concerns raised in our
report.
A further development since our report has been the recalculation
of R&D GDP statistics by the ONS. This has increased
estimates of R&D spend from 1.7% to 2.4% of GDP. We welcome
the Government’s acknowledgement that
“a stronger baseline does not change the underlying rationale for
growing investment in R&D”
and urge them to adopt an appropriate new target. A science and
technology superpower should spend more than the average OECD
country. We welcomed the increase in funding for R&D at the
time, and we are pleased to see that it was defended in
subsequent Budgets, but double-digit inflation will absorb most
of this increase, while high inflation and interest rates may
deter business investment in R&D.
The overall landscape of science policy and publicly funded
research in the UK is responding to some major recent reviews,
including the Grant review into UKRI and the Nurse review into
the research and development landscape. Many of the
recommendations from the Nurse review echo our own. We look
forward to seeing how DSIT, UKRI and the NSTC will drive forward
the recommendations from these reviews. It is encouraging to see
that some promises of reform of public procurement, regulation
for innovation, tax credits and intellectual property are under
way. Sir Patrick Vallance’s review of regulation for emerging
technologies is a positive development, and we wait to see how
its recommendations are implemented.
Overall, there are promising signs that the Government view
science and technology policy as a crucial area to get right. We
agree that the potential is there, but the scale of the challenge
must not be underestimated. Some of the recent changes are
encouraging, but there is much more to do across the whole of
government. Ensuring that “science and technology superpower”
does not become another forgotten Panglossian political slogan
will need clear strategy, commitment and co-ordination across
government, business engagement, internationally competitive
levels of funding and an unrelenting focus on delivery.
I shall finish by asking the Minister three specific questions:
first, what is now holding up our association to the Horizon
programme and when is this likely to be resolved? Secondly, what
has happened to the Office for Science and Technology Strategy in
the process of forming the new Department for Science, Innovation
and Technology? Thirdly, will the Government be developing a
science superpower skills strategy? I beg to move.
6.21pm
(Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate, as it was
to be a member of the Science and Technology Committee when we
undertook this inquiry. It is a pleasure to follow my friend, the
noble Baroness, Lady Brown, who eloquently set out the extent of
the report’s findings so effectively. I echo her in thanking all
the staff of the committee who did such excellent work supporting
our inquiry. I declare my technology interests as set out in the
register.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, did such an effortless job in
covering the ground of the report, I would like to describe how I
see our findings in five words. We need all five: clarity; long
term; international; investment; and implementation. Perhaps the
most powerful phrase of all came from Sir when he talked about the
need for a laser focus on implementation. If we take those five
words—those five pillars—what might that look like in
reality?
The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, rightly highlighted the
importance of regulation and the Vallance review into regulation
in this area. I believe that the positive power that regulation
can have to support innovation and technology in this country
should not be underestimated for one second. We can look recent
examples such as what we with the telecoms industry to regulate
to enable mobile telephony in this country and what we did even
more recently with the fintech sandbox to effectively enable in a
regulatory environment so many scale-ups and start-ups to come
through. What is the best measure of success for that regulatory
sandbox? It has been replicated in well over 50 jurisdictions
around the world. That is the positive potential that we
have.
Let us put the “science and technology superpower” phrase to one
side for a moment. We have, in truth, a real opportunity in the
UK for science, technology and innovation. That comes from the
great good fortune of the combination of common law, the
financial centre in London, the English language, geography, time
zone and many other factors. None of that should in any sense
take us into a state of believing that we are a superpower, but
we should fully appreciate the possibilities that it gives.
What might that look like with a particular sector? AI is much
talked of at the moment, but if we can get safe and secure rules,
it could enable positive growth in this country. We heard from
the Prime Minister only days ago along the lines that if we are
to grapple with and solve the problem of AI, we must do this
together, not just the companies, but countries. That sounds
pretty positively international to me, and that has to be the
right approach.
Will the Minister say where specific sectoral strategies, such as
the AI strategy, fit into an overall coherent approach across all
sectors, all areas and all opportunities, not least, as we have
already heard, semi-conductors but quantum and DLT, to name just
three? How do we enable all this to fit together? I believe that
so much comes down to having innovation right through every
Whitehall department, a golden thread of innovation running
through every single department. It is that cross-Whitehall
working point again. I believe that the difficulty is that we
have only ever had cross-Whitehall working twice, once for the
Olympic and Paralympic Games and a second time for Covid. It has
happened only twice, but look at the results that we had when we
got that cross-Whitehall working. We had the very best of our
Civil Service and the very best of our state. The possibilities
are immense for the United Kingdom but, ultimately, what are
science and technology superpowers? They are not nations; rather
they are connection, collaboration, coming together and
co-creation. That is what we need to be focused on. Tout le
monde, if you will. I think we all must will it.
6.27pm
(Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, for her excellent
chairmanship of this committee and the work we got through. I
also thank the wonderful team behind her. I want to suggest first
of all that one of the great risks to the Government is that they
start to feel very self-congratulatory. I feel that the idea of
the word “superpower” was disastrous. If you talk to average
scientists working in laboratories, they were horrified at it
because they felt that it was yet again an example of the British
Government talking themselves up without any data.
One issue is that we need to have a serious review of our
international standing, which would be quite informative. I
remember that some years ago, when I was a member of the UKSRC,
we spent a lot of time each month looking at that standing at
regular stages and trying to work out where we were doing well
and where we were doing badly and we reacted in consequence. I do
not know whether that still goes on in government, but it is
certainly not mentioned in the Nurse review.
We have been talking about pathways to impact for a long time.
One problem with impact is just what the noble Lord, Lord Holmes,
said: innovation. We should forget about innovation. Innovation
is a word that is so easily bandied around. What we are talking
about is basic research, because it is the data that we get from
basic research, not innovation, which really matters. The fact
that we end up trying to suggest that we are going to change our
economy with innovation because of the use of science in
universities tends to be detrimental. I will come back to that in
just a second.
The accent on financial value puts some academics off research.
Indeed, I emphasise that the word “innovation” does not ring much
with many people. In saying this, I declare my interest in a
company called Startransfer, which is looking at some aspects of
trying to change embryo culture. It is registered as a company,
but nonetheless I still feel that the innovation side is really
unimportant. It is the research that we are doing which will be
important.
A key question that I want the Minister to answer is about the
assessment of a project afterwards. When we talked to the people
in charge of UKRI, they talked about the first 20% of grants
being awarded. It would be very interesting to know whether those
grants are tracked long term, what happens to them and whether
they have the pathway to impact that they say they do in the
application.
More importantly, I would argue that we are losing a lot of
people in research. If 20% of our applications to UKRI are
working, that means that 80% of scientists working in really good
universities are not getting funded by a key body that is
essential to their career. That is a very important consideration
for the Government, and it seems to me that, unless we track what
happens to the next 20%, the people who do not get a grant, we
are failing in our duty to the whole situation.
I remember one of my colleagues who was working in my laboratory
for a long time on splice sites, which was not very popular at
the time, spending a year doing three different applications,
none of which was successful. Eventually, he left without a
research grant, and of course he has now retired early. Five or
six years later, we are starting to see that the work that he was
doing was really brilliant; it is now being recognised
internationally, but of course it was never funded. That is
important, too.
Finally, we need to be much more aware about UKRI. I did not
think that we were doing this at all well, and we did not get the
answers that we needed in the committee about researchers getting
feedback from the organisation. When I was working in the United
States, if you put in for a grant to the American equivalent for
health research, you could phone up and get somebody to speak to
who would give you some advice about how you might make your
project more effective and successful as well as more topical and
relevant to what the body was trying to do. We need to do that,
and that goes with public engagement, which we have already been
through in the previous debate.
6.32pm
(LD)
My Lords, it was an honour to be a member of the committee, and I
pay tribute to our chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of
Cambridge, and our very helpful staff. We heard compelling
evidence that, desirable though it may be, the ambition of the UK
to become a science superpower is not on track. There is not much
time, so I shall just make a few points.
The government response announced that we have reached the target
of 2.4% of GDP spent on R&D. However, all our witnesses
agreed that we must continue to keep pace with other nations if
we are to reach the Government’s goal of becoming a science
superpower by 2030. How are the Government tracking what other
nations are doing?
Ten months has passed since the publication of the report, and we
now have DSIT, the Department for Science, Innovation and
Technology. One of our recommendations was about the Office of
Science and Technology, which has not met many times nor produced
any major papers. It has now been moved to DSIT and the Secretary
of State will decide its remit. Can the Minister tell us when
that will be published and how it will interact with the National
Science and Technology Council, which I am glad to say has
survived the reorganisation?
To achieve the Government’s objective, we need to be open to the
brightest and best from abroad, but we have the most expensive
and unwieldy visa system among comparable countries, apart from
Australia and New Zealand. Additionally, successful applicants
and their dependants must pay upfront for health services for the
whole period of the visa. This is a substantial disincentive. The
Government denied that our system costs more, which is blatantly
not true, according to their own table, but said that the
immigration system should be paid for by the users and not the
taxpayer. We have asked for details of the actual costs
attributed to the relevant visas, but these have not been
supplied. Is it the case that scientific visa applicants are
subsidising other functions of the Home Office?
The Government rejected our recommendation that health costs
could be paid in annual instalments, saying that this would be
too onerous for the Home Office and the NHS. It may be too
onerous for the Home Office, but it cannot be beyond the
capability of the NHS, because it already has to verify the
eligibility of foreign visitors to use our health services. Can
the Minister justify the Government’s attitude?
The Government want to become a regulatory superpower. The
committee accepted that regulation can make countries more
attractive to investors by indicating the direction of travel,
but companies operating in international markets are concerned
about regulatory divergence. We recommended that the Government
should work with industry and the research base to identify the
areas in which the UK can take a global lead, because
deregulation for its own sake will not automatically spur
innovation. Apparently, DSIT will be responsible for regulation
of AI in a “pro-innovation fashion”. Will the Minister explain
how taking a lead on regulation will encourage innovation without
the potential downsides of divergence?
Turning to homegrown people and skills, we heard about the lack
of routes for technicians, referred to as the gap in the middle.
Higher-level apprenticeships can fill the gap. The committee
recommended that higher-level apprentices should be given the
financial support to enable them to move around the country to
find an appropriate place—like university students. The
Government’s response mentions a few small bits of support, but
they hardly add up to what the committee had in mind. Can the
Minister do better?
Finally, if we are to recruit more STEM graduates, we need more
specialist teachers. There is a jumble of incentives for IT,
chemistry and physics teachers, but nothing for specialist maths
teachers, particularly in the light of the Prime Minister’s
objective of having all young people study maths until they are
18. You cannot do that without teachers, so can the Minister say
how it will be achieved?
6.35pm
(CB)
My Lords, I, too, add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown
of Cambridge, for her comprehensive and, as usual,
well-articulated speech. It is a pity that the Government in
their response to the report did not recognise that its
recommendations are an excellent blueprint for making the UK a
global leader in science and technology. In my brief
contribution, I shall focus on one recommendation relating to the
need to develop global science partnerships, where the Government
have not, as yet, a clear policy, without which their ambition
for us to be a science superpower and for the UK to be a global
Britain—terms often used by the Government—will not be
accomplished.
Superpowers in defence, security and foreign policy use their
power for greater influence in the world. That applies equally to
countries that are leaders in science and technology, which
position themselves to have a greater global impact.
Collaboration is at the heart of being a science superpower.
Acting in the national interest and for global benefit is not in
conflict when it comes to research.
Our membership of the EU’s Horizon programmes allowed us to be
one of the world’s leading countries for global partnerships in
science and technology. We became the destination of first choice
for young, talented, ambitious researchers. Many stayed on, were
welcomed and went on to become principal investigators, some even
winning prestigious awards, including Nobel prizes. Securing the
UK’s research relationship with Europe, as has already been
mentioned, is very important, and I hope the Government will
pursue that and succeed, but we must also forge new relationships
beyond Europe.
Freedom of movement of scientists to the UK, not just from the EU
but from the wider world, demonstrated that the UK was open to
talent, without barriers or high cost to individuals. Our open
border to scientific talent is now closed, driven more by our
immigration policy, as described by the noble Baroness, Lady
Walmsley, than by our ambition to be a global leader in science.
Visas, health premiums and other costs, and now possible
restrictions on families being able to accompany, are policies
that make the UK seem an unwelcoming and expensive country. As
highlighted by many, such as the Wellcome Trust. the ABPI, the
Royal Society, et cetera, the UK needs to articulate more clearly
its policies of global co-operation that will attract science
talent to the UK.
Some key principles should guide this policy. The UK must be
open, creating an environment where ideas can flourish and talent
is welcome, creating a globally connected science community. The
UK must build networks around the world and drive the policies
that make our country the centre of those networks in a
collaborative way. There is a need for more strategic thinking
that allows a small country such as the UK to be an important
partner in big, global projects. We need to use the UK’s
influence for the global good and explore more the soft power of
science collaboration. In this respect, stopping the ODA
programmes by cutting funds gave completely the wrong message.
Building a reputation—the one we had in the not-too-distant
past—as the go-to research partners of choice for talented
individuals and countries will not only supercharge our domestic
research but attract foreign investment and talent.
My time is running out, so I ask the Minister: when will the
Government publish a strategy for global partnerships in science
and technology and remove current immigration barriers?
6.39pm
(Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, for
tabling this debate and ably chairing our Select Committee, and
to the team supporting it. I declare an interest as a member of
the committee, as an adviser to Future Planet Capital, which
invests in the UK and global venture ecosystem for innovation,
and as an adviser to or being on the board of a number of
tech-related start-ups such as Sweetbridge EMEA and Dot
Investing.
The report rightly highlights areas where the UK must improve to
achieve its ambition of becoming a science and technology
superpower, whether you define that in terms of the amount of
innovation generated, the number of patents, ideas or even Nobel
prizes, the value of ideas commercialised or simply our
influence. The report highlights the areas that are key to
success: increasing R&D funding; forging closer ties between
academia and industry and between different parts of government,
industry and academia; changing the way visas are charged for;
and supporting start-ups to scale up. But without action,
“science and technology superpower” remains merely a slogan. The
Government must turn pledges into progress if the UK is to
strengthen its position as a global leader in innovation.
However, even if we succeed in these areas, the UK faces
structural challenges in the size of its domestic market, in
access to capital markets for innovation in the City, in talent,
in commercialisation expertise and in other resources, which the
report acknowledges by rightly highlighting priority areas that
we need to focus on. Our venture ecosystem, while thriving,
remains small-scale in global comparison, although there have
been laudable recent attempts to ramp this up by working with
larger investors such as sovereign wealth and pension funds and
insurers.
Our ageing population means taxation policies must account for
the needs of tomorrow as well as today if we want sustainable
public funding for R&D and education. We must pick our
battles in areas where we can differentiate ourselves and lead.
Therefore, to get bang for our buck, we should welcome a focus on
areas such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, space
and satellite technology, fintech, energy transition technologies
such as nuclear, renewables and battery storage, and precision
medicine and life sciences.
The report could have gone further in articulating how the UK can
harness its advantages of agility, expertise and a focus on
global impact to overcome disadvantages of scale. We showed what
is possible by developing a world-class vaccine at record pace.
By being more flexible and sandboxing regulations more,
attracting capital from overseas and matching it with our own
large domestic investment sources, and harnessing government
procurement in a smarter way, we can still edge ahead. Our time
zone and legal and regulatory systems enable the UK to become a
launch pad for new technologies and be a leader that can attract
the finance needed to make firms global without their having to
shift their base abroad.
It saddens me that we have not sufficiently built on the success
of the Vaccine Taskforce led so ably by Kate Bingham, or gone
further—simplifying regulation and procurement where we could
have to achieve greater freedoms for pioneers and innovators to
build world-class supply chains based on science and tech. I ask
the Minister what we are doing to build on this success as part
of our science superpower strategy. With vision, the right
targeted investments and, crucially, the right culture, we can
navigate the challenges of size through global leadership in
emerging sectors.
In conclusion, while the report highlights actions the Government
must take to achieve their bold ambition, the UK must go further
in playing to its strengths, particularly by being more nimble
and having STEM-savvy, trained regulators and policymakers. By
targeting support for sectors where we can differentiate
globally, providing access to talent and long-term funding, and
enabling an agile approach to regulation and policy-making, the
UK can overcome its disadvantages of scale and smaller market to
cement its role as a pioneering science and innovation leader on
the world stage.
If we match rhetoric with resource, “science and technology
superpower” can become more than a slogan, but it will require
the right attitude and culture. As it says in Zechariah chapter
4, verse 6:
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord
Almighty—you will succeed because of my Spirit”.
May the UK have that plucky spirit, which has served it well in
the past and can do so again in the future.
6.44pm
(Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I very much
welcome the chance to take part in this debate, not least because
I have recently joined the committee. I refer to my entry in the
register of interests, but my main declaration is that I have an
interest in science—not a financial but a real interest in
it.
I congratulate the members of the committee, the chair and the
staff on their work on this report. It makes some excellent
recommendations, which I support. It takes a long time for Select
Committee reports to finally get debated in your Lordships’
House. I would have preferred this debate to take place in the
Chamber, thereby exposing more Members to what we are talking
about, which would be a very good thing, but it is better than
nothing to hold it here. I say to the Minister and the Government
Whips: we need more debates about science and not fewer.
I thank all of the outside organisations that took the time to
contact me and provide background briefings for today’s debate,
including, in no particular order, the Royal Academy of
Engineering, the Royal Society, the Campaign for Science and
Engineering—I note its comprehensive report, published by the
Foundation for Science and Technology—Cancer Research UK, the
Protect Pure Maths campaign, Imperial College and, of course, our
own House of Lords Library. With only a few minutes for each
Member, there is no way in a million years that I can refer to
all the points that have been made, but I want their
contributions to be recorded in Hansard.
We hear a lot about the phrase “science superpower” —I first
heard it in 2016—but what does it actually mean? We are all
familiar with the basic strengths of science in the UK—the
oft-cited statistics about the number of research papers in
proportion to the population, the excellence of our world-class
universities, and so on. We have strengths and, now, strategic
objectives in a number of key areas, such as quantum computing,
AI, engineering and synthetic biology, semiconductors, future
telecoms, life sciences, space and green tech. We know all of
that and, yes, the UK does punch above its weight in science, but
we need a range of things to fall into place to turn the slogan
of a “science superpower” into reality.
Since this report was issued, there have been some important
structural changes in the way the Government now approach this.
We have the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology,
which gives the Secretary of State a place at the Cabinet table.
We had the Nurse review and the welcome step forward in making
integrated recommendations for the future of the research
landscape. We have an active and assiduous Science Minister, to
whom I pay tribute. So we have this organisational structure, but
I hope it will last. I recently asked the departed Chief
Scientific Adviser, Sir , whether it would have
helped his job if all these things had been in place when he
started. The answer was: yes, it would.
However, we need a sense of commitment and sustained effort. I
give the Prime Minister credit for giving every appearance of
being committed, but can the Minister tell us how often these
Cabinet committees now meet and how often the Prime Minister
chairs them? What is the role of the new Chief Scientific Adviser
and technology adviser, and how do their respective offices work?
If the Minister is able, can he tell us how ARIA is getting
on?
In the short time available, I will emphasise one point, on
Horizon Europe. Will the UK rejoin it, and when? It would be
remiss of me not to mention this, as I have put down Question
after Question in the House over almost the last year and a half,
and it has been a deeply damaging story, to put it very mildly.
If today’s debate can achieve anything, it would be helpful if
the Minister could tell us a bit more about what exactly is going
on. Are we still negotiating? Are we doing so in good faith, or
are our fingers crossed behind our backs in the hope that plan B
is perhaps better? Is the row just about different UK and EU
assessments about the effect of not being a member for two years?
It is not just about the money—it is about the collaboration,
contacts and networks, as other Members said. It is not just in
Europe that we should collaborate; we signed a memorandum of
understanding on science and technology with the United States
and, last December, the Government signed an important
international science partnership fund in Japan.
Whatever else a “science superpower” may prove to mean, it will
definitely involve making sure that the UK is open to worldwide
scientific co-operation, making it the most attractive place in
which to do science research and then developing and
commercialising it for the benefit of the UK and humanity.
6.48pm
(LD)
My Lords, I am also a new member of the committee—I joined after
this inquiry. I declare my unpaid interest as a council member of
the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. This is a
vital report, extremely effectively and comprehensively
introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown.
In the 2021 integrated review, the Government claimed that
so-called “Global Britain” was a science “superpower”. By the
time that this apparently once-in-a-generation review had to be
refreshed, only two years later, the Government simply said that
we had a “strategic advantage” in science and technology, if we
specialised—Patrick Vallance had probably corrected the original
claim. However, in neither review was the vital Horizon programme
even mentioned. Despite scientists urging association, the
problem at first was our potentially breaking international law
in relation to Northern Ireland. Then it was whether Horizon was
value for money; the Prime Minister was apparently sceptical
about its value.
The head of one of our higher education institutions told me that
before we left Horizon he would get many inquiries about
potential collaboration from EU scientists he did not know. Those
approaches have completely dried up. Scientists report that they
are muddling through, with UKRI temporarily helping to fill gaps,
but that is not sustainable long term. As the noble Baroness,
Lady Brown, and the noble Lord, , emphasised, we cannot be a
science superpower without that international collaboration. The
Royal Society argues that an international approach is vital and
that,
“association to Horizon Europe, Euratom, and Copernicus are
crucial,”
The Nurse review says that it is “essential” that we rejoin
Horizon.
There are many advantages to a multi-country programme over a
merely national one. Problems and solutions cross international
boundaries—for example, climate change or the pandemic. Funding
and access to research infrastructure is increased, with further
opportunities to commercialise research. Skills and expertise can
be pooled. Can the Minister update us on Horizon and not simply
give us warm words, which is what we have been hearing so
far?
Sustained UK support for science remains vital. The report is
right to emphasise the need for an industrial strategy. Out of an
analysis on the coalition of the strengths and weaknesses of the
UK economy came the catapults and, for example, significant
investment in the Crick Institute as the largest biomedical
centre in Europe. This Government seem strangely proud of not
having an industrial strategy, and that just seems bizarre.
When ODA was suddenly cut from 0.7% of GNI to 0.5%, and then
focused on supporting refugees, no one in Government seemed aware
of how much had gone to supporting research, and it was suddenly
removed. Thus investment in the Jenner Institute on the Ebola
vaccine helped to pave the way for the Covid vaccine. We did well
in this sector due to earlier investment. ODA money, as the noble
Lord, , said, indeed helped to build
our international reputation in science.
The Government now talk of,
“shaping the global science and technology landscape through
strategic international engagement, diplomacy and
partnerships”.
That is double-speak right now. The Royal Society states that, if
the UK wants to be a world leader in this area, it also needs to
be world-leading in its approach to researcher mobility. The
Nurse review points to immigration policy hindering wider
objectives for research. Now we hear that masters students should
not bring dependants with them. What does that do for our
universities, for families and particularly for women?
Therefore, my questions to the Minister in his new department,
welcome as it is, are: will it start advocating effectively in
Cabinet for those in science and higher education? Should
immigration policy remain in the Home Office? What is taking the
Government so long to sign up to Horizon, and how will they put
right the damage that has already been done?
6.53pm
(CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register and
join others in thanking our excellent chair, the noble Baroness,
Lady Brown of Cambridge, and the clerk and policy analyst who
helped us produce this report.
Some of our witnesses told us that we are already a science
superpower, while others said it was a meaningless slogan or
possibly, as the noble Lord, , said, unhelpful boasting. My
conclusion is that the slogan is largely hot air. Why do I say
that? It is because the Government have not learned the lessons
of history. The first person to try to quantify the UK’s position
in the world of science was the late of Oxford when he was the
Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser. He quantified the
performance of the UK relative to other countries in terms of
major prizes such as the Nobel, Crafoord, and Balzan, and, in
terms of bibliometrics, the numbers of papers published and
citations. The UK was second only to the United States in
scientific output and productivity. With 2% of the world’s
scientists, we published 10% of the world’s papers and 13% of the
most highly cited papers. If you look at input as well as output,
the UK was well ahead of all other large countries in terms of
bangs per buck.
Those are facts that of Oxford established —but the
question is: why were we so successful? It cannot be that we are
somehow inherently superior or innately better at science than
anybody else. I shall mention three factors. The first is
long-termism. In scientific research, major discoveries or
breakthroughs usually follow many years of dedicated pursuit and
many blind alleys. Nobel Prize winner, Max Perutz, referred to
the long, lean years in his 22-year quest to determine the
structure of haemoglobin, the molecule that carries oxygen to
every cell in our bodies. Furthermore, the lag between discovery
and application is generally measured in decades rather than
years. Katalin Kariko, the Hungarian-American scientist whose
research led to the development of RNA vaccines against Covid,
such as Pfizer and Moderna, made her key discoveries in the late
1980s and early 1990s with no application on the horizon.
The second ingredient in the recipe for success is openness,
which many other noble Lords have mentioned. Of the 72 Nobel
Prizes in all fields awarded to UK scientists in the past 50
years, 20 were awarded to people born overseas who moved to the
UK to do research. We have benefited hugely from welcoming
overseas scientists.
The third ingredient in the recipe for success is freedom of
inquiry. Were Watson and Crick on a mission to solve a practical
problem? No. They were driven by an impulse to unlock the secrets
of nature. As a result, they made one of the most profound
discoveries of all time in the life sciences, which has
transformed medicine. In fact, you could argue that, if you know
how the results of your work are going to be applied, it cannot
be very interesting or novel work in the first place.
In the Government’s quest to become or remain a scientific
superpower, have they learned the lessons of history? Our
evidence suggested not. Here is what we heard. First, in recent
years the Government have published no fewer than eight different
strategies for science with 25 priority areas: there is no long
termism here. Secondly, the Government have slammed the door on
many scientists from overseas by bureaucratic and financial
hurdles and as a result of Brexit. Thirdly, the pipeline of young
scientific talent is being strangled by a combination of
precarity and bureaucratic overload in UKRI for early career
researchers and further back in the pipeline by the persistent
shortage of science teachers in state schools. Becoming a science
superpower is not a sprint—it is a marathon, and the Government
have tied their shoelaces together at the start of the race. I
hope that the Minister will answer my questions about the lessons
of history and say whether he agrees with them.
6.58pm
(CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and the
committee staff. I will venture a few words on schools,
universities and R&D. Ideally, these crucial sectors should
be governed by a bipartisan consensus that offers long-term
stability. In depressing contrast, turbulence in government has
triggered unstable policies, a rapid churn of Ministers and the
proliferation of committees.
Attainment levels in our schools are poor compared to nations in
the Far East and northern Europe. In particular, there are far
too few good science teachers. There are three things that can be
done: ensuring that conditions are good enough and pay levels are
appropriate for practitioners of a serious profession;
encouraging mature individuals to move into teaching from a
career in research, industry or the Armed Forces; and making
better use of the web and distance learning.
Our international rankings are higher in higher education, but
there are some worrying trends. Academia is becoming less
alluring. Some people will become academics, whatever happens—the
nerdish element, of which I am one—but a world-class university
system cannot survive just on them. It must attract a share of
young people who are savvy about their options and ambitious to
achieve something distinctive by their 30s. They increasingly
associate academia with years of precarity and undue financial
sacrifices.
A further off-putting trend is the deployment of ever more
detailed performance indicators to quantify outputs, and the
labour involved in preparing grant applications with a
diminishing chance of success. This pressure gives two perverse
incentives to young academics: to shun high-risk research and to
downplay their teaching. Indeed, the declared rationale for
setting up ARIA is to foster “long-term”, “blue-skies” research
and freedom from bureaucracy in a fashion not available elsewhere
in the system. It should surely be a higher priority to render
less vexatious the bureaucracy of UKRI, whose budget is 50 times
higher than ARIA’s.
In the UK, research is still strongly concentrated in
universities—not so in France and Germany—but the encroachment of
audit culture and other pressures are rendering universities less
propitious environments for research projects that demand intense
and sustained effort. Dedicated, stand-alone labs may become
preferable —although there is a downside, as they reduce contact
between talented researchers and students. Indeed, the UK owes
its strength in biomedical science to its famous labs, which
allow full-time, long-term research, with government funding
massively supplemented by the Wellcome Trust, the cancer
charities and a strong pharmaceutical industry. To ensure
effective exploitation of new discoveries, these institutes must
be complemented by organisations that can offer adequate
development and manufacturing capability. This fortunate
concatenation certainly proved its worth in the recent pandemic.
We likewise need this in energy, AI and other crucial
technologies.
One should welcome Paul Nurse’s recent report, whatever one’s
views of his earlier report that created UKRI—and the web of new
committees that it embedded into. However, our ability to attract
and retain mobile academic talent, and our ranking as a
destination of choice by those people, is now at risk. I will not
reiterate the overwhelming case for rejoining the ERC, but there
is now an international market for the best students as well:
they are academic assets and a long-term investment in
international relations. To retain its competitiveness as a
“destination of choice” for mobile experts, despite the setback
of Brexit, the nation must remove impediments and raise its game.
Ways of doing this are a key theme of our committee’s report.
7.02pm
(GP)
My Lords, I join everyone in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady
Brown of Cambridge, and her committee; I look forward to its
future work and future reports—which I hope will be debated more
promptly.
This report from August 2022 reveals gaping holes where
government action should have been. I thank Imperial College
London for its useful briefing, which identified how some of
those gaping holes have been plugged, at least with stopgap
measures. However, as many other noble Lords have already noted,
the remaining enormous holes in the house of scientific and
technological endeavour, out of which human and financial
resources are fast flowing, are the lack of UK association with
the Horizon Europe programme; the disastrous hostile environment
immigration policies; and the collapse in the genuine official
development assistance support. The Royal Academy of Engineering
also provided useful reflections, stressing principles including
a willingness to act for the long term; moving with agility and
at pace; trusted and capable leadership; and action that
accelerates progress. Those are not, I am afraid, anything with
which this Government are associated.
However, rather than taking pot shots—as tempting and easy as
that is—I will seek to bring a unique Green perspective to this
debate, and make three challenges to the very foundations of the
Government’s approach and, in some respects—and with respect—to
that of your Lordships’ committee. The first is the assumption,
underlying much of the Government’s rhetoric, that the aim of the
science and technology framework—with its talk of bringing
technologies to market and of private sector involvement and
profit—is to make things, or to create services or intellectual
property, to sell.
Certainly, when one looks at the UKRI five-year strategy from
March 2022, I am not going to argue with the aim of driving the
development, adoption and diffusion of green technologies, but
also in that list is developing preventive measures to improve
the nation’s health and well-being. The new Secretary of State
talks of helping British people to live longer, smarter,
healthier and happier lives, but what if achieving that means not
making things or creating services to sell, not improving profits
but finding ways in which to heal lives and environments without
making a profit, thus cutting demand for expensive drugs or
invasive treatments, ending the need for farmers to use
pesticides or herbicides, or co-creating essential knowledge,
working with researchers and communities in the global South and
sharing that knowledge for free? Identifying the bad things that
we do now and stopping them is also science, even if that means
cutting profits and reducing GDP. We need to think hard about how
we find funding for research and development for such measures,
and that has to be a government priority.
Secondly, I disagree with the five critical technologies
identified in the science and technology framework. Crucially,
there are two things that are not there: ecology and social
innovation. I disagree particularly with one that is there:
“Engineering biology–the application of rigorous engineering
principles to the design of biological systems”.
That is such a 20th-century reductionist and outdated view, the
kind that we saw on full display in the creation of the so called
Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act. Are they really the
same Government who occasionally, at odd moments, will claim to
believe in the principles of agroecology and to understand that
the survival of human systems on this planet to maintain a
liveable climate and natural systems means working with the
incredibly complex and still little understood natural systems of
animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, viruses and archaea that
together have created life on this planet?
Finally, although noble Lords may think that I have been radical
enough, I am going to finish with an even more radical thought.
The UKRI again speaks of securing UK strategic advantage in
game-changing technologies, but rather than thinking about
beating others in a world facing the climate emergency and nature
crisis, with epidemics of poverty and ill health, rampant
pandemic threats and a planet poisoned with plastics, pesticides
and pharmaceuticals, we have to co-operate with others to make
the best possible collective use of human ingenuity, skills,
talent and time to survive and thrive through this next dangerous
century.
7.07pm
(Lab)
I express my appreciation to the staff and the leadership of the
committee.
British science is in a parlous state. We are in the process of
crippling our academic institutions, which have traditionally
fostered our scientific discoveries. We are also losing the
technological industries that have stimulated our inventiveness.
Many are quietly disappearing, if they are not falling into the
hands of foreign owners, which is often a prelude to their
eventual demise.
During the committee’s inquiry, a plethora of reviews were under
way concerning the governance of science and technology in the
UK. These included the second review by Paul Nurse of the R&D
organisational landscape, the Tickell review into research
bureaucracy and the Gluckman review into the research excellence
framework, which audits the research activities of
universities.
The second Nurse review, which was delivered after the
publication of the report of the committee, contains some
interesting revelations. The first of these, as other noble Lords
have mentioned, is that there has been a systematic
underestimation of the percentage of GDP that the UK devotes to
research and development. For many years, it was thought to be a
mere 1.7%; it now appears that it is close to the OECD average of
2.5%. The second revelation is that the amount of R&D
directly sponsored by the UK Government is well below the OECD
average and far behind that of most research-intensive
nations.
In putting this finding into perspective, it helps to take a long
historical view. The country that emerged from the Second World
War was endowed with a wealth of government research
establishments and with many scientific and technological
projects that were supported by the Government. The aviation
industry was in receipt of large subventions. It was generating
numerous prototypes of advanced military and civil aircraft. To
restrain these expenditures became an obsession of the Civil
Service. It developed a methodology of project cancellation that
became more effective with the passage of time.
The restraint of government expenditure on research and
development extended far beyond the aviation industry. It greatly
affected Britain’s nuclear power industry, which was brought to a
virtual halt. The restraint also affected many of the research
establishments that had been supporting industry in both the
public and the private sectors. Britain’s computer and
telecommunications industries collapsed through a lack of
support. This litany can be continued with many other examples.
The advent of the Conservative Administration of Margaret
Thatcher saw the culmination of this process of governmental
disengagement, and there has been no significant re-engagement
subsequently.
A truth that the report does not acknowledge sufficiently is that
a nation cannot aspire to become a scientific superpower if it
lacks a basis of scientific and technological industries that are
ready to call upon the skills of the research workers. Britain
has a severely attenuated industrial base. The decline of British
industry has been a gradual and an inexorable process, to which
several factors have contributed. The foremost of these has been
the failure of our export industries, for which the persistent
overvaluation of our currency has been largely responsible. The
resulting balance of payments problems have been addressed by the
Government’s encouragement of so-called inward financial
investment, which has amounted to the sale of our infrastructure
and industries to foreign owners. Among the companies that have
been most attractive to foreign investors are those within our
high-tech industries.
In the absence of a commercial and an industrial stimulus,
British research and innovation is liable to retreat into British
universities, which are also in peril. It is a familiar nostrum
that, although British universities have been excellent at pure
research, they have been less successful at applying it in
practical contexts. The blame has tended to fall upon the
academics and hardly at all upon industries that might have been
their clients. The nostrums of the knowledge exchange framework
and the demands for practicality that have arisen within the
research excellence framework are a testimony to this
tendency.
Universities are now in severe financial straits. Their staff,
who have suffered severe erosions of their incomes and growing
insecurity of their employment, are frequently on strike. The
prospects for British science are poor, at a time when, in
consequence of Brexit, many foreign academics have left the
country and when senior academics are inclined to discourage
their research students from thinking of joining the
profession.
7.12pm
(CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests in the register and congratulate
the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, and her committee on
producing this important and comprehensive report. It rightly
emphasises the need for government to have a clear and consistent
science and technology policy, with a laser focus on
implementation to prevent “science and tech superpower” simply
being an empty slogan.
I will make just two points. The first relates to the vital role
of industry engagement, and the second concerns the crucial
importance of association with Horizon Europe. On the role of
industry, the Government’s R&D spend of 2.4% of GDP requires
significant private sector investment, which is expected to be
around twice the public sector spending. The apparent increase to
2.4% is, of course, welcome, but it represents a significant
increase in industry funding. As the Select Committee report
notes,
“industry does not yet feel engaged with the strategy
process”
of the Government.
A vital ingredient of the pathway to the UK becoming a science
and tech superpower will be effective translation of research for
application and exploitation by industry. The recent Nurse
review, published in March, addressed the importance of
translational research organisations, rightly emphasising the
need to bridge
“the gap between discovery research and the translation of that
research into real-world uses”.
The review highlights the important role of catapults in
achieving this. They are independent, not-for-profit technology
and innovation centres first established by the Government in
2011. They are intended to foster collaboration between research
organisations in the public and private sectors, and their main
purpose is to assist industry with turning innovative research
ideas into commercial products via connections and networks. The
Royal Academy of Engineering emphasises the importance of
connections and networks, as exemplified by catapults, in its
recent position paper, Strategic Advantage through Science and
Technology: the Engineering View, which was published in
April.
This House’s Science and Technology Select Committee considered
catapults in detail in its report, Catapults: Bridging the Gap
Between Research and Industry, published in February 2021. I was
privileged to have been a member of that committee under the
excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, . We made a number of
recommendations regarding catapults, and our report was debated
in the House last year.
In particular, we highlighted the crucial question of the future
role and long-term continuity of the catapults. We recommended
that the Government prioritise scaling up the Catapult Network,
promoting it as the UK’s national innovation asset. In the light
of the ambition for the UK to become a science and technology
superpower, can the Minister provide an update on the
Government’s strategy regarding catapults and their role in
promoting substantially greater industry R&D investment?
My second and final point relates to Horizon Europe. The noble
Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, referred to this critical
post-Brexit issue in her excellent introductory speech, as did
other noble Lords speaking in this debate. The Select Committee
rightly highlights the damage already caused to the UK’s
reputation and scientific capability by the ongoing lack of
association with Horizon Europe. UK universities have built
high-impact science, technology and innovation networks over many
decades of collaboration within EU framework programmes. These
are now in jeopardy.
The UK must be seen by all international research communities as
a reliable partner, and the Government must recognise that their
plan B in the event of non-association with Horizon Europe is in
danger of being a poor second best. The Nurse review concludes
that it is essential that the UK associate with Horizon Europe.
If it does not do so, the UK is in real danger of losing its
prestigious position in the global R&D hierarchy, becoming
less attractive as a research partner and for foreign investment
and less likely to become a science and technology
superpower.
7.16pm
(LD)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register, in
particular as chair of the council of Queen Mary University of
London. This has been a wide-ranging debate, demonstrating that
the committee’s report, despite being nearly a year old, still
has great currency and relevance and its conclusions are as valid
as they were a year ago. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brown,
for her clear, comprehensive and challenging introduction to the
report.
Many noble Lords mentioned the Government’s science superpower
ambition. The “hot air” comment from the noble Lord, , was pretty fair. Sir James
Dyson was even ruder, describing the Government’s science
superpower ambition as a political slogan. There is probably a
common view that it should be dropped, but it being clearly
overblown as a slogan should not detract from the fact that there
are opportunities in so many different fields, as many noble
Lords have said.
I very much liked the way in which the noble Lords, Lord Holmes
and , both talked about the
secret—the essence—of success in terms of collaboration and
cocreation. The noble Lord, , mentioned long-termism,
openness, freedom of inquiry and the fact that those lessons had
not been learned. As the committee noted and a number of noble
Lords have said, we have had a proliferation of strategies in
various areas, but with what follow up and plans for delivery? We
have had a whole series of reviews, some of which were mentioned
by the noble Viscount, , but where is the result?
What will the KPIs be? What is the shelf life of these reviews
and where is the practical implementation?
I will take just one example: the Life Sciences Vision, which was
launched back in 2021. Dame Kate Bingham is quoted as believing
that the vaccine scheme legacy has been “squandered” despite that
vision. Business investment is crucial and nowhere more than in
the life sciences sector. A couple of weeks ago, the noble Lord,
, highlighted the
issues relating to business investment in the life sciences
sector in his regret Motion on the Branded Health Service
Medicines (Costs) (Amendment) Regulations 2023. All the levers to
create incentives for the development of new medicines are under
government control but, as his Motion noted, the UK’s share of
global pharmaceutical R&D fell by more than one-third between
2012 and 2020.
The noble Lord rightly argued that the voluntary and statutory
pricing schemes for new medicines are becoming a major impediment
to future investment in the UK. We seem to be treating the pharma
industry as some kind of golden goose so, despite the
Government’s Life Sciences Vision, we see Eli Lilly pulling
investment on laboratory space in London because the UK
“does not invite inward investment at this time”
and AstraZeneca has decided to build its next plant in Ireland
because of the UK’s discouraging tax rate. The excellent
O’Shaughnessy report on clinical trials is all very well, but if
there is no commercial incentive to develop and launch new
medicines here, why should pharma companies want to engage in
clinical trials here? The Chancellor’s growth package for the
life sciences, announced on 25 May, fails to tackle this crucial
aspect, and I could repeat that for other sectors.
On these Benches, we welcome the creation of the new department
and the launch of the Science and Technology Framework to inform
the work of the department to 2030, but what are the key priority
outcomes? What concrete plans for delivery lie behind it? Does it
explicitly supersede all the visions and strategies that have
gone before? The crux of this committee’s report seems to me to
accord with that. It states:
“The Government should set out specifically what it wants to
achieve in each of the broad areas of science and technology that
it has identified. There should be a clear implementation
plan.”
It also stated that,
“the Government should consolidate existing sector-specific
strategies”
into that implementation plan.
We have heard from a number of Lords about vital
cross-departmental working and joining up government on science
and technology, but we do not yet really know the role of the
National Science and Technology Council and what its key
priorities are and, indeed, what the priorities of the Office for
Science and Technology Strategy are.
This applies particularly with regard to the Home Office’s policy
on visas. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, my
noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lady Northover, and the noble
Lord, , about the fact that the policy
on visas and migration is directly at odds with an effective
science policy. If we are going to be world-leading in our
approach to research and mobility, we need to correct that in
many different ways.
There are important systemic issues that should be a top priority
for resolution by the new department. We have had the independent
review by Sir Paul Nurse, which has been mentioned. I suspect he
has calculated our spending in a rather different way from the
way that the department has, but he concluded that funding,
particularly provided by government, was limited and below that
of other competitive nations such as Germany, South Korea and US.
My noble friend Lady Walmsley asked whether we track how other
nations are spending.
There is the question of Horizon, which we have
disproportionately benefited from in the past, yet we have a
complete lack of clarity in this area, as the noble Baronesses,
Lady Brown and Lady Bennett, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate,
the noble Lord, , and my noble friend Lady
Walmsley said. We need a clear commitment to re-entering Horizon.
What is the position nearly two months after the Prime Minister’s
letter to Sir on 14 April assuring him about
our intentions on Horizon? Many other nations that are not
members of the European Union belong to Horizon.
The way the UK delivers and supports research is not optimal. We
have heard from a number of noble Lords about the way that the
bureaucracy of UKRI operates. The Tickell review found that there
are issues with bureaucracy around research and development
funding. As the noble Lord, Lord Rees, says, it is extraordinary
that ARIA was specifically designed to avoid bureaucracy. Its
budget is tiny in comparison to UKRI, yet we have not reformed
the processes of UKRI to make them less bureaucratic.
The noble Viscount, , talked about the role of
university research, and others talked about the research
excellence framework. We seem to have a rather perverse approach
to this. As the noble Lord, , said, we should encourage
strategic partnerships, which should be very much part of the
warp and weft of what we are trying to achieve. At the moment,
our research in universities is cross-subsidised by overseas
students, which is an extraordinary state of affairs. We really
need to look at that in some detail.
With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett,
commercialisation is a crucial aspect linking R&D to economic
growth. This, in turn, means the need for a consistent industrial
strategy—as the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and my noble friend
Lady Northover said—with the right commercial incentives and an
understanding of the value of intangible assets, such as IP and
data. The noble Lord, , talked about catapults—I am a
huge fan of them—and he was entirely right to raise the resources
and the strategy that is being pursued. An update from the
Minister on that would be extremely welcome.
There are many other aspects to do with the scale-up finance
issues, which Sir mentioned in his evidence
to the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee last
month. We have seen the whole question of listing problems in
London, as well as the delay in the pension fund issue and
helping to de-risk their investment in new technology—I have seen
the new initiative from the British Business Bank, which is long
overdue. Then we have the whole question of regulatory
divergence. I disagree with those who, like the noble Lord,
, seem to think that, if we stand
out in terms of regulation, everything will be fine. Regulatory
divergence is one of the real problems; it creates uncertainty.
We need to align ourselves in so many ways. I could have given a
whole speech on AI regulation, but I have desisted. However,
needless to say, I am highly critical of the Government’s White
Paper in this respect.
Finally, the whole area of diversity in STEM is absolutely
crucial. In the wise words of the British Science Association, we
must ensure that the opportunities and benefits are equitable in
any future science strategy. There is not enough time to go into
that, but I believe that that could be a real key to unlocking so
much of our success. I do not have time to mention pure maths,
but we also need to look at that.
There is much to do for the new department. I wish the Minister
and his colleagues well, and I am sure that they will rise to the
challenge. But we need to create the kind of consensus that the
noble Lord, Lord Rees, advocated. That is another secret to
success.
7.28pm
(Lab)
My Lords, like everyone else, I congratulate the noble Baroness,
Lady Brown of Cambridge, on the excellence of her committee’s
report and the contribution made to putting that together by our
clerks, the evidence given by witnesses and the sheer quantum and
excellence of the contributions made—it is a really profound look
at the Government’s science and technology programme and
approach.
I am suffering a bit from imposter syndrome. Everyone else who
spoke can speak wisely from their experience in the field of
science, but I cannot. It is now some 50 years since I left
school without a single science qualification—I was one of only
two art students in my old secondary modern. Most of my
colleagues who survived until the sixth form all went off to do
maths and science subjects—and did them very well. But that does
stop any of us having a view on government policy. This report
should bring the Minister up sharp in terms of the Government’s
response. The report was published nearly a year ago, as many
have said, but time has not treated it badly; in fact, quite the
reverse—it still seems very fresh and current to me on reading
it.
As the committee noted, and as the Government acknowledge,
science and technology are key to the UK’s future. If we get
policy right, it will have untold benefits for our economy and
our people right across the country. Research and development are
essential to the development of a robust and thriving economy,
and we certainly need a more effective strategy than we currently
have for developing manufacturing and industry.
However, as we so often hear when we debate the output of your
Lordships’ excellent committees, there are worries about a
significant gap between the Government’s stated ambitions and
their output. The report argues that, although individual
sectoral strategies may successfully identify key challenges or
contain eye-catching headlines and targets, there is,
worryingly,
“little sense of how they fit into an overall plan”.
That is not the first time that this accusation has been levelled
at this Administration, and, with all his talk of delivering on
the priorities of the British people, it is disappointing that
the Prime Minister and his ministerial team seem to struggle so
much with timely, effective implementation—their great Achilles
heel. With a seemingly never-ending flow of Prime Ministers,
Chancellors and junior Ministers in recent years—there have been
nine Science Ministers in five years, which is something of a
record—the science and technology sectors have seen multiple
relaunches and rebranding exercises, which hardly helps people to
buy into a single core strategy.
As noble Lords have said, the Government published a Science and
Technology Framework in March, outlining their goals and vision
for science and technology for 2030. This follows the innovation
strategy, an R&D road map, a science plan, an Office for
Science and Technology Strategy, The Grand Challenges, half-baked
industrial strategies, various sector deals, the establishment of
the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, the first National
Science and Technology Council, a new science and technology
council and two reorganisations of UKRI. The organogram on page
21 of the report shows just how complex the Government’s
decision-making and arrangements for R&D and science have
become. There may well be merit in many of these steps—indeed, we
have supported certain initiatives—but the sheer volume of
announcements, rebrands and reorganisations points, in my view
and that of many others, to a Government concerned with media
headlines rather than day-to-day delivery.
If we look at the Government’s record, exactly what do we see?
The number of women starting STEM apprenticeships was down in the
most recent year-on-year data, which fed through to unfilled
maths and physics vacancies in schools, as noble Lords
referenced—these are exactly the subjects that the PM says he
cares about. The UK is an international outlier in terms of
investment: many UK-based tech and life sciences start-ups and
scale-ups are struggling to get access to funds, leading some to
relocate overseas. The geographical spread of investment is
uneven, meaning a lack of support for businesses and jobs in
places like the north-east, and far too much of the R&D
budget is lost to error and fraud. The Government’s AI strategy
is, seemingly, already out of date. While the Prime Minister
seems to have woken up to the threats of AI in recent weeks, it
is not clear that he has the appetite or clout to facilitate an
international response. The lack of a clear cross-cutting
industrial strategy means that the UK is losing the race on new
green technologies and lagging behind on reskilling, and the
Government’s ideological opposition to trade unions means a
failure to embed new technologies with the support of our
workforce.
We wholeheartedly support the ambition of making the UK a science
and technology superpower, but there seems to be no clear
strategy to secure that status. Many of the essential ingredients
are in place: we are home to brilliant businesses and
entrepreneurs, and we have a fantastic workforce and a track
record of innovation—the Covid vaccine is one of the glowing
examples.
We hope that the recent machinery of government changes—the
Government are to be congratulated for having a Science Minister
at Secretary of State level—will result in a new strategic focus.
Ministers need to know and understand that we are not a million
miles away from 2030 and, if the Government continue on their
current course, there is little to suggest that we will break
free from their decade of low growth.
I join others in wanting some answers to the questions about the
Horizon Europe programme, which all noble Lords who have spoken
this evening have referenced. We really need this to be resolved.
It is a big mistake in the making, and if we do not grasp the
opportunity to work with our partners and collaborate across
boundaries and borders, we will miss the biggest trick in the
R&D world.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and others, who
pointed to the clunky nature of the visa system. It is stopping
and inhibiting scientists from across the world coming to our
country. In the past, we have benefited greatly from that. It is
a drag factor in terms of current policy.
On the Horizon programme, is there a plan B? Will one be
published? Does it exist? Is it something we can rely on? There
are many questions for the Minister to answer. It has been a
fascinating debate, and I am sure that all noble Lords are
looking forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
7.36pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Science, Innovation and Technology () (Con)
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness for securing this
important debate and indeed to the whole committee. On a personal
level, as a still relatively new Minister, it is incredibly
helpful to have set out in the report a not always positive but
clear-eyed critique of where we are going in science policy. I am
grateful for that and for the excellent contributions made by all
noble Lords in today’s debate.
As a number of noble Lords mentioned, in February, the Prime
Minister announced the creation of the Department for Science,
Innovation and Technology—DSIT. It will promote a diverse
research and innovation system, connecting discovery science to
new companies, growth and jobs. I believe and hope that the
creation of DSIT has addressed many of the challenges raised by
the Select Committee in its report. It will provide strategic
coherence in policy and strategy for science and tech. I
recognise that there are different views on this, but it has been
warmly welcomed by a large number of external stakeholders for
putting science and tech at the heart of the Government’s agenda.
Of course, all government departments undertake R&D to
support their own policy objectives, but DSIT plays a unique role
as steward of the UK R&D system across Whitehall and
nationally, supporting world-class R&D and the underpinning
investment through our universities and labs to enable a thriving
R&D system.
On 6 March, the Prime Minister and the DSIT Secretary of State
launched the science and technology framework—the Government’s
plan to cement the UK’s place as a science and tech superpower by
2030. The framework is there to challenge every part of
government to put the UK at the forefront of global science and
technology. Action will focus on creating the right environment
to develop critical technologies; investing in R&D, talent
and skills; financing innovative science and tech companies;
creating international opportunities; providing access to
physical and digital infrastructure; and improving regulation and
standards. We have already taken significant steps. Since the
launch of the S&T framework we have announced £2.5 billion
over the next decade for quantum tech; launched a £250 million
tech missions fund for AI, quantum and engineering biology;
launched the AI regulation White Paper; and announced a £1
billion strategy for the UK’s semiconductor sector.
In addition, we have been progressing work to define clear
strategies for individual sectors, such as the AI action plan,
the life sciences strategy and the national space strategy. These
actions will help to ensure that the UK has the skills, talent
and infrastructure to take a global lead in game-changing
technologies and ground-breaking science.
While DSIT is taking the lead on the S&T framework, this is
necessarily a cross-government effort. For example, use of
government procurement to stimulate innovation is led from the
Cabinet Office but needs to harness the big budgets, such as
defence, to really have impact. By the end of 2023, we will
publish an update setting out the progress that we have made and
the further action that must be taken on our path to being a
science and tech superpower by 2030.
As set out in the 2023 Spring Budget, the Government will turn
their vision for UK enterprise into a reality by supporting
growth in the sectors of the future. This includes the five
critical technologies alongside life sciences and green
technologies. Underpinning the Government’s long-term strategy
and support for the sectors of the future is a commitment to
increasing publicly funded and economy-wide R&D spending. The
Government have recommitted to increasing public expenditure on
R&D to £20 billion per annum by 2024-25. I take the points
that were raised about needing to compete in a high-spending
international environment. This represents a cash increase of
around one-third and is the largest ever increase in public
R&D spending over a spending review period.
I turn to the matter that I think almost everybody raised of
international collaboration. We need to think globally if we are
to make the most effective progress and tackle global challenges.
We want to be the partner of choice for other leading science
nations and to tap into the rising potential of emerging
economies, ensuring that we are seen as a natural partner. For
example, the UK in April signed a landmark memorandum of
understanding on research and innovation with India, enabling
quicker, deeper collaboration that will drive economic growth,
create skilled jobs and improve lives in the UK, India and
worldwide.
Attracting high-skilled international talent will bring long-term
benefits to the whole of the UK. Science and Technology Framework
presents a talent and skills vision for 2030 in which the UK has
a large and varied base of skilled technical and entrepreneurial
talent, able to respond quickly to the needs of industry,
academia and government. This includes our immigration offer for
talented researchers and innovators to come to the UK, including
via the high potential route for recent graduates of top global
universities and the scale-up route for individuals recruited by
a UK-based high-growth scale-up company.
I turn to Horizon, which I know is a subject of great importance
not just here but around the research community and the country.
The Government are fully committed to science and research
collaboration, including with our European counterparts. That is
why we continue to be in discussions, which, contrary to the
point raised, are in good faith, with our European counterparts
on the UK’s involvement in Horizon Europe and hope that our
negotiations will be successful. That is our strong preference,
but we are clear that our participation must be fair for the UK’s
researchers, businesses and taxpayers. We have set out our bold,
ambitious alternative to Horizon Europe—Pioneer—if we are not
able to secure association on fair and appropriate terms.
Negotiations are ongoing, so I cannot comment on their content
except to say that our priority remains to ensure that the UK’s
R&D sector gets the maximum level of support to allow it to
continue its ground-breaking research and collaboration with
international partners.
I will now turn to some of the specific points raised. In
response to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, whose remarks I thank
her for, I shall focus my comments on her three key questions.
First, on Horizon, as I have noted, we are moving forward with
the discussions and our involvement in EU science and research
programmes. As several noble Lords have noted, delays over two
years have caused serious and lasting damage to UK R&D. As I
say, we hope sincerely that negotiations will be successful, but
the guiding principle remains that participation has to be fair
for UK researchers, businesses and taxpayers.
To provide the industry with certainty, we recognise that we must
come to a resolution as quickly as possible. To be as clear as I
can be, we want to associate with Horizon Europe, but it has to
be on fair terms, and if we cannot reach fair and appropriate
terms, we will launch Pioneer. Meanwhile we have established the
Horizon guarantee to ensure that there is no loss in funding for
the UK sector. This will be in place to cover all Horizon Europe
calls that close on or before the end of June 2023. We are
keeping the scope of the guarantee under review and will ensure
that there is no gap in funding flowing to the sector.
Following the recent machinery of government changes, OSTS has
now been integrated into the newly created Department for
Science, Innovation and Technology. The National Science and
Technology Council will remain a Cabinet committee following the
recent changes, with the Prime Minister as chair.
On skills, which were also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady
Brown, the Government welcome the committee’s inquiry on people
and skills in STEM and have responded to the recommendations. The
Government remain committed to taking forward the R&D people
and culture strategy. The Science and Technology Framework
prioritises action on talent and skills which looks at the wider
system, supporting STEM skills across the economy.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, my noble friend
and the noble Viscount, Lord
Stansgate, in relation to NSTC, there is a long-standing
convention that the frequency, attendance list and minutes of
Cabinet and its committees are not made public to protect the
principle of collective agreement by Ministers.
On the science and tech framework, by the end of 2023, we will
publish an update setting out the progress that we have made and
the further action that must be taken on our path to being a
science and technology superpower by 2030.
My noble friend Lord Holmes asked how the specific strategies fit
into an overall coherent approach. The Government have set out
their priorities through a suite of strategies, including the
R&D road map, the UK innovation strategy and the people and
culture strategy, which take a strategic or thematic overview to
drive delivery of the Government’s priorities. We agree that
policy coherence is essential for the success of the UK’s R&D
mission.
I thank the noble Lord, , for his comments and agree
with the points he raised about the importance of support for
researchers. UKRI is working to improve the experience of
applying for funding through its Simpler and Better Funding
programme.
In response to the question about ensuring good monitoring and
evaluation data on the R&D that UKRI funds, information about
research outputs is tracked by UKRI and other funders as a
requirement. Monitoring and evaluation of the impact of funding
is undertaken to understand that impact.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked how we track what other
nations are doing. The FCDO’s science and innovation network
based in embassies across the world provides valuable
intelligence on the science and tech strategies of other nations
which informs the UK’s approach and supports international
dialogue. The noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Northover,
asked whether scientific visa applications are subsidising other
functions in the Home Office. I accept that the global race for
science, research, technology and innovation is increasingly
competitive, and the Government aim to make the UK the best place
in the world for scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs to live
and work. The Government are committed to ensuring that the UK’s
immigration system supports growth and is clear and supportive
for scientists, academics and entrepreneurs—
(LD)
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister but I wonder if he would
write to me with the answer to my question.
(Con)
I am happy to write to the noble Baroness.
In response to how the Government are taking a lead on regulation
without the downside of regulatory divergence, the Government
recognise that technological innovation is fundamental to
unlocking growth and are committed to growing the UK’s global
reputation for regulatory best practice.
In response to the question from the noble Baroness and the noble
Lord, Lord Rees, on how we will get more specialist teachers,
specifically in mathematics, I support the Prime Minister’s aim
to ensure that every young person has the skills that they need
to succeed in life. Higher maths attainment will also help to
grow the economy, creating better paid jobs and opportunity for
all, which is why I also support his ambition to ensure that
every young person studies some form of maths up to the age of
18.
In response to the noble Lord, , I thank him for his helpful
comments on the importance of developing a global science
partnership. I very much agree that collaboration is at the heart
of being a science superpower. Last year we announced the first
phase of the new International Science Partnerships Fund,
underpinned by funding of £119 million over this spending review
period.
My noble friend asked about building on the
success of the Vaccine Taskforce. There will be ongoing lessons
to learn from the Covid pandemic. We are demonstrating our
ambition and delivering outcomes for patients through our
healthcare missions. We have announced the chairs and details of
the mental health and addiction missions as well as the cancer
mission chair. These missions seek to replicate the success of
the Vaccine Taskforce in areas where we face the greatest
healthcare challenges, and illustrate the impact of
industry-government collaboration.
In response to the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, who asked
about ARIA’s progress, it has been established and is still in
its early stage of development. Over the coming months, ARIA is
recruiting its first cohort of programme directors, who will help
to shape and inform the agency’s first set of research
programmes. None the less, funding transformative research with
long-term benefits will require patience, as prepared for in the
agency’s design.
In response to the noble Lord, , I strongly agree with him on
the vital importance of long-term thinking and learning the
lessons from history. This is why the S&T framework
necessarily takes a long-term view of the strategic outcomes that
we seek to deliver in the decades to come.
The noble Lord, Lord Rees, brought up the risks of precarity for
research careers. Postgraduate researchers are key to the success
of research groups, and we are looking at how to support them
through a new deal for PGRs. UKRI has undertaken a sector
consultation as a first phase of this long-term programme of
work, and the results will be published soon, in 2023.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised the grant review of
UKRI. DSIT is working closely with UKRI to implement the
recommendations of the review while overseeing UKRI’s
transformation programme to support improved governance and
decision-making. The noble Baroness mentioned the recent changes
to the ONS numbers on total R&D investment in the UK, as did
the noble Viscount, . It is good news that the ONS
has improved its methodology for estimating R&D spend in the
UK and that, as a result, we have moved above countries such as
France in terms of R&D spend as a proportion of GDP. The
Government are taking great strides in growing public R&D
spend in the UK, with the Chancellor recommitting in the most
recent Budget to growing public spend to £20 billion per annum by
2024-25.
A number of noble Lords have raised the recommendations of the
recent Nurse review. The Secretary of State for Science,
Innovation and Technology outlined in her letter to the lead
reviewer, Paul Nurse, that the landscape review would play a
foundational role in delivering the UK Government’s vision and
would set out a detailed response to the review’s recommendations
in the coming months.
The noble Lord, , discussed industry engagement.
The innovation strategy set out our plan for driving investment
in UK R&D. We have increased funding for core Innovate UK
programmes which are successful in crowding in private sector
leverage, so that they reach £1.1 billion per year by 2024-25.
This is over £300 million, or 66% more per year than in 2021-22,
and will ensure that it can support business in bringing
innovations to market.
In closing, I thank noble Lords for such a detailed,
well-informed and wide-ranging debate. The newly created
department will continue to address the challenges offered by the
Select Committee and make clear progress to achieve our science
and technology superpower ambitions, with a clear focus on
delivery.
(Lab)
My Lords, may I say that I fully appreciate that the Minister is
not personally involved in the negotiations over Horizon Europe?
But in his remarks, he has referred to serious and lasting damage
by non-association. Can he at least take back to the department
the near-universal view in this debate that we should join and
consider the fact that the Government specifically said after
Brexit that this is the one thing that we want to join? Let us
think of the consequences of our future co-operation with our
European neighbour on a whole range of things if it turns out
that we do not join what we said we wanted to.
(Con)
I am happy to take not just the noble Lord’s remarks but the
sense of the Committee on that back to the department.
7.55pm
(CB)
My Lords, I thank all speakers in what has been a very
interesting debate. I welcome and thank the noble Viscount,
, the relatively new Minister
from a relatively new department, and agree that we celebrate the
creation of DSIT. It does indeed address a number of the issues
in our report—indeed, we rather hope that our report may have
been a useful little prod to encourage the creation of the
department. It was very good to hear the Minister say that we
needed to challenge every part of government, and also good to
hear that attracting overseas talent is so close to DSIT’s
heart.
I hope that we are all impressed that the importance of this
topic to Members of the House is indicated by how many people
have been prepared to exchange a comfortable dinner and a chance
to watch “Springwatch” for a four-minute speaking slot in the
Moses Room. I hope that noble Lords get a comfortable dinner very
shortly, after I have sat down.
The message that I hope the Minister will take back is that we
are hearing of some good progress, but we must go further and
faster—and we must go further and faster in terms of associating
with Horizon. It was good to hear him recognise the damage that
our lack of association has caused; the only fair and
economically rationale conclusion—fair for UK researchers, fair
for businesses and fair for taxpayers—is that we reassociate as
quickly as possible.
We must go further and faster, too, in welcoming overseas talent.
I hope that the meetings of the NSTC will be a forum in which
Ministers from the new department and the Department for
Education can bring home to their colleagues from the Home Office
the importance of welcoming scientists and technologists from
overseas. We heard from the Department for Education that they
are looking at bringing in overseas teachers to cover our lack of
teachers in areas such as physics and maths. They need to be
supported by a Home Office that makes that an easy and welcoming
process—which, we heard, is so clearly not the situation at the
moment. I hope that the NSTC will be a forum where these issues
can be debated, as the Minister has reminded us, in private.
Perhaps some heads will be knocked together; we will be listening
for the knocking.
We need to go further and faster in setting our targets for our
spend on and investment in R&D. It is not good enough to
chase the average level in the OECD: if we want to be a science
superpower, we need to be at leading levels. We are seeing huge
investments being made in the US, Europe and China, and we really
need to up our game. We need to be doing more on stability and
the long-term view.
As noble Lords have mentioned, we also need to go further and
faster in thinking about how we improve diversity in STEM and see
how that can help us with our STEM workforce shortage in many
areas. I have to gently admonish my noble friend for mentioning the outstanding
work of Watson and Crick but failing to mention the outstanding
work of Rosalind Franklin.
To conclude, it is a good start. We are pleased to see DSIT,
which will have a have a big challenge. It will have the support
of many people in this House in driving that challenge forward,
but we need to go further and faster.
Motion agreed.
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