Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Lord Borwick Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this Bill. I think it is a bold and exciting project. It takes pride in not being able to predict what it is that will come out of it and in truly giving the science a free hand to lead the way. As has been shown by the original ARIA—the American DARPA—really quite incredible technologies and products can be created in this sort of environment, not to mention in a very cost-effective way for the Government. As was evident in the DARPA challenges, much more money was spent by competitors investing in their individual offerings than the prize money offered by the Government to the winners. This saved the Government millions.

I have just a few comments to make. First, although I appreciate the advantages of accounting officers and responsibility being clearly laid down, the truth is that nobody knows what will come in the future. As I said a moment ago, an agency that can try things out to see if they will work is a very positive step for any R&D project. It is perfectly clear to me, however, from looking at the wording of this Bill, that this agency is more than usually dependent on the genius of the chairman and the chief executive. Because they are given such a free hand, they must be aware of their responsibility—as I am sure they will be—to achieve meaningful gains forward in R&D for UK plc.

There is a lot of money at stake in funding this programme. Taxpayers will rightly want bang for their buck, so it must not be allowed for the challenges set by ARIA to stray away from its serious scientific and technological funding roots. I am concerned that the Bill may not have futureproofed this concept securely. I somehow doubt that a chairman and a chief executive who are recruited after a successful career in the Civil Service will have the right abilities to make the most of this opportunity.

Secondly, the non-executives will be more than usually important in this agency and I therefore support what others will say, or have said, about making certain that they declare their conflicts of interests, if any; but whenever I have been a non-executive director of a business, I have learned many things. Will the non-executives be prohibited from co-investing in the bright ideas come across by ARIA? The sorts of people we want to see appointed as non-executives will be those who have successfully judged risks and are at ease with taking them. Many of these may be very wealthy individuals and they may be very much attracted to the opportunity of co-investing. Some funds that face this scenario run blind pools, where the non-executives may invest but not take any decisions to realise their investment or further invest. Others have a limit of up to, say, 15% of the investee company to be owned by the non-executives of the parent organisation.

All this would take careful thought, and I am sure that the Minister will consult with people who have run similar funds to ensure that robust structures on industry standards for this sort of safeguarding are explicitly set out in the framework for the relationship between ARIA and the department. Furthermore, although the Government chief scientist will be one of the non-executive directors—and that is wonderful—we do not yet know who the others will be. Can the Minister tell the House if he has any further information on this? How will the non-executive directors be chosen and screened? That is a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies.

Thirdly, Clause 2(4)(b), states that the conditions under which ARIA provides its support may include provisions under which property is to be restored. It is not clear to me as to whether that is real property, intellectual property, or both. Neither does it say what restored means, and to whom it is restored, or whether it is required to be physically restored or some other interpretation is permitted. Perhaps a government amendment to make this clear would be welcomed.

It will be important for ARIA not to duplicate projects that are perfectly well served by other agencies, just because they are fashionable. I can applaud the Earthshot Prize, but the range of subjects it covered should be enough to discourage ARIA from going for environmental matters, however important they are. Similarly, UKRI has great concentrations on various sectors, and I presume that those sectors are best covered as they are at present. This should not really restrict ARIA, because there are so many problems of a long-term nature. I would like to see prizes given out only for only scientific and physical inventions that are made in the UK. ARIA should not be the vehicle for rewarding individuals for thought or teaching, for example, however wonderful. Can the Minister give the House some clarity on this?

Finally, the Minister said that a framework will be provided for the relationship between ARIA and the department. As so often in legislation, the framework can actually be more important than anything else, but we are told that we are going to see it only after we have passed the legislation. Can we see the draft framework before the end of the passage of this Bill?

Overall, I am enthusiastic about this Bill, and look forward to the slight nips and tucks here and there that I believe are necessary to ensure that this agency has the best shot at being an effective catalyst to— hopefully—so many of the future’s brightest innovators and inventions.

Trade Bill

Lord Borwick Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borwick (Con) [V]]

My Lords, first, I declare my interests in trading companies, as listed in the register.

When I first opened the Bill, I wondered why much of it was necessary. It had never occurred to me that HMRC could not already do what is permitted under this Bill. Was this collection of data done anyway and then stopped? Surely the data collection was necessary to make the figures accurate. Clearly, HMRC has trouble with the regulations.

I have heard it said by business leaders that the GDPR is one of the most burdensome regulations that Parliament has produced. Business leaders are usually not very good at explaining which bits of regulations they would like to see changed, but almost all can say something bad about the details of the GDPR. I am glad that the Bill will remove some of that regulatory burden from HMRC and the Government. That is a good step in starting to remove the burden from business. Perhaps these clauses reveal excellent communication between HMRC and the department. HMRC has a problem; the Government step in and solve it. That is great. When will any department ask for the details of similar problems being dealt with by business and solve them? Regulations, like taxes, are costly and need to be reduced as soon as possible.

A few years ago in a debate about salesmanship, my noble friend Lord Grade gave a spellbinding speech about how salesmanship is undervalued by British business, and I agree with him completely. Furthermore, I suggest that trading ability is in the same category. Some historians argue that it was the 18th-century world traders rather than the 19th-century manufacturers who were responsible for the pre-eminence of the British economy up to the First World War. Whatever the merits of their trade, one can certainly admire their bravery in travelling all over the world without a way to get home in a hurry. Even nowadays, there is a large element of bravery and imagination in setting up a sales business, selling British goods to places that have not bought them before. However, these people are usually not helped by more legislation, and on the whole the British Parliament should do its best to ensure that they are hindered to the minimum extent. I think that the Bill achieves that, but the amendments talked about this afternoon would carry the ability to get in their way substantially.

The amendments debated and rejected in the other place will no doubt reappear here. No doubt they will be enthusiastically supported by a majority in our House, and no doubt they will be rejected all over again. The concept of trade democracy sounds seductive, but we would all agree that democracy produces uncertainty. Many noble Lords started their career in this House following the result of an uncertain election, but certainty and stability are important to a trader. The world is getting smaller, but it is certainly getting more complex and unpredictable.

For some years, I was lucky enough to be chief executive of a group of companies, one of which had the majority market share in the sale of bus doors to Hong Kong. Perhaps that dates me, as the idea of profitably sending a crate of glass and aluminium assemblies from Beverley in Yorkshire to Hong Kong is a bit unlikely, however skilled the workforce in my favourite factory was. But that trade was so extraordinary that it was difficult to explain, and certainly no Government were able or needed to help it. However, we had heroes ready to leap on to a plane to Hong Kong at no notice to solve a customer’s problem, and those sorts of diligent people are not those who have a great deal of time for politics. Traders trade despite regulations, not because of them, so I doubt very much that the sorts of amendments proposed for this Bill will be designed to increase trade between British companies and overseas customers.