Science Research Funding in Universities (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a privilege to speak after my noble friend Lord Willetts, who is a source of wisdom, experience and intellectual authority. I strongly agree with him on the ODA point, having been a PPS at the ODA with my noble friend Lord Patten of Barnes when Geoffrey Howe was Foreign Secretary and it was part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In my opinion, it had a great deal of merit.

Let me congratulate most warmly the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the distinguished Science and Technology Committee. They add real authority and integrity to scientific debates in this place. I need to declare my interests. For the past 14 years I have been chancellor of the University of Hull, in which I take enormous pride. I took over from Lord Armstrong of Ilminster. For 30 years I have been a governor or an emeritus governor of the London School of Economics. For many years I was a pro-chancellor at Surrey.

Perhaps I should also declare that I have always been strongly under the influence of my noble and close kinsman, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton. All families have their snobberies. When I became a Cabinet Minister—I think only the eighth woman—my family members were pleased and congratulated me. But when the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, became a fellow of the Royal Society—the third in the family to do so—there was jubilation, waving of flags and massive celebration. It was evident that being a fellow of the Royal Society was very much more significant than being a Cabinet Minister—so there you go.

As has been said, this report was published a long time ago, and the response by the right honourable Chris Skidmore MP, again, was just on a year ago, and much has happened in that time. I hope that we can all still agree with the Minister’s closing points in his response then that the UK remains committed to creating mutually beneficial opportunities for research collaboration, including in our universities, with both our European and international partners.

Since then, as has been said, the tectonic plates have been shifting. Covid-19 has had a profound effect, but it has also generated a showcasing of the quality of British science, whether in research towards a vaccine or in providing critical recommendations for quarantining and lockdown. So I hope that it has reinforced the public and media appetite for promoting research and innovation.

A key theme of my early work was trying to make sure that the London teaching hospitals were closely related to the medical schools and their local universities. Each time the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, who was then rector of Imperial, made another step forward in his research or innovation programme, he would write and say that closing hospitals is never popular for a Minister, but that if I had not done it they would not have been able to make the progress that they had made. I took great comfort in this, and also at that time worked most happily with the chair of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Patel.

As a social scientist, let me continue to reinforce the importance of social science. The University of Hull is not one of the great, elite global universities but is always hugely committed to and serious about specific areas of research. It is world leading in applied health research, incorporating wider areas such as education, criminology and environmental sciences. Its insights are extraordinarily important in the development of policy formation. Hull, like so many others, has had an excellent track record in EU research. With others, I ask the Minister to update us on the Government’s ongoing discussions with the EU concerning Horizon 2020. It really has been the generator of a vast amount of research, innovation and collaboration.

Collaboration is the hallmark of the best research. Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, one of our most outstanding vice-chancellors, speaks in this month’s FST magazine about the importance of national and international collaboration, and I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Willetts for his work as chairman.

Finally, I will say that, along with the responses we await on many subjects, the noble Baroness had unkind things to say about Dr Augar. More important perhaps is Dame Shirley Pearce’s independent review of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework. She and her team were commissioned by the former Secretary of State. There has been no response whatever for more than a year. It was a tremendous report, with an ONS survey and expert committees. It has been a gross discourtesy not to respond for more than a year. As we make our plans to go forward, there are many encouraging signs and there is more to do. We need a coherent road map if we are indeed to become the scientific superpower that the Government claim is our aim.