Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Judd Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments raise important issues. I would like to bring to them my own perspective as pro chancellor of Lancaster University, not speaking for the institution but talking about how it strikes me that these issues concern us, thinking about the strength of the university sector in the north of England.

The fundamental problem with UKRI—on the whole I support the idea of UKRI, I hasten to add—is that the research and innovation strategy concerns the whole of the UK but the HEFCE functions on research are purely for England and are to be exercised by Research England. My fear about a board that, like that of the BBC, had a governor for each of the nations would be that the interests of England in such a body might not be as strong as they should be, and, in particular, that Research England and its funding might over time be marginalised as a result of the emphasis on the UK.

The funding for Research England is absolutely crucial to institutions such as my own. We are a top research university but not part of the golden triangle. We are in the north of England and we are quite small. So, because of scale, the ability to land big grants from the research councils is limited. A lot of our research success comes from the ability to do well in the research assessment exercise and get QR funding. If there were any reduction in the total of QR funding, that would hurt universities such as my own quite considerably.

I am concerned about the tension—it is in the nature of the beast, really, and we have to find a way of resolving it—between Research England, its Englishness and the need for that to be protected on the one hand and, on the other, the need, which I fully support, for a coherent UK research and innovation strategy. I am not sure that the best way of achieving it is by having, as it were, a governor for each of the nations of the UK. Indeed, if that were the Government’s response to this question, I would come back and say, “Well, can we please have a north of England member of UKRI?”.

I know that this sounds sectional, but the truth is that one of the strategic objectives that the Government have just put forward, in the very good industrial strategy paper that Greg Clark has presented, is to try to prevent the ever-greater concentration of research funding within the golden triangle. If we are going to have an effective regional resurgence, which I think there is cross-party consensus that we need in this country, universities will be at the heart of it. We have to find a way of making sure that other parts of England, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, have the opportunity to benefit from this welcome increase in research and innovation funding. To be frank, the risk with UKRI is that it will be dominated by the great and good of the science world, who will continue to channel most of the money into the golden triangle. I hope that the Government will take action to make sure that this is prevented.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, as somebody involved in the governance of Newcastle and Lancaster universities, I must say that in Lancaster we regard ourselves as extremely fortunate to have as pro chancellor my noble friend Lord Liddle. I was present at the meeting on Saturday when he made a terrific contribution and people listened with real sincerity to what he said.

There is a lot of importance in the point that the noble Lord just made about the north of England. If there is to be a regeneration in the north of England, the universities will be crucial to this. It is therefore essential that we ensure that we stop talking about regeneration in general terms and start doing concrete, specific, identifiable things to support that regeneration. This area is one that will obviously be crucial.

What attracted me to this particular amendment is that, as someone who is both a Scot and an Englishman—my mother and my brother were both at Scottish universities—I am very conscious of the high-powered and distinguished contribution that has been made by universities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It seems to me quite extraordinary that we should not as a matter of course say that that tradition and wealth of experience should be represented in the governing councils—as of right and as essential. That is very important.

If what I have been saying about regeneration in England is true, we are also these days discussing the need and importance of a greater sense of cohesive community in the devolved parts of the United Kingdom. We need to show that we are serious about this where it matters. The amendments help in that respect. It is very difficult to look at the Scottish universities, for example, and not see the whole story of the British industrial revolutions of the future. They have made profoundly important contributions, and continue to do so.

I do not know intimately, or so well, the story in Wales or Northern Ireland, except that I know that it is powerful. There is an area that is not central to our immediate considerations, but perhaps it should be. One of the things that I have always been struck by in Wales is that Aberystwyth was the first university in the United Kingdom to make the study of international relations and international affairs a recognised, serious degree and postgraduate subject. That has been terrifically important in our history.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for introducing the amendment, and I hope that the Minister will take it very seriously.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 502. Indeed, until I saw it I had been minded to submit a similar amendment myself. My desire is to ensure that Innovate UK receives appropriate funding and the amendment happens to fit that rather well.

I believe that while the distribution of money across the research councils should to a significant extent be determined by UKRI, the allocation to Innovate UK which, I remind noble Lords, is to benefit persons carrying on business in the United Kingdom and improving quality of life in the United Kingdom, as laid out in the Bill, should be determined by the Secretary of State, and then not interfered with. It is important to emphasise that this allocation cannot be altered by UKRI without the specific approval of Parliament, by means of a resolution of each House. The criteria used by Innovate UK to determine which projects to fund are of a completely different nature from those used by the research councils. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, mentioned this, and I shall mention it with other amendments; they are different from those used by the research councils to determine excellence in research in science, the arts and the humanities. While it is important that UKRI ensures that there are strong links between the research councils and Innovate UK, the allocation to Innovate UK should not be balanced against that to the research councils. It should be determined as a separate matter of national concern in consultation with industry and others by the Secretary of State.

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Finally, I would be very grateful if the Minister could take this opportunity to give us some clarification of how the Government see the role of UKRI in its function of overseeing postgraduate research students and part-time students. We have a tremendous group of institutions in this country, particularly Birkbeck, with which many noble Lords will be familiar, which is an outstanding institute that deals with part-time students. The Bill lacks clarity about the role of such institutions. I would be grateful if the Minister could make that clear. I beg to move.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, Amendment 485C is in my name. I want to follow the theme developed by my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn in the latter part of his remarks. This country needs strong industry and strong technology, which are vital to our future survival. The universities are indispensable in this respect. But the standing of our universities in the world, particularly universities with unrivalled reputations—I am proud to be involved in one, LSE—have those reputations because of the quality of their research. What has sometimes been most important in building up that reputation is exactly what my noble friend was talking about: the independence of that research. Within the vital indispensability of the applied research we do there is also a danger: that we lose perspective and the independent ability to judge what it all adds up to for the future well-being of our country.

It is no good trying to disguise the great concern that exists that in placing heavy emphasis on applied research and its vital needs, which we have debated this afternoon, the social sciences get weaker. It is absolutely indispensable for us to have firm guarantees from the Government that whatever arrangements are made, the social sciences will be guarded and protected, because within them are the people who see the consequences of developments as they take place. They see the wider social implications of what is happening. If we are talking about the well-being and viability of our society, their significance cannot be underrated. My amendment would simply add to this by saying that pure research matters, and we must emphasise it. In doing that, we must not become so mesmerised by the battle to survive in the immediate economic sense that we lose the perspective which is the guarantee of our future well-being as a nation.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, while I strongly support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn—the points he made were absolutely right and I hope the Minister will be able to address some of them—I would like to concentrate my remarks on Amendments 493, 494 and 495, which are in the names of my noble friend Lord Sharkey and I and the noble Lords, Lord Cameron of Dillington and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara.

In outlining the desirable functions of the research councils, Clause 89 is far too narrowly defined, particularly subsection (4)(a). Amendment 493 recognises the importance of resilience as a fundamental requirement for the UKRI landscape. While a significant amount of the research funded by research councils should rightly contribute to growth—and most certainly does—a significant amount of research council investment directly benefits the economy by avoiding cost, rather than increasing income. Both these funding objectives are important and contribute to the UK’s resilience. Equally, by retaining a broad scientific capability across the research councils, the UK retains the ability to be resilient when under threat or pressure.

In his earlier remarks on his amendments the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, stressed the importance of the arts and social science in this respect but the impact of other areas of science is equally important. Successive Governments have cut back on our national capability to generate scientific advice, and thereby resilience, by privatising government laboratories such as the government chemist, which is within LGC, the National Physical Laboratory and the Forensic Science Service, which was the last to go into 2012. I am not making a negative comment about privatisation, but once the Government could no longer rely on them for advice, an element of national resilience went at the same time.

Particularly since the mid-1990s, right across government, departmental resource for in-house science research has dropped dramatically. Since 2010 it has virtually disappeared from some departments, so it is a rather academic exercise to say whether it should be included within UKRI or elsewhere, because most of it has gone. The only way the Government can get a great deal of that hard scientific advice is, yes, through their own advisory services, but from the research councils. The need for the research councils to maintain capacity to train a body of scientists to carry out research on all manner of possible events—from avian flu to erupting volcanoes, from BSE to the El Niño effect—and to support the efforts of organisations such as the Met Office, the Antarctic service, Rothamsted and the Diamond accelerator has never been greater. It is the research councils which generally develop the skills at PhD and postgraduate level to supply those cadres.

Amendment 494 follows in a similar vein. Clause 89(4)(b) clearly recognises that research councils should have regard to the desirability of “improving quality of life”. It would be odd if they did not want that, which is clearly an essential element of government. This amendment would go much further by adding that research councils should support research activity that seeks to improve quality of life by seeking to enhance,

“social inclusion and community cohesion”.

When I wrote these amendments, I did not know how appropriate they would become as the threats to social inclusion and community cohesion, both here and abroad, become even greater. Using scientific research to make our lives simply better, rather than wealthier, seems an objective well worth pursuing.

However, Amendment 495 is in many ways the most significant in this small group. I hope that when he responds, the Minister will either accept this in its entirety or, if not, find a suitable set of words to convey the same meaning. A huge, although I believe unintended, consequence of the Bill, along with the emergence of UKRI as a new accounting body for UK science, is that the future success of UK science will be judged by its economic rather than its societal impact. Each should have parity of esteem. The principal role of fundamental or discovery science is to improve the nation’s science and knowledge base. Everything else flows from that, which should be an objective in its own right. While research councils must guard against their presumed inability to draw to an end certain funding lines of inquiry, we should never be so risk-averse that we do not try to fund risky ventures but always try to fund winners. Some of the greatest fundamental science had absolutely no outcome at the time it was developed, yet has proved incredibly powerful across the world.