Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-15
Topic: Technology
David Prior (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I find myself in complete agreement with the noble Baronesses, Lady Brown and Lady Young, my noble friend Lord Selborne, and the noble Lords, Lord Bhattacharyya, Lord Bilimoria and Lord Stevenson. All our sentiments are the same. To pick up on a phrase from the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, about the purpose of Innovate UK, if we were to sum it up in three words, which he did, they would be "productivity from research" When we discussed the first amendment today, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, talked about the serendipitous fruits that can sometimes spring from blue-sky basic research. The point of Innovate UK is to ensure that more of those fruits take root in the UK, rather than ending up in Silicon Valley or Israel, or in other countries which are frankly more innovative than we are. The whole purpose of UKRI in bringing together Innovate UK with the research councils is to create more fertile soil for some of the great ideas, technologies and research that come out of our universities In creating UKRI we are making something new, greater than the sum of its constituent parts. We are not merely bolting together nine separate bodies. To make this work the governance structures need to change, so we are introducing an overarching board in UKRI and a high-profile chair and chief executive. It is appropriate that the governance of the councils changes too to reflect this. We have been listening to debate on this for some time now, particularly the contributions on the role of the council chairs from the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, the noble Lord, Lord Mair—I know that he cannot be here today for other reasons—the noble Lord, Lord Broers, and my noble friend Lord Selborne. However, introducing a non-executive chair for the councils into these new lines of accountability would risk confusing accountabilities within UKRI and undermine its key strategic role. This would apply just as much to Innovate UK as to the other councils Although I can of course see the attraction of having a well-known leading industrialist as a non-executive chair of Innovate UK, it would not sit well within the governance structure of UKRI. I think it would fatally undermine the whole concept of UKRI. However, we acknowledge that chairs can play valuable roles outside direct lines of accountability, for example in giving support to the chief executive and acting as a route for high-level communication. We have already discussed the sensible suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Broers, that we give one member of each council the role of a senior independent member. We have given assurances that that will be done and we hope that it is adequate to address his concerns. The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, gave a good description of the important role that a senior independent member can play in these circumstances, without undermining the integrity of the governance structure of UKRI Amendment 166 also seeks to determine the background of a majority of Innovate UK’s council members. As was discussed in respect of UKRI board members in an earlier group, prescribing the background of members of councils in legislation would encroach on the freedom of UKRI and its councils to manage their own affairs and could be unhelpful in achieving the best possible mix of individuals at any one time. However, we agree with the sentiments expressed. In the case of Innovate UK, government would have a strong expectation, set through guidance, that a substantial proportion of members should have a science-related business background. Indeed, Innovate UK’s current board membership speaks for itself, with most of the council members having science and technology-related business backgrounds. In addition, the board contains much complementary experience of universities, finance, economics, consulting and government.