Dawn Butler
MP for Brent East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I will call Michelle Welsh to move the motion; I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other hon. Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister.”
“The Prime Minister has hit the road running and is running into issues where action is long overdue. Following my six-year campaign to scrap “aim to permit”, I thank the Prime Minister for making that announcement over the summer.”
“He had been working for the council for 40 years and was looking forward to his retirement, but when it was time for retirement, he was told that because he was not legally here, he would not have access to his pension. I was absolutely stunned by that.”
“That has a profound effect, and the fact that it is not considered is unacceptable. People were sacked from their jobs and they did not get their promotions. Some people could not find places to live or to rent, and as I have mentioned, they did not get their pensions. All of this is unacceptable.”
“He was offered £10,000, but then was told that giving him that amount of money was a mistake, which has retraumatised him, and he is now showing signs of dementia. There are problems with requests for updates, and there is a lack of transparency and a lack of care. All of this is unacceptable. As my hon.”
“It is an absolute and wonderful pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and her beautiful tribute to the Windrush generation and her constituents.”
The complete record
Every one of 602 lines we hold for Dawn Butler, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 12 of 13.
“This has been one big experiment for this corrupt, authoritarian, racism-laden Government, and I am not scared of saying it like it is. The Government said we need to talk about class, so let us do it. Let us call out this toxic elitism once and for all. Byline Times , the Good Law Project, Novara Media, openDemocracy, Amnesty and Liberty have all exposed the Government, and the Government’s response is to spend public money defending the indefensible. It is funny how there is no money for NHS staff, yet £1 billion of covid contracts have been awarded to Conservative donors. We were told that Ministers were not involved, but then the Good Law Project exposed emails from the Prime Minister’s advisers and the Home Secretary, lobbying for money.”
“The last 18 months have been a tale of the good, the bad and the ugly. The good is that the people of Brent and elsewhere have joined together to form mutual aid groups, religions have come together to find common ground, and strangers are now firm friends. The bad is this Government’s catastrophic handling of the pandemic, the mixed messages, the corruption in plain sight, the authoritarian laws and the erosion of our democracy. And the ugly is that racism in society has reared its ugly head, spurred on by Government reports and the hyping up of the culture war and the war on woke. While the NHS was coping with 130,000 people dying from the pandemic, the Prime Minister was making his mates rich. Cronyism is rife and old chums are given jobs regardless of their skillset—and some a little bit on the side.”
“What would you rather, Madam Deputy Speaker, a weakened leg or a severed leg? At the end of the day, the Prime Minister has lied to this House time and time again. It is funny that we get in trouble in this place for calling out the lie rather than for lying.”
“Madam Deputy Speaker, I have reflected on my words. Somebody needs to tell the truth in this House that the Prime Minister has lied. The Deputy Speaker ordered Dawn Butler , Member for Brent Central, to withdraw immediately from the House during the remainder of the day’s sitting (Standing Order No. 43), and the Member withdrew accordingly.”
“I thank the Minister for that thoughtful response. The covid memorial wall is an iconic, organic work of art created by bereaved families, and it should not be removed or painted over. I hope that the Minister agrees that it should be a permanent memorial and that MPs should visit. I met Fran, whose husband died three weeks after they were married. She lovingly drew 2,000 hearts, and I dedicated one of those hearts to my uncle Buck, who died. I am, however, disappointed that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has yet to visit. I hope that the Minister will encourage all MPs to visit like he has done, and ensure that the memorial wall is permanent and that MPs speak to bereaved families.”
“I absolutely agree with the right hon. Lady about wanting to see ARIA be successful. She talked about scientists sitting around, having a chat and producing some papers but having no real impact. Does she agree that, given the way in which ARIA is currently set up, without any freedom of information requests being allowable, that could be the reality?”
“The UK Government have set the most ambitious climate change target, which is to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035. Would it not be ridiculous if ARIA were to pursue something that undid that good work?”
“Britain’s democracy belongs to all of us, not just the rich and the millionaires. We must take back control and defend our democracy.”
“The former Brexit Secretary, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), has said that this is a “solution in pursuit of a non-existent problem”. We are currently faced with a Government who seek power just so that they can give their mates millions of pounds of public money. The Government want to make millions for their mates while those who are just about managing have to go to food banks or are fired and then rehired on worse terms and conditions. This is not a fair way to live; it is unfair. We should be modernising voting and expanding the franchise. We should allow votes at 16, enable people to vote at train stations and other places of convenience and explore online voting. It is time to start including, not excluding, the electorate.”
“The public are not blind to this Government’s attempts to roll back democracy, and they are challenging them at every opportunity, whether it is the proroguing of Parliament so that a few Ministers can make decisions, or giving themselves Henry VIII powers to limit the powers of the courts, or even the recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which includes draconian powers on where, when and how people can protest. This Government have rolled back democracy at every step, but people have still been on the streets fighting them. And let us not forget the procurement contracts awarded without parliamentary oversight. This is all happening in plain sight, but be assured that, slowly but surely, we will take back control from this authoritarian nationalist Government. Even those on the Minister’s side of the House have spoken out.”
“On 6 August 2018, the UN stated in its report on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance: “Once they are in government, nationalist populists often deploy a range of tactics to disenfranchise groups…These might include, for example…imposing specific photo identification and other requirements that disproportionately exclude marginalized groups from voting.” It is clear for all to see that this Tory Government’s plans for voter ID will result in voter suppression, and it is incumbent on us as a country and as a Parliament to take back control.”
“This Queen’s Speech was supposed to be part of levelling up. Instead, I am sure that it has come as a shock to many that this Government are intent on destroying our democracy. In the time available to me, I want to focus on just one aspect of the Queen’s Speech, as highlighted by the United Nations.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely correct in her presentation: we fail to understand why ARIA is exempt from the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The Government are embroiled in the PPE and VIP lane scandals. It has been exposed that companies were put into the VIP lane by mistake—for example, PestFix was awarded £32 million. For ARIA to be exempted from any regulation risks this exploding to a larger extent with £800 million of public funds.”
“I beg to move amendment 5, in schedule 1, page 6, line 10 at end insert— “ Memorandum of understanding 2 (1) ARIA and UK Research and Innovation must prepare a memorandum of understanding. (2) The memorandum must set out how ARIA and UK Research and Innovation intend to co-operate with each other and avoid overlap between the exercise by ARIA of its functions and the exercise by UK Research and Invention of its functions. (3) The memorandum shall be reviewed on an annual basis and revised as necessary by agreement between ARIA and UK Research & Innovation.” This amendment would require ARIA and UKRI to prepare a memorandum of understanding setting out how they will collaborate and avoid overlap.”
“It is the wrong approach to say to people outside, “We are going to give £800 million to an organisation that will have no oversight, no FOI and no link to UKRI.” How would that be sensible, especially when—I say this gently—the Government are caught up in sleaze at the moment? That would not help at all. People will say, “You want £800 million to go to whom and to do what?” Ultimately, we know that men of a certain age get these opportunities, and these men tend to fail upwards. Without the amendment, we are saying that we will allow people to fail upwards and we will not know what they are doing because failure will be part of what ARIA is. We accept that failure can be a part of ARIA, but there needs to be some oversight and connection to the already established UKRI.”
“We in Parliament make laws and legislation; we do not leave things to happen naturally if we can we put them on the statute book. The amendment seeks only to have a memorandum of understanding between the already established UKRI and the newly established ARIA. If the Committee votes against the amendment, people outside will not understand. They will ask, “Why don’t you want a memorandum of understanding?” Everything cannot be done just on trust. We have trust and transparency, but right now ARIA has neither, and it will not be subject to freedom of information rules.”
“Dame Ottoline Leyser from UKRI said: “The people employed at ARIA will absolutely need to understand deeply what UKRI is doing and what the opportunities are across that research base in order to deliver their vision. I would expect a very close working relationship with ARIA to allow that to happen.” –– [ Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 6, Q3.] When she said that, I thought that the relationship must have been written in the legislation and I had missed something, because she said it as though it was going to happen. I went back to the Bill to have a look, but nothing in it says that UKRI and ARIA have to work together or at least know what each other is doing. I thought that quite strange. When I asked her how she expected that to happen, she said “naturally”.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I do not think anyone will vote against the amendment, because all it seeks to do is ensure that there is a memorandum of understanding between ARIA and UK Research and Innovation about how they will work together. The two organisations will be working on the same themes, though doing things slightly differently, and they need to communicate. I am happy to give way to anyone who thinks it is not a good idea that UKRI and ARIA communicate. The amendment is practical and sensible and seeks only to clarify how they would work together. Our evidence session was informative.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his service on the Science and Technology Committee, where we often agree and very often disagree. Of course we praise what goes well, but let us not forget that £14 million was spent on a test and trace system that was scrapped, or that Northern Ireland spent £1 million on a test and trace system that works perfectly well. Let us not forget those facts. Now, we are talking about £800 million. Professor Pierre Azoulay said, “It is important not to put those two agencies in competition; they both have a role to play.”—[ Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Second sitting), 14 April 2021; c. 46] Both agencies have a role to play; let them work together. Let us work on the premise that it will be a success.”
“I think the Minister has just described an MOU. A framework document that is agreed by UKRI and ARIA, not by the Government, is an MOU, I believe.”
“The Government are creating a new agency and spending £800 million. They are saying that this new agency should not be subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. They are saying that it will fail, a lot, and we need to accept that failure happens in science. That is fine—I used to be a computer programmer, and I know that sometimes you try things and they do not work—but this is very new. We should not put it in a silo by itself, with no proper link to UKRI. I do not believe the hon. Member believes that there will be no link, because the Minister has just described this document as a memorandum of understanding by another name. I do not think there are actually any disagreements about having the memorandum of understanding.”
“My hon. Friend makes a very valid and powerful point. There are ongoing investigations—Greensill, PestFix and VIP lanes. Let us avoid such accusations by agreeing a memorandum of understanding between ARIA and UKRI. Let people not question the role of ARIA: we are expecting the public to accept failure as an essential part of ARIA, and they are going to accept failure. Let the public understand that there will be some link to UKRI, which is an established agency.”
“Amendment 6 talks about making “the CEO of UKRI a non-executive member of ARIA in order to achieve greater collaboration and communication between the two bodies.” What is wrong with having greater collaboration between UKRI and ARIA? I do not understand. Nobody has yet stood up to tell me why there is a problem with having collaboration between UKRI and ARIA. None of the Members that have spoken has given a reason why there should not be collaboration between the two. ARIA can still go off and do its thing, and fail away, but it needs to know what UKRI is doing. What is the problem? Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“I was almost with the hon. Lady up until the £14 million. At the end of the day, Northern Ireland spent £1 million on a test and trace system that worked. I could have programmed a test and trace system—it might have taken me a few years, but I could have done it—for a lot less. It is unacceptable to spend £14 million on a test and trace system that failed and had to be scrapped. It is shocking for the hon. Lady to stand up and even consider that to be a defence. A memorandum of understanding does not restrict anybody. A memorandum of understanding is exactly that: a memorandum of understanding. The hon. Lady talked about the CEO of UKRI.”
“I thank the hon. Member for her informative contribution, which I have found fascinating. It is great that UKRI has that diversity on its board without it being mandated—I would suggest that that is another reason why ARIA and UKRI need to have a memorandum of understanding. Is it not important that there is some communication if that diversity is going to be taken into consideration? As the hon. Member says, if it is not mandated, we are just relying on good faith.”
“Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme says that people outside may be thinking about sleaze because of what the Opposition are doing. I disagree. They are understanding sleaze because of what the Government are doing, what the Good Law Project is doing in taking the Government to court and what Byline Times and other investigative journalists are doing in highlighting the cronyism and corruption. If the Bill is to go through, we need to ensure that those allegations are not levelled at it, because we do not want sleaze in science. That is the last thing we need.”
“The Government are going to extraordinary lengths to avoid scrutiny. We have seen that time and again, from the closing down of Parliament to awarding themselves Henry VIII powers. The Science and Technology Committee, on which I and the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme sit, is a good Committee that comes up with good results. We are, in the main, collegiate and work together in the name of science and its progress. It is not unusual for appointments to flow through the Science and Technology Committee—that is how Parliament works—so the amendment is not asking for something extraordinary. It is saying, “Let’s continue what we do in Parliament on scrutiny and oversight.” I fail to understand why the Government are so opposed to any form of scrutiny on ARIA. The hon.”
“As a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I can say with almost absolute certainty that its Chair would be in favour of having a say in who becomes the CEO of ARIA.”
“Should we not be proud as a Committee to say that ARIA will achieve net zero in whatever project it pursues? That is essentially working on the edge of the edge—looking at forward technology, ensuring that we save the planet and ensuring that we do not add to the erosion of the ozone layer—so is it not progressive and transformative to set a parameter around net zero?”
“This is gaslighting on a national scale. “The New Age of Empire”, page 95, tells us exactly what is happening. On page 103, “This is Why I Resist”, by Dr Shola, explains about racial gatekeepers, which Musa Okwonga from Byline Times talks about. My question to the Minister is this. The Government briefed a clear message well in advance of this report landing. Why did they do that?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister has a responsibility to Parliament to answer the question. The Minister has given a statement, and she is supposed to answer the question. She has not answered this question.”
“One does not want to bog down the governance structures for a light, agile and out-there organisation with representative requirements. As I have said before, active and engaged communication is going to be essential for ARIA, because it needs to understand the breadth of opportunity in the system to work well. It will be in everybody’s interest for those activities to work well. Because of that, they will happen naturally, in the same way that I spend a lot of time talking with other funders of research and innovation already in the public and private sectors.”
“I spend a lot of my time talking to people who run other agencies—for example, in the charity sector and those who run R&D activities in businesses— connecting them up, understanding what people’s needs are, what the opportunities are and building the joined-up system I have talked of about before. So I think the personal relationships are going to be almost as important as anything that one can write into legislation. None the less, possible tools for connection, such as seats on each other’s boards, are certainly worth considering, as is observer-type status, rather than formal status, given that high-quality boards tend to be small. Our board worked really well where people were not representative but bringing their skills and expertise round the table.”
“Q Dame Ottoline, you said earlier that you expect a close working relationship with ARIA. What does that actually look like? Legislatively, what should that look like? Professor Leyser: It is an interesting question as to the extent to which that needs to be written into legislation. In my experience, the kinds of relationship that one wants to have with key players across the system are not things for which you necessarily legislate. They are about maintaining open lines of communication and building high-quality personal relationships with different actors in the system. There are a lot of players in the R&D system.”
“I agree with you that there needs to be a close working relationship. I do not think we can count on it happening naturally. I have two quick questions, if I may, Ms McVey?”
“But at the moment, we work on a largely open-call process; it is really effective because it is completely open, but it none the less creates barriers for people who do not have the infrastructure and administrative support to help them submit those kinds of grant applications.”
“Q It was a quick one on why UKRI cannot access the innovators of tomorrow—the people coding at home. I did not understand what was stopping UKRI doing that? Professor Leyser: At the moment, most of our funding opportunities require people to apply for a research grant. People coding at home have a hard time applying for research grants, because it is a system with financial checks and so on. Applying for a research grant is a non-trivial activity, whereas winning a research prize, where there is no application process and you just get on with it, is doable. We are very interested in that wider range of funding mechanisms and in how we can learn from the work of Nesta, and, in the future, the work of ARIA to reach a wider range of people.”
“Then, when proposals come in—we are very clear on what we expect to see in a proposal, which is how we then evaluate proposals; we are very transparent on the requirements for that—we take a look and, surprisingly often, to respond to your point, you will find a technology or a small business had an idea that meets the goal. We do not over-engineer the request for proposals. We say, “Here’s what we want to do. Here are the boundaries, if you like, in terms of technical elements we are interested in. It’s up to you guys. Come back with the best team that you can and the best approach that you can for solving this.” And there is always a surprise. From a PM perspective—Regina and I have both been PMs at DARPA—you always find yourself saying, “Oh, I didn’t think of that. That may be the one that actually wins; we don’t know.””
“A programme manager has framed a programme, using the Heilmeier questions, and received approval to launch. They put out various announcements in different places. They organise industry days—these are more virtual than in person, but we do both. We put it into the various mailing lists in all manner of technical communities. We push it out through small business and make sure the universities and the vice-presidents for research and development are all aware. We make the maximum push that we can, certainly for unclassified activities.”
“Q It is great to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Cummins. Thank you very much to the witnesses today. It is very enlightening. On the back of the last question with regard to managerial content I really like the idea that the transition is an impact or contact sport. You go in, do your best work and get out with your reputation intact. I have two questions about that. First, how do you reach those people who are not known—who may be working on something very creative but are not well known in the industry? Secondly, you have talked a lot about evaluations. Are they peer-to-peer evaluations, and is that evaluation transparent? Perhaps we will go to Dr Highnam first. Dr Highnam: We do—I am very proud of this—full and open competition to the greatest extent possible. The process is approximately like this.”
“I can see Professor Azoulay nodding. Dr Highnam: On your second point, about transparency, we have, again, very rigorous processes. These are all fully documented, and feedback is provided in order to engender better proposals next time from those who happen to be unsuccessful in a particular programme.”
“There are practices and principles that we use here. We can write down some of the rules that we use and give you some elements of the playbook, but there is here a certain mastery of practice and principle that it is necessary to understand, and in that respect the programme construction is fair and equitable but also designed to take the elements of the proposer’s work that most substantively contribute to the goal, even if they are potentially high-risk. That is how you construct a programme that is optimised for breakthroughs.”
“Great—thank you. Dr Dugan, I saw you nodding as well. Dr Dugan: If we want to get down to some specifics, I think it is important to recognise that the evaluation process for us is very much about separating the abstracts or the proposals into two baskets: those that are responsive to the call and could potentially help us to meet the goal; and those that are not. But it is not an explicit, peer-reviewed consensus rank ordering of those proposals, and the reason why we do not do it that way is that rank ordering tends to favour the most conservative of the proposals. What we seek instead is to take those that could contribute to the goal and, from them, construct a programme, with the appropriate pieces, the right risk profile and the right disciplines and mix of organisations, to achieve the goal. In this respect, I want to be clear.”
“Of course, there is a perfectly legitimate debate about the relative levels of funding, but they would both be doing things that are tremendously important and that would complement each other in the long run.”
“Q My final question is to you all. How important do you think the link should be between ARIA and UKRI in the UK? Perhaps we will start with Professor Azoulay, because you have read the Bill very carefully. Professor Azoulay: I think that those two modes of funding are complements, not substitutes. It is very important to have an ecosystem of funding. In the US, we are blessed with a very diverse ecosystem. Lots of domains, such as health—there are many, such as agriculture—in some sense are missing the ARPA-like elements, when they have a lot of those other elements. It is important not to put those two agencies in competition; they both have a role to play.”
“It is very important to understand those things and in appropriate measure. Just to give you a sense of it, DARPA has operated with about 0.5% of the DOD budget for its entire 60-plus-year history. Small investments, relatively speaking, in these breakthrough-focused activities can make a big difference.”
“Thank you. Dr Dugan? Dr Dugan: Pierre makes a very good point. These are important elements of a robust and functioning ecosystem. We talked about the advances in mRNA, which have been so important in the corona pandemic. That relied on basic science, curiosity-driven research that happened mostly through NIH, pivotal investments in this breakthrough mode, this Pasteur’s quadrant style of work that DARPA is famous for, and also the private sector, which was instrumental in bringing it to scale, use and impact. To Pierre’s point, these things have to fit together in order to create the breakthroughs—that is the innovation gap that is often filled by an ARPA-like organisation—but you must have a foundation of science from which to draw and you must have a mechanism of transitioning to scale, if all of it is going to make sense in impact.”
“Parliament has a chance today, and the country will have an opportunity to take back control on 6 May when people vote Labour at the ballot box. Some 126,000 lives of loved ones have been lost due to this pandemic. If we cannot learn the lessons from this, when will we learn the lessons?”
“Less than 5% are from the Coronavirus Act, so that legislation is quite literally not fit for purpose. That is why we need the Coronavirus (No. 2) Bill. It would protect disabled people and ensure proper sick pay so that people would not have to choose between spreading the virus and staying at home. It would protect those in rented accommodation. It is an efficient Bill. It has been said that nobody is safe until everybody is safe, so let us make everybody safe. We do not have to cling to the draconian blanket of the Act just because it is there. My plea to Parliament is: let us take back control and vote against this Bill. My plea to the country is: let us stop allowing this Government to gaslight us, and let us show the Government that we care and that we want to build back better coming out of this pandemic.”
“Today Parliament is voting on a piece of legislation that has failed us on so many different levels, even though Ministers have decided that they are going to get rid of some bits of it. It is not good enough; that is Parliament’s job. Worryingly, through cronyism we are seeing the greatest transfer of wealth from ordinary working people and independent businesses into the hands of corporations and multi-millionaires—some old and some newly made. All this is happening at a time when the most vulnerable, those most in need of help and those most in need of support and praise, such as the NHS, have been left out in the cold. That is why I am proposing a new approach—one that is more in line with where we are now and where we are going. Most powers that have been used to enforce coronavirus rules have their origins in other legislation.”