← LEADERSHIP TERMINAL

UK PARLIAMENT · SITTING

Daniel Zeichner

MP for Cambridge · Labour · United Kingdom

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

I recall, as a shadow Minister, visiting a major institution in the country and sending the management into panic when I asked them where the bus stop was to get back to the station.

BUS STOPS · 2026-09-09 · READ IN HANSARD

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the location of bus stops. I am so frustrated when I have taken the train to Cambridge, arrive at the station, see the bus, but have to walk 200 yards around the platform, come out of the station and walk 200 yards back to the bus stop, to find the bus has gone.

BUS STOPS · 2026-09-09 · READ IN HANSARD

Devolution and local government reorganisation are different things. To be honest, they should probably be considered separately, but they have become so interlinked and intertwined in this debate that it is impossible to do so. If we are to have a stronger devolution settlement, it is right to spend more time getting it right.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT REORGANISATION · 2026-09-07 · READ IN HANSARD

I commend the Secretary of State and his team for their determination and resolve in the transfer to renewables. In the extraordinary and unprecedented weather that we are having at the moment I can assure the House that some shade would be really welcome in parts of the east of England.

AGRIVOLTAICS · 2026-07-07 · READ IN HANSARD

I commend all the hard work that has gone into both the road map and the profitability review by the civil servants, the ministerial team and so many people across the sector, including Baroness Batters.

FARMING ROAD MAP AND PROFITABILITY REVIEW · 2026-06-24 · READ IN HANSARD

On that point about speculative building, I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is probably not a fan of big, bold projects of this kind, but does he agree that there is a very good example just down the road in Cambridge?

FOREST CITY: WEST SUFFOLK · 2026-06-23 · READ IN HANSARD

The complete record

Every one of 5,991 lines we hold for Daniel Zeichner, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 57 of 120.

  1. I have learned something this morning. I too was a computer programmer. I hope my hon. Friend was a better programmer than I was—I worry about the code that I left for others. On whether it is better to have it in the legislation, which is the point raised by the hon. Member for Broadland, does it strike my hon. Friend as odd, particularly at a time when the Government are under such scrutiny for relaxed arrangements involving texts, WhatsApp and all the rest of it? Is that not exactly the reason it should be put in legislation—so that it is clear for everybody?

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (THIRD SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  2. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a fundamental issue. There is a real problem particularly around design, as Caroline Criado Perez identified in her book “Invisible Women: Exposing data bias in a world designed for men”—some of us attended the book launch here a couple of years ago. Extraordinarily, she pointed out that a swathe of design was done without women in mind at all, so crash tests and so on do not work because they are tested on the wrong people. That reflects the danger of having a board without a wide range of people. I read somewhere the other day that the armed forces in some country had only just discovered that women require different underwear from men. There is a blinds pot here, and it goes back to blokes in sheds I am afraid.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (THIRD SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  3. Surely there is a fundamental point here about the relationship between Government and Parliament, and exactly the same point could be made about every single kind of appointment. This is a power grab by Government. The Science and Technology Committee would behave perfectly properly in making any kind of assessment. Why are the Government attacking Parliament in this way?

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (THIRD SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  4. This is an opportunity; we can help spare the Government future embarrassment. Quite frankly, if we have this set of out-there people running the organisation and they then choose to appoint someone highly controversial, it could be extremely embarrassing. I remember occasions when Labour Secretaries of State had difficulties with scientific advisers. These are controversial areas, and I can foresee an extremely difficult situation. Without an ability to intervene, where does it lead?

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  5. That is the truth, and that is why we are in the current situation. In the evidence session with the Americans, I was very struck at one point when we were pressing them on how they avoided conflicts of interest. Their response was a kind of American swelling of patriotic pride, as they said that they would not do that because it would somehow harm the American dream. [Interruption.] Exactly. People in Britain are different; it is not that we are not proud of our country or patriotic, but I would say that our patriotism is different from theirs.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  6. It is a pleasure to be part of a Committee that you are chairing, Mrs Cummins. I fully endorse what my hon. Friend has said about the amendment. In fact, she has pretty much said it all, but there are one or two points that I want to add. We are considering a profound set of issues. The evidence sessions showed some fundamental differences in culture between our country and the Americans, and it is their example on which we are largely modelling our initiative. To some extent it goes to the problem that we are facing as a country at the moment. For a long time, we rather considered ourselves not to be prey to such conflicts; we had a British way of doing it. Procedures were not necessarily written down, but there were understandings and people behaved properly. The sad truth is that over the past 20 to 30 years, somewhere that changed.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  7. It will require some really innovative work from social scientists to understand how that will work.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  8. My hon. Friend has touched on a very important point. It was something that I tried to draw out in some of the evidence sessions. I would point Members to an excellent book written a few years ago by Lord Sainsbury, an esteemed former science Minister. He talked about the differences in culture between Europe, America and the UK, and warned against just trying to transpose one system to another, unless one really understood the cultural context. We have not mentioned it so far today, as it has very much been about natural sciences and perhaps, mea culpa, engineering at the beginning, but the social sciences may be biggest challenge of all. That was touched on at one point in the evidence sessions when one of the witnesses said it is not just a matter of the technologies, but public acceptance and understanding of them.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  9. It should tell people what is going on and where it is putting its resources. If it is not working in the first few years, that would give us the opportunity to intervene and make a change.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  10. The discussion seems to have been going on for years and years—certainly for as long as I have been in this place, and long before that. There is this hope that through the clustering effects we can do much better than we already do, and we look to examples in other parts of the world to see how it is done. The reason I support this amendment is that this is not simple or easy. There have been many attempts to spread the Cambridge cluster effect. In fact, ironically, it often seems to cluster more and more in particular bits of Cambridge. It is very hard to get people to go to other places, but that is what we want to try to encourage. One of the ways in which we will do that is by having the data and the information. This is a great opportunity for ARIA to be mindful of that in its report. It is not a difficult thing to do.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  11. I feel passionately about this issue because I represent a part of the country that often comes in for criticism, in the sense that some people, even some of my colleagues, say to me, “You’ve already got everything—you shouldn’t be getting any more.” This is a complex argument. If some areas have a long tradition of doing well and competing internationally, we can hardly deny them the resources to carry on with their work. However, we are painfully aware that there is a danger of overheating in some parts of the country. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for the UK’s innovation corridor, which is, essentially, London-Stanstead-Cambridge, and there is much discussion at the moment about the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford arc—the so-called golden triangle.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  12. We could do one small thing today—and I really do not see how it would be difficult for the Government to concede. I do not know how many Bill Committees I have been on—I have never yet had any success, although I live in hope. I make this plea, however, because I really do not see how the concession could be that painful.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  13. That is absolutely right. One of the many tragedies of the last 10 or 15 years has been the fact that strong attempts by the last Labour Government to have a positive regional policy were swept away. Vince Cable, I think, described the destruction of the regional structures in 2010 as positively Maoist. Astonishingly, Lord Heseltine later came to Cambridge to bang the drum for regionalism outside the very offices that had been shut by his own Government a few months earlier. We do not have a good record on regional policy in this country. We need to do better in future, for everybody’s benefit. Frankly, my city can do without the overheated house prices and the problems that come with everything being clustered in one place. It would be good for us, but also for everybody else, to get more balanced economic growth across the country.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  14. I want to put in a word for taxi drivers, actually, because what was said earlier was slightly unfair. I am quite happy that taxi drivers are scrutinised—and members of the ARIA board. I also do not want to be in any way disrespectful to primary schools, but really? Do not place the future of the agency in the hands of the legacy of Dominic Cummings.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  15. A big one is: how is an advanced country like ours not able to lag a few lofts? We have had 10 years of failure in these schemes, with one scheme under the coalition, and the latest scheme from the Government collapsing a few months ago. It is extraordinary when we know that one of the biggest problems is the state of our housing stock, yet we cannot seem to find a way to run a scheme to improve it. That challenge would fall very much within the scope of our amendment. We want this to succeed. Finally, I cannot help but refer to the extraordinary document that Dominic Cummings waved at the Committee. I could not see it on the TV screens, so I went and printed it off. I will hold it up. I do not know if anyone has seen it, but this is primary school standard.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  16. The second point, which follows, is that if we are to choose something, what should we choose? Witnesses pointed out that there a number of choices. Unsurprisingly, climate change came up on a number of occasions, as it is obvious we should seek to address it. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central has made all the points on that. We have an extraordinary situation in that we have COP26 coming up in a few months. Would it not be wonderful if we had this new agency established to address those huge challenges? I fear we are not going to have it, though. We might have the agency and someone sitting around scratching their head saying, “What shall we do today?” when it is entirely obvious what they should be doing. As I said earlier, we could have some social science challenges.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  17. The Americans made it absolutely clear that if we want to do something like they have, that is the way to do it. The Government seem to be completely confused about whether they want to learn from examples elsewhere, or do something very different—although they are offering no evidence as to why that should work; sadly, we have seen examples in the past of attempts to do this kind of thing that have not worked. If we are going to learn from the examples elsewhere, surely we have to listen to the people who know how they work. I am at a loss to understand why the Government are not listening to the advice. The first point to make about the amendment is whether to have a mission or not. Do we do it in the way that might work? It is clear that we have to.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  18. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend, who has made a strong case. This issue goes to the heart of the discussion we have been having all day and goes back to some of the comments I made in my opening remarks. We were castigated earlier for talking too much about Mr Cummings. I say that we must cast off the curse of Cummings. I thought the Government had moved on—they got rid of him—but the Bill still has all his hallmarks. The chaos and confusion that he espouses—his raison d’être—will make this agency fail. That is the problem. I encourage the Government to move past it. The evidence from the witnesses all the way through was about the confusion. I understand Marina Mazzucato is advising the Government. She made it ever so clear that ARIA will only work if there is a clear mission.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  19. And I am eternally grateful, because that is where I found it. I must say that I was still surprised, because it looks to me more like something that came out of “Star Trek” many years ago.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FOURTH SITTING) · 2021-04-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  20. If not, I fear there will be an empty chair, perhaps occupied by a bottle of wine wrapped in red tape, or even red, white and blue tape. We do not oppose the statutory instrument but we are cross about the Government’s continuing failure to engage.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  21. As a minimum, it would be far more sensible for the Government to delay the introduction of the forms until an electronic version can be established, but the British wine industry is clear that it would be far better to scrap the unnecessary forms. It is entirely within the Government’s gift to do that. The Government have a perfect opportunity to put their money where their money is, scrap the red tape and support British businesses. Will the Minister explain why on earth they are choosing not to do so when they have been given the chance—a Brexit benefit, no less? Will the Minister commit today to meet me and the Wine and Spirit Trade Association at the earliest opportunity to discuss the issue further?

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  22. The only explanation for the Government’s action—Lord Moynihan made the point powerfully—is that it is a negotiating ploy in ongoing trade negotiations with third countries. I am sure that the Minister will deny it, but in my view, the Government are using the British wine industry and particularly British small businesses as pawns in a bigger trade game and happily leaving them endure extra bureaucracy just for extra leverage. Small wonder that Ministers are so reluctant to respond to the sector’s concerns. I am told that repeated requests from the Wine and Spirit Trade Association for a meeting to discuss the issue have been ignored. At a time when the Government are already having to delay the introduction of mandatory customs procedures, it makes no sense to introduce additional controls if they are non-essential.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  23. I am reliably informed by the Wine and Spirit Trade Association that the supply chain for wine imported from third countries thousands of miles away, often moved in bulk, is very different from the supply chain for wine imported from the EU, which is often imported by SMEs. Importing 25,000 litres of Australian wine in a flexitank with one VI-1 form is much less burdensome and costly than importing 20 wines in bottles from the EU that require 20 additional pieces of documentation. Rather than imposing a requirement on all imports, the Government could just as easily create a level playing field by not introducing a requirement for import certificates for EU wines and scrapping the current requirements for non-EU wine imports.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  24. Wine is already heavily regulated by rules such as the geographical indications to ensure quality control and no other alcoholic drink requires a similar form, so will the Minister clarify the Government’s practical reasons for introducing the forms? If there is no real consumer protection purpose for them, the Government must have another reason for their introduction. I understand that it has been suggested that maintaining wine import certification rules will level the playing field for wine from the rest of the world. I am sure that the Minister recognises that there are two different scenarios here.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  25. Daniel Lambert, who will probably be well known to the Minister and who imports up to 2 million bottles of wine a year for 300 retailers including supermarkets, has been vocal in the media about the situation he now finds himself in due to the Government’s decisions. He has likened the impact on the sector to a “multiple pile-up in the fog”. He is not happy and neither are others. Yet again we see the Government’s incompetent Brexit deal wrapping ribbons of red tape around the UK’s wine sector for no good reason whatever. As the Minister said, the Wine and Spirit Trade Association has been clear that, as far as it can tell, the additional bureaucracy is unnecessary. There is no customs requirement for it and no safety issue involved.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  26. Yet the Government seen happy to wrap these vibrant industries in blue tape. These forms are a measure that will be significantly damaging to our UK wine importers, who already have to deal with a raft of new barriers to trade as a result of leaving the EU. It will disproportionately damage SMEs, particularly independent wine merchants like Cambridge Wine Merchants in my constituency, as well as pubs, bars and restaurants, for which a wide selection of niche and interesting wines is a unique selling point. It will be damaging to UK consumers, who could see cost increases and decreased product choice, and to the Government themselves, who could see a loss of revenue to the Exchequer and are committing themselves to carrying out yet more form stamping at the border due to the customs stamp requirement.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  27. For the UK, which is a net importer of wine, it makes very little sense for us to maintain rules designed to disadvantage our imports; we import over 99% of the wine we consume in this country, and around half those imports are from the EU. As I said, we want our own wonderful wine industry to flourish and grow—there are great English and Welsh wines produced in this country, which is why we support the correction to ensure that geographical indications work properly. In terms of volume, however, we remain a significant importer. The Minister will know that we also have a vibrant export industry based on this trade, with the UK acting as a major wine hub for the rest of the world and wine being our sixth biggest food and drink export in 2019. So this is important.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  28. While a slightly simpler version of the VI-1 form has been negotiated in the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement for wine imports from the EU, this still requires a customs stamp, which will delay transit through ports and place a significant burden on our importers. The Government have delayed the introduction of these new forms twice, but as it stands they are still going to be introduced at the end of the year. The British wine industry is quite frankly at a loss to understand why the Government are so set on introducing this import documentation at all. The EU’s rationale for having an import document that is effectively a technical barrier to trade is, in reality, to protect its wine industry.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  29. I shall briefly remind the Committee of the issue, which is about wine import certification and the blue tape with which the Government are currently strangling parts of the British wine industry. The Government have chosen to roll over EU rules on wine imports that require a detailed import certificate in addition to standard customs paperwork, the VI-1 form, for all wine imports from third countries. These detail how strong a wine is, what grape it is made from and how many containers are being sent. Each different type of wine in a consignment must list all these details and the form requires a stamp from customs officials, presenting a significant logistical challenge and cost burden for wine importers in the UK.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  30. I should also like to note the importance of geographical indications in general, and for our domestic wine industry, which we all wish to see go from strength to strength. I can assure you, Mr Hollobone, that the Opposition will not oppose the instrument, but—of course there is always a “but”—there is an issue on which I will be slightly less gracious, on which we have touched before when SIs relating to wine are discussed, and which I suspect that the Minister may have anticipated. The VI-1 may sound like a horrible warhead, but it is actually a horrible form, and it is exercising many people. It was the main issue raised when the SI went before the Lords last week. I certainly found Lord Moynihan’s contribution very telling and powerful.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  31. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I hope that I will not need to take us to 6 o’clock, because at first sight the Committee is considering a simple change correcting a previous error, which the Minister has elegantly explained and for which no apology is required. An honest mistake was made, but it was spotted and corrected. I have to say that I am rather pleased that I was not involved with the previous SI. Looking at paragraph 7.1 of the explanatory notes, it is clear that there is no way that many of us would have noticed the issue. As I have observed before, there is a huge level of complexity and detail in these regulations that, frankly, most of us do not have the capacity to work through. We are very reliant on civil servants and grateful to them for doing that.

    COMMON ORGANISATION OF THE MARKETS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (WINE) (AMENDMENT, ETC.) REGULATIONS 2021 · 2021-04-19 · READ IN HANSARD

  32. May I ask the Secretary of State if she understands the frustration of the Cheshire Cheese Company, whose co-founder, I understand, spoke to officials in her Department before Easter about the problems that they are facing exporting to the EU? Extraordinarily, instead of being given advice on how to fix the problem, they were advised to look for other emerging markets. Given the Secretary of State’s infamous passion for cheese, will she tell us whether her departmental officials could not have done better?

    TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2021-04-15 · READ IN HANSARD

  33. We all understand the need for caution, but we have heard that the problem seems to be about the formation of new households and so on. May I urge the Minister to talk to universities, because not all universities are the same? The timings of terms and the patterns of accommodation are not all the same. Rather than have this fixed, hard “No, it can’t be done until 17 May”, can we not try to look for some solutions? Will she talk to Universities UK about what can be done to help?

    UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: COMPENSATION FOR LOST TEACHING AND RENT · 2021-04-15 · READ IN HANSARD

  34. It is a lot of money, but it is how we are going to re-establish that stable, more productive economy that we need to fuel and to fund all the kinds of underlying public services, and so on, on which the country depends, so I think it would be a really wise investment. I am avoiding the question, because I would rather focus on driving up that investment in R&D than work on the pessimistic assumption that it is not going to happen and therefore that we are going to have to be more conservative in our approach to R&D investment than is optimal for building that overall high-quality system that we need for the UK.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  35. Having said that, the opportunity thrown up by the pandemic and the instabilities put into the system as a result of the extraordinary circumstances make now an extremely good time to invest in that R&D-led recovery and to build that inclusive knowledge economy that I have mentioned several times, which creates long-term, sustainable, high-quality jobs right across the country for everybody. In terms of taking that chance to invest in R&D—to reach 2.4% and beyond—and having the £22 billion public sector investment that has been discussed, now is the moment to do that. That is a really sound investment for the future.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  36. Q Thank you, Chair. It is a pleasure to be on this Committee. I will be brief. Good morning, Dame Ottoline. I would like to pursue the funding question. Governments have long had aspirations to raise the level of R&D, but it proves incredibly difficult to do under pressure of circumstances. Things seem to have changed, in the sense that over the last few months we have seen considerable pressures on UKRI budgets and ongoing uncertainty about the cost of being part of the Horizon programme. Given that there is lots of uncertainty, if you had £800 million to spend in the coming period, would you spend it on this? Professor Leyser: That is an excellent question. Clearly, the economic circumstances of the pandemic have made the choices the Government have to make about where to spend the money extremely challenging.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  37. If you want evidence, it is that the Americans have done that with ARPA and have been really successful at it. We have not had one. I will use that as the evidence.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  38. A lot of what happens in academia, for perfectly good reasons, is to move things to some low-level prototype at most. There is often a lack of the kind of engineering that companies are required to do. That is not to wave a finger at academia—that is not what it is there to do. You need to do things differently when you are in industry. There is a role to be played by a group that can do those two things very well. Industry also does not necessarily do everything as well as one would like. There are exemplars where everything gets done very well, I hasten to add. It is absolutely possible, as Professor Mazzucato put very well, to link applied research to develop things and to bring in deep expertise when you need it. We can do more of that, and I think this can be an exemplar of a good way of doing it.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  39. Professor Bond: I was asked, what evidence is there of issues in UK R&D to which ARIA is a solution? First, we have a wonderful science base but it has largely become incentivised to publish papers in fancy journals—that is how you make your mark and get promoted and respected. That is a fabulously good thing, but ARIA can do something quite different. When you work in industry, your goal is to build or make something or move something forward, not worry about publishing it. In fact, usually you do not bother to publish it. For all that we are a tremendous scientific nation, there has been such a focus on that, but we could focus a lot more on doing things rather than feeling that there should be publications. I am not saying that there should not be publications, but that certainly should not be the focus.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  40. The best way to bring top thinkers and experts with different types of expertise into Government is to make it exciting in terms of what Government are there to do. That has to be not just fixing market failures but being actively part of the co-creation and co-shaping, alongside business, of the markets of the future. DARPA has been really good at doing that within its space. It does not matter what the budget is—I would argue for a larger budget for innovation in general in the UK, but even with a fraction of that budget, what is the remit of that organisation? If it is just fixing problems along the way, or asking business what it needs, or being a clear, proactive, mission-oriented shaper of markets, that will definitely impact its success, but especially who will want to work in it with high expertise.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  41. Wonderful documents have come out about the innovation policy from BEIS, but if we are not calling things what they are, that creates confusion. The way to attract top people to Government is to be clear, as I said before, about what Government are for. Let us look at the way that the US Government managed to hire a Nobel prize-winning physicist to direct the Department of Energy, Steve Chu. He set up ARPA-E back in 2009, where the first director was Arun Majumdar, who then went on to direct the energy programme for Google. He was not told to come in because he was a geek, or to incentivise business for the sake of it; he was told to come in to help Obama direct the stimulus programme, which was $800 billion, in a green direction. That sounded incredibly exciting and, of course, he was willing to leave Stanford for some years to do that.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  42. I speak to very able civil servants working today in BEIS and I think action on an industrial strategy is going forward. My question is, why have we decided that it is no longer called an industrial strategy? That actually comes back to my previous point about the lack of confidence—perhaps someone decided that it sounds too ideological, although I am not sure why because it is not at all. The US Government are reviving their industrial strategy. Many countries have industrial strategies. The reason that Denmark is the No. 1 provider of high tech green digital services to China, which is spending more than $2 trillion greening its whole economy, is because it has had an industrial strategy. One thing is to name things for what they are. The UK continues to have an industrial strategy.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  43. The problem is what do we even mean by an industrial strategy. I have already mentioned that I think that the wrong kind of industrial strategy is one that makes a random list of sectors, technologies or types of firms, to find SMEs and so on. It is more one that focuses on problems and then gets all sorts of different sectors to solve those problems together and then, for example with SMEs, it gives them extra support because they are small. The support they get is not because they are small, as though small is great quality, but because they become an active member of a transformation strategy in which both the industrial and the innovation side are equally important. It has been talked about that the UK Government are abandoning their industrial strategy; I do not think that is actually true.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  44. Q Thank you very much, Ms McVey. I have two questions; the first is to Professor Mazzucato. You obviously set a lot of store by the 2017 industrial strategy—you waved!—yet its current status seems somewhat uncertain. Were that not to be going forward, does this whole system then work, in your view? What would be the impact of not having those great challenges and goals set out? Then I have a question for Professor Bond, which was actually posed by Professor Wilsdon in an article he wrote a while ago. He asked: “What empirical evidence is there of the problems in the UK’s R&D system to which the Aria bill is the solution?” Professor Mazzucato: Talking about innovation policy without an industrial strategy or an industrial strategy without an innovation policy are equally futile.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (FIRST SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  45. What you get coming out will, I am afraid, naturally reflect that. In intelligence here, it was a straightforward thing. We wanted something very similar to DARPA. A number of us had come from DARPA and knew what that was.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (SECOND SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  46. We heard from witnesses earlier today about other aspects of the ecosystem—public procurement, things such as the Small Business Research Initiative, which I understand we have a much less successful version of in this country, and having a single client or defence system. If you do not have clarity on any of that, what would be the consequences? Perhaps I could start with Dr Highnam. Dr Highnam: I said in my previous comment that I am aware of only one example that replicated DARPA intact, and that was the intelligence ARPA in the US, where I served for about six and a half years. It is very true to DARPA as it stands. Others depend on context, which includes the context of discussions like this one where there is certainly the framing of an organisation. It is being pulled and pushed and moulded by many different forces and interests.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (SECOND SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  47. Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins. I thank the witnesses for what has been an extremely interesting insight so far. I represent the city of Cambridge, where, as you can imagine, many of these issues are a frequent source of discussion. From what I have heard so far, I take it there is not one model of ARPA. You have a number of models, depending upon the different sectors. I heard Dr Highnam say earlier that DARPA had not been replicated anywhere else, yet we are trying to model our system on what you have got. How much does it depend upon the context, not just within the sector and whether it is ARPA-E, ARPA-H or DARPA, but in the wider system?

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  48. Professor Azoulay? Professor Azoulay: ARPA-E is not identical to DARPA, but we certainly try to inspire it to a very large extent. I think the difficulty here is that it is a tight bundle of practices that fit together, so one open question is to what extent can you pick and choose in terms of the menu of practices? What can you undo until you in some sense undo the entire model? It is important for us to level with you that we do not really know the answer to this question, because fundamentally there has been one DARPA, and that is the one we have been able to see for 60 years. One possibility that we might want to have in mind is that it does not take a lot of changes in the model to undo its effectiveness.

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  49. Part of that is recognising that we have these practices and principles and we need to adjust a lot as we go along in the process. In setting up Wellcome Leap, I think Wellcome did a very good job of saying, “We are going to do the few things that we think are central. We need independence and governance. We need an experienced team to lead it. We need to free it from a profit motive, and then we need to let it do what it does.” So there is this combination of a few principles that we can write down for you and then many other things that are about the practice of that come from the intuition and experience of leading these types of programmes to breakthroughs.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (SECOND SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  50. Dr Dugan? Dr Dugan: I agree with what Pierre just said. I might use an analogy if you will permit me. I think most would agree that Guardiola is a great coach. We could ask him how he has achieved the track record of wins and successes that he has. How has he envisioned a new style of play, constructed a team, coached the players, made decisions on the way in? He could write down some of the principles associated with that. On a day-to-day basis and across the duration of a season, he makes countless decisions, which are in service to these basic principles that create such a winning team. It is those detailed decisions that come from intuition and experience—the mastery of the practices and principles as Pierre would say—that are important to success. At Wellcome Leap, for example, our first rule is to make as few rules as possible.

    ADVANCED RESEARCH AND INVENTION AGENCY BILL (SECOND SITTING) · 2021-04-14 · READ IN HANSARD