Education, Children and Young People Committee
Advanced Research and Invention Agency BIll
Minister for Higher Education, Further Education, Youth Employment and Training
Dear Convener
Advanced Research and invention Agency (Aria Bill)
I am writing to the Committee to provide further context around the position of the Scottish Government on the UK Government’s ARIA Bill, to which the Scottish Government has advised the Scottish Parliament not to consent.
In the first instance I feel it is important to underline that the Scottish Government is supportive of the overall policy intent of the ARIA Bill, namely to create a new agency with significant independence from government influence and with as few bureaucratic burdens as possible in order to give it maximum freedom to achieve its aim of supporting “visionary high-risk, high-pay off” research and development. We have no issue with this prospectus at all.
The Scottish Government, believes that this policy intent could be achieved by creating ARIA under joint responsibility being vested collectively in the Scottish, Welsh, Northern Ireland and UK administrations. This makes sense in line with the fact that the devolved administrations have overall responsibility for the excellence, impact and sustainability of research and innovation within their jurisdiction.
When the UK Government introduced the ARIA Bill to the UK Parliament on 2nd March 2021, it had given no indication beforehand to the Scottish Government of the intention to add ARIA to the reservations in the Scotland Act 1998.
As I am sure you will agree, the reservation of powers that were devolved in 1999 should not be done routinely and never without the consent of the Scottish Parliament. I have not been presented with any rationale that justifies the case of ARIA being reserved.
My predecessor wrote to the UK Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, Amanda Solloway, on 24 March indicating that the Scottish Government would be able to recommend that the Scottish Parliament consent to the ARIA Bill if changes were made to the Bill that would give the Scottish Government shared oversight over ARIA and, in particular, remove the alterations to the Scotland Act 1998. I reiterated that condition in a follow-up letter to Ms Solloway on 25 June 2021 and in direct conversation with her.
The pace with which the UK Government has engaged with us in meaningful dialogue on our concerns has by my view been too slow. She wrote to me on 7 September to reiterate her view that reservation of ARIA is necessary to guarantee the independence of the prospective agency. I cannot see any case as to this being a necessity and moreover the ARIA Bill gives the UK Secretary of State key legal powers to influence the agency. Further, the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser, who works closely with UK Ministers, will be on the Board of ARIA. Yet, what I believe to be a fairly modest request to the UK Government to give the Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland similar membership, in recognition of the devolved nature of research and innovation, has consistently been rejected. The other devolved administrations have made similar requests for their equivalent office holders which have also been rebuffed.
The Scottish Government does not see that the changes we have requested to the Bill would affect the ability of ARIA to carry out its functions effectively. Indeed there is a danger that failure to ensure the devolved context is considered in this legislation will lead to duplication of effort rather than added value as should be the aim of such a new body, such as we have seen with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) which is another organisation that has too often operated without regard to the Scottish context
Over the past six months, the Scottish Government has held regular discussions with the UK Government on the ARIA Bill, first of all to fully understand the UK Government’s policy approach to the Bill, and secondly to press for involvement of the DAs in oversight of ARIA. This has proven thus far to not have been productive and unfortunately not led to any agreement from the UK Government to make changes to the ARIA Bill. This has left the Scottish Government no choice but to recommend the Scottish Parliament does not consent to the ARIA Bill as it stands. The Welsh Government has lodged a similar Legislative Consent Memorandum recommending Senedd Cymru withholds its consent to the Bill for similar reasons
The Scottish Government will continue to try to secure a mutually agreeable solution with the UK Government and the other Devolved Administrations, and will lodge an supplementary Legislative Consent Memorandum if such agreement is reached in time. I am happy to provide further information as may be felt helpful.
Yours sincerely
Jamie Hepburn
Cc: Stuart McMillan MSP, Convener of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and
Ivan McKee, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, SG