My Lords, I speak to Amendment 488, which has in a way been trailed already in its substance by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, who raised but did not get a response about the absence in the Bill of any serious reference to continuing co-operation overseas, and also by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, who pointed out that there is a quite a lot of cross-coverage in what he is putting forward as probing amendments and what I am putting forward as a substantive amendment.
Amendment 488 is very simple, merely adding a further task for the UKRI in the list given in this clause. It says that,
“UKRI shall take every possible opportunity to encourage and facilitate the maximum co-operation between British higher education
and research establishments and those based outside the UK, and in particular with projects and programmes funded by the European Union”.
The wording does not limit this to the EU. Although it is to some extent Brexit-related, it looks much wider than that. Clearly, it will not in itself provide the legal or policy framework for co-operation between the UK and EU when we are outside, because that will be laid down by the Government in their Brexit negotiations. I very much welcome the fact that the Prime Minister in her Lancaster House speech explicitly mentioned this as one of the areas where Britain will want to go on co-operating as closely as possible. The amendment does not provide for that. It is a task merely for UKRI, and UKRI will have to operate within the scope of whatever arrangements the Government may negotiate with the EU—on money, legal base, and all that sort of stuff.
The EU dimension is, however, very significant. The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, mentioned it briefly. Since the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme began in 2014, the UK has provided 5,428 participants—more than any other member state. The UK co-ordinates around 20% of the projects. We have received 16.4% of the funding, adding up to something like £2.63 billion.
Turning to the separate European Research Council programmes, here I mention the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, whose name is on the amendment, because he was very much instrumental in setting up the European Research Council many years ago when he was working at the Commission. It is a brilliant organisation, much less bureaucratic than some of the other aspects of the European Union. In the ERC programmes, we have 699 grant-holders and are the most successful member state.
There is a lot at stake here. In addition, something like 46% of UK research involves some overseas partners. That surely demonstrates how important a part of UKRI’s work will involve this international dimension. I very much hope that the Minister will feel able, even today, to say simply that he accepts the amendment. I cannot believe that it cuts across or does anything other than complement the Government’s own objectives. So I will listen with great care when the Minister responds to this debate and I will hope to be delighted to hear that he thinks this is a jolly good amendment.