My Lords, I am going to respond but I will have to let the noble Lord draw his own conclusions as to how positive the response is. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay has raised an interesting point and I thank him for that. In the interests of discipline and autonomy, and respecting the Haldane principle, it is right that the council should have special delegated authority to appoint and to set terms and conditions for specialist academic and research staff within that council and its institutes. There are particular cases where it may be necessary for councils to directly appoint and set terms and conditions for scientists, researchers and other technical staff involved in a research endeavour. In such cases, authority to do so will be delegated to the councils, as per subsections (2) and (3). A relevant example is the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. There is no intention to change such long-standing and effective relationships.
I am sympathetic to the concern raised by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay and agree that there are many other persons whose expertise is of great importance to the successful operation of a research council. As such, I reassure noble Lords that the Bill enables the continuation of existing practice to hire staff. Such persons will become employees of the councils through UKRI. Therefore, I ask my noble and learned friend to withdraw the amendment.
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