Chamber and committees

Convener, it might be a while since you took up the role but, as this is my first time at the committee since you did so, I congratulate you on assuming the convenership of the committee. I look forward to working with the committee and you in that role.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about the Scottish Government’s perspective on the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill. As I stated in my letter to the committee, the Scottish Government is supportive of the overall policy intent of the ARIA bill—namely, to create a new agency with independence from Government influence and with minimal bureaucracy in order to give it maximum freedom to achieve its aim of supporting visionary high-risk and high-pay-off research and development. However, the Scottish Government has had some fundamental issues with the bill that creates ARIA. The UK Government failed to consult fully on the bill before its introduction in the House of Commons. Since being given sight of the bill and the related policy statement, the Scottish Government’s ask has been consistent. We seek involvement in the agency through the chief scientific adviser for Scotland and removal of the reservation that is currently in the bill.

As you know, reservation is a significant step that the Scottish Government will recommend to the Scottish Parliament in only the most compelling circumstances. I believe that the Parliament would expect nothing less. The key reason that the UK Government has given for including a reservation in the bill has been that it is to create distance between ARIA and the Government. The Scottish Government has always recognised the need for that and, as I have set out, supports that. However, reservation has always seemed to be a heavy-handed and unequal approach to creating distance from the Government.

The committee will have seen the LCM in the name of the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, which laid that out as our position. I had intended to attend this meeting to reiterate our position. However, I am very glad to announce that the UK Government has finally recognised that reserving ARIA is an unnecessary step.

Two days ago, I agreed in principle with my UK counterpart, George Freeman, a memorandum of understanding and an amendment to remove the reservation from the ARIA bill. The memorandum of understanding will lay out very clearly the principle that ARIA will operate independently of ministerial direction from any Government. It will also contain arrangements for consultation of the chief scientific advisor for Scotland on ARIA as an alternative to board membership, which the Scottish Government has been willing to compromise on to come to a resolution.

George Freeman wrote to me yesterday afternoon, following our conversation, to agree such an approach, and I responded to him this morning. In the light of that, I anticipate that, subject to Cabinet agreement, the Scottish Government will seek to lodge a supplementary LCM recommending consent to the ARIA bill as soon as the UK Government has tabled an amendment in the House of Lords to remove the reservation from the bill. We will sign the memorandum of understanding as soon as possible once it is confirmed that the other devolved Administrations are also content.

I trust that the committee will agree that that is a very positive development.