15
Examination of witnesses
Dr Lee Beniston and Professor Alistair Griffiths.
Q159 The Chair: Thank you, on behalf of the committee, for coming along to give evidence today. I will kick off with the starting question: what areas should be prioritised for research and development in the horticultural sector? If you could both say which organisations you are from and what you are focusing on, that would be helpful.
Professor Alistair Griffiths: I am director of science and collections for the Royal Horticultural Society, which, just last year, invested £35 million in a new science centre in relation to horticultural science. I also sit on the sub-chair group of what was called the Ornamental Horticulture Roundtable Group, and I am pleased to say that, yesterday, in the House of Lords, it changed its name to the Environmental Horticulture Group. A number of people attended that.
On the areas that should be prioritised for research and development, I will give a bit of context, if I may. The Environmental Horticulture Group is a name that now fully reflects industry’s ability to provide solutions that can deliver across all 10 goals of the environmental improvement plan, and help tackle the climate biodiversity crisis and the transition to net zero.
There is a greater number of types of garden plant used directly by humans in the UK and globally than any other plant type. We use 50,000 types of food plants and 33,500 types of medicinal plants, yet the RHS Plant Finder lists 69,000 types of UK cultivated plants in this country. The RHS believes that there are roughly 400,000 types of garden plants. In comparison to the UK’s native flora, that consists of 1,500 types of plants.
For me as a plant biologist, all plants are brilliant, so we need to look after all of them and invest more in plant research and development, because they are so beneficial to humans. Some may be problematic, but the majority are beneficial.
Why is it that people use these cultivated plants? Results of an RHS/YouGov survey of the UK population in December 2022 revealed that 73% said that gardening had a positive impact on their mental health, 74% a positive impact on their physical health, and 42% a positive impact on their social health.
On behalf of industry, we would like to thank government for recognising during the Covid lockdown that cultivated plant diversity is as essential as food and medicines. That had a significant impact on improving the mental, physical and social health and well-being of this country, which has probably helped lessen the burden on the NHS.
I will also make a point on the changing climate. For example, a research paper that looks at several cities across the world and at the climate change models states that London will have a similar climate to Barcelona. It will not just be a climate similar to Barcelona; it will also have significant frosts and significant drops in temperatures, so it will be Barcelona plus misery. This is why cultivated landscapes will become even more essential for tackling the climate and biodiversity crisis, particularly in urban areas, in addition to benefiting health. There are 700,000[1] hectares of domestic garden in the UK; 49% of UK citizens actively garden, and 25% to 50% of urban environments consists of cultivated landscapes, so this is a huge area that has so much to offer in relation to dealing with some of these problems.
To be sobering, the most recent World Economic Forum global risks perception survey was published in January 2023. When we look at research, we are looking at between five and 10 years in relation to what could come out of this. The survey shows that the number one risk is failure to mitigate climate change; number two is failure of climate change adaptation; number three is natural disasters and extreme weather events; number four is biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse; number five is large-scale involuntary migration; and number six is natural resources crises.
Number one was climate action failure, so what I can say is that, with a decade or less in mind, the priority needs to be applied scientific research. That does not mean that the fundamental and the strategic should stop—they should be upped, with more investment in those as well—but we should be doing applied scientific research in real-world situations through a grow, test and learn approach, working with industry growers, landscapers, arboriculturists, gardeners and others towards providing sustainable, nature-based solutions that help tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis now and for the future, and improve the health and well-being of the nation.
For environmental horticulture research, we should also prioritise optimising cultivated plant genetic resources and cultivated landscapes, particularly in urban landscapes, to maximise climate resilience, adaptation and mitigation in order to benefit biodiversity, human health, and social and natural capital values, while remaining focused on the transition to net zero.
Focused research is also needed on minimising resource use and waste in the production of industry’s products and services, to maximise their environmental, biodiversity and human health benefits across the whole supply chain. The main priority themes of this research should be climate resilience, cultivated landscapes and plant adaptation, mitigation and resilience; biodiversity conservation and resilience, both cultivated and wild plant material; biosecurity and plant health; horticultural habitats for human mental, physical and social health; and nature’s well-being.
These research priorities have already been worked up with industry and academia, alongside government, and are outlined on page 19 of the Environmental Horticulture Group’s Unlocking Green Growth: a Plan from the Ornamental Horticulture and Landscaping Industry, with work packages and work programme priorities. All we really need is support from the Government to make it financially viable for us to do this.
The economic outcomes and jobs for delivering this plan are also good. Key findings from the Growing a Green Economy report by Oxford Economics and Foresight Factory state that there are significant opportunities and benefits for the UK Government and the general public across several policy domains, which will provide economic growth linked to that plan, with the support of a sector that can grow to £41.8 billion in 2030, compared to £28.8 billion in 2019. This comes with a projected £8.7 billion UK tax revenue in 2030, up from £6.3 billion in 2019. The number of jobs across the country supported by the industry can also increase from 674,000 in 2019 to 763,000 in 2030, including in rural areas.
In effect, this is a no-brainer. All we need is support to deliver that plan. I also have a team of 10 universities and the horticultural industry and growers behind this, and we can just get on and do it.
Dr Lee Beniston: Good morning. I work for UK Research and Innovation, which is the UK’s largest public funder of research and innovation. Within UKRI, I work specifically for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, where my role is to oversee the funding that we invest, with our partners, to ensure that businesses come up with a bioscience research base, which includes the horticulture sector.
I have a few points to cover on the first question. From a UKRI research and innovation funding perspective, we recognise the importance of the horticulture sector. It is important for me to say that we recognise that there are some long-standing research challenges and opportunities, as well as some emergent ones. These are not mutually exclusive and are applicable to both edible horticultural crops and ornamentals.
These are, as we see them in our portfolios, underpinning plant science and sustainable food production research, which is absolutely critical across the breadth of the horticultural sector, as we all know, specifically focused on the sustainable production of high-quality, nutritious food to meet the predicted increased demand in food by 2050 and beyond.
The second is research on climate resilience and climate-smart breeding, which we have heard a lot about already, but specifically with a focus on the development of crops that can tolerate, for example, heatwaves and periods of drought; that have different root architectures, such as longer roots, so that they can access available groundwater; and that can tolerate salinity and can be watered by brackish water where fresh water is in short supply. We also see research on reduced inputs overall—particularly water but also fertiliser—such as the development of crops that have improved water and nitrogen usage efficiency, including technological systems to inform irrigation strategies.
Next, we have a view on a research priority around pests and crop diseases. This is an increasing priority due to the loss of crop protection products, with the changes to regulation of agrochemicals, for example, increasing the demand for genetic resistance to pests and diseases in horticulture. Further, climate change is increasing the risks from invasive pasts, for which there is little native resistance.
Finally, there is a large category that we see as emergent around precision and controlled environmental horticulture and agriculture, specifically including robotics and automation technologies. Fundamentally, this encompasses a wide breadth of technologies. The committee has previously heard evidence on the precision application of fertilisers, the laser targeting of weeds, vertical farming, and aeroponics and hydroponics, which utilise UV lighting. Further examples include satellite applications for earth observation combined with sensing technologies, yield mapping for prediction, the targeting of inputs and selective harvesting, and the guidance of autonomous vehicles for cropping.
Q160 Lord Curry of Kirkharle: Thank you both. Lee, I would like to follow up from where you just finished, on the effectiveness of the structure around R&D and its delivery. It is a particular hobby-horse of mine, because I was responsible, with Harper Adams, for a report last November that looked at the efficiency of the application of science and the fact that our productivity levels in the UK have been lagging behind. Why is that? The conclusion we came to was that the whole structure is too fragmented. We have too many bodies and the relationships between them are not clear, so the flow of knowledge is not as effective as it should be. What is your view on all of that?
Dr Lee Beniston: UKRI is clearly a significant part of the R&D organisational landscape in the UK. We would work with all partners across the research and innovation ecosystem for the full benefit of the breadth of the horticulture sector.
I can outline three main ways in which UKRI effectively serves the horticulture sector and others through our R&D operations and investments. The first would be our open research and innovation programmes. These are responsive programmes, such as the BBSRC Responsive Mode and Innovate UK SMART grant funding programmes. These are open competitions run several times a year, where funding is competitively awarded in response to opportunities identified by the research and innovation communities, including the full breadth of the horticulture sector.
Secondly, we also invest and partner across the research and innovation ecosystem to develop strategic research and innovation programmes. These are programmes that take a mixture of approaches, often in co-design, co-development and co-investment with businesses and other key stakeholders in sectors. They include specific programmes that we have developed to support the horticulture sector and other research and innovation communities.
The third main approach that we take, again working across the full breadth of the UK innovation ecosystem, is through our strategic engagement and collaboration activities. This is fundamentally where UKRI helps to catalyse and convene stakeholders in discussion and to support connectivity across key sectors, again enabling researchers to talk with businesses and other key stakeholders across sectors. For example, from a BBSRC perspective, we regularly attend crop conferences. In fact, we are a key sponsor with Innovate UK of Fruit Focus, which is forthcoming. We also establish working groups and strategic advisory structures across UKRI but also pulling from the breadth of the sector.
Finally, we work closely with government departments to understand the deployment of policy and how R&D should be guided in that regard.
Q161 Baroness Willis of Summertown: Following up from that, along the lines of Lord Curry, as an academic myself—I do not think that we have ever had BBSRC funding, so I do not need to declare that—the questions are very rarely led by the people on the ground: the farmers. How do you flip that on its head or turn it round? How do you get people who are dealing with these issues on the ground to lead the research questions? You do not get many farmers in a workshop, to be quite honest.
Dr Lee Beniston: I would address that through speaking about a couple of examples related to our strategic research and innovation programmes. They typically start with workshops. They also start with strategic scoping events and key meetings, where we will ask key stakeholders, such as farmers, processors and growers, and the whole sector what they see as the key research and innovation challenges. Typically, for the team I oversee at BBSRC, these are pre-competitive research and innovation challenges, where we are looking for businesses to work together to address shared barriers to innovation.
I point to one example, specifically in terms of farmers, processors and growers. The horticulture and potato initiative, which BBSRC invested in alongside NERC and the Scottish Government, included a range of 33 horticultural businesses, including farmers. That was an investment collectively of about £9.8 million and leveraged about £800,000 from the businesses and key stakeholders involved. That would be a good example of where we take things beyond workshops and aim to understand and structure strategic programmes around key needs in the sector.
Baroness Willis of Summertown: Following on from the discussion in the previous session, how do you take that science and knowledge base and scale it up across the UK?
Dr Lee Beniston: We would work in partnership, for example, with Innovate UK to scale up. To cover a few key points, scale-up takes on various forms. For example, looking at awards through our responsive programmes, such as BBSRC Responsive Mode, Innovate UK SMART, or, indeed, the strategic programmes I have outlined, we would hold key dissemination activities with partners in those strategic areas and discuss with them opportunities to seek follow-on funding. For example, BBSRC has a follow-on funding scheme.
We also work with Innovate UK to support enterprise skills, for example, to take that research further and scale it up. There is also the Innovate UK investor partnerships programme, and the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund, which can attract really early stage, research-focused technologies through to seed stage and beyond, connecting through to investors. There are a range of ways that we do this.
We also have schemes such as the BBSRC LINK and industrial partnership award schemes, which enable businesses to partner with each other at an early stage or explore ideas that need to be taken further towards commercialisation. UKRI would support the breadth of the translation pathway.
Baroness Fookes: You are giving us some very useful information, but it is at a speed that I am finding difficult to follow. I wonder whether we could slow down a bit so that I can take in what you are saying.
Q162 Lord Colgrain: Before I ask my question, Alistair, I thank you and the RHS for the lovely invitation to Chelsea, which we very much enjoyed. How appropriate are current funding models for the horticultural sector?
Professor Alistair Griffiths: Currently, the UK’s research and development funding streams and, indeed, policy goals, including the recently published environment plan in 2023, focus predominantly on funding earth systems, wild biodiversity in the natural environment and forests, or agricultural and food crops. They are really important and continue to need increased funding to support them, but that often leaves environmental horticultural funding opportunities as a bit of an orphan. Therefore, it is very difficult to access, leaving that funding for the environmental horticulture and cultivated landscape sector orphaned.
To give you a bit of history and a picture in relation to funding for that, there was a report in 2018 called Securing the Future of the Garden and Horticulture Sector, which stated that the last 20 years’ investment in applied ornamental horticultural scientific research and development had decreased from £14.1 million in 1985 to £2.85 million per annum. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (Amendment) Order 2022 marked the end of the AHDB’s levy work in the horticultural sector, particularly the ornamental sector, which led to an even further decline and the loss of further millions each year in R&D investment in the horticultural sector.
To give some recent examples of things that have been positive, water was mentioned this morning. Those funds for growers were very supportive and, in fact, take advantage of the UKRI’s knowledge transfer scheme, where we did a project on mains to rains in order to help the general public save water for the supply chain. However, of the recent UKRI farming innovation fund winners announced in August 2022, 99% of that funding supported farming or food, and only one project—1%—supported ornamental horticulture. Of the 13 successful projects awarded for the tree production innovation fund in 2022, only one was at the cultivar level, which will be critical in relation to climate resilience.
The other element is training and upskilling in relation to the infrastructure of support. We need to succession plan. I am getting older. We need younger scientists. We need to support and develop them. We need to put the “green” into green infrastructure. The problem and challenge that we face is that green skills are about energy efficiency, solar panels and air source heat pumps—nothing that is green. We can help deliver net zero and biodiversity net gain through that, because environmental horticulture provides green products and services. Therefore, this industry is not recognised by government, and this cultivated biodiversity is not recognised as part of the solution to deliver those goals.
By investing in that, the other advantage is that you can export consultants and get money that way. A very good example of that is James Hitchmough, who was involved in the Olympic Park. James Hitchmough is one of the best horticultural scientists in this country. I have worked with him on a number of projects. He exports his consultancy rates to China, Saudi Arabia and the USA on green infrastructure projects. Just imagine if we trained and developed, in the next five to 10 years, the next 10 to 15. The export potential of that expertise and knowledge would be gold dust, and we would be shown to be leading the way.
On the fragmentation of the industry, over the last 10 years in particular—I can talk only about the Environmental Horticulture Group—we have become a very strong collective voice, which is why the action plan is so important. We have worked bottom up, listening to what growers’ needs are, to understand the challenges and to directly put the research questions forward that will help them accelerate and increase economic growth.
Q163 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: Alistair, you heard what Dr Benison said about the myriad R&D schemes that are out there, and you provided a very comprehensive description of it. How do smaller growers and businesses access all those wonderful national schemes that we are hearing about this morning? There seems to be a bit of a disconnect with what the Government are doing nationally. You said that a lot of the grants do not go to the horticulture sector, but what is the barrier? What is the problem here? What can we do to make it easier to access some of that money?
Professor Alistair Griffiths: There are several barriers. One is that we should be looking across. As part of the RHS, we have set up a hub and spoke model. The RHS has a £35 million investment in a research centre based at Wisley, and we have built a spoke model whereby we are working with 10 universities across the whole country that have the excellence, equipment and facilities in relation to those ambitions. The challenge faced there goes back to the perception of the environmental horticulture sector as less essential.
Both industry and government could work harder in relation to share, say, the water grant scheme with people and raise awareness of these funding streams. I tweet and go on LinkedIn to say, “Hey growers, this is an amazing opportunity for you to improve that scheme”. As a micro-business or a medium-sized business, even for myself, scrolling across all the different research and innovation opportunities can be difficult, in that it is not linked to what the sector is offering. Some of the universities and other research academics in this country have teams that look at that as part of their business to make sure that they can be effective in it.
The current farming equipment and technology fund lists are heavily farm-focused. Although that is really important and should be supported, 92% of the equipment listed is for the agricultural forest sector, whereas only 8% is suitable for growers. It is about this suitability for micro-growers.
A Pye Tait report from 2019 talks about new technologies, automation and robotics, which are important and will play an essential part, but 55.5% of many industries are micro-businesses, 30.7% are small and 8.2% medium sized, and only 5.6% are large businesses. Across the industry, 94.4% did not expect automation, robotics or other technologies to be useful to their businesses.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: Lee, you have heard from Alistair that he does not think that small businesses can access the R&D grants and so on. What is your answer to that? Do you have a strategy to help his sector out?
Dr Lee Beniston: If I may, I will also run through some numbers, but, on the point of access, Innovate UK’s smart responsive grant funding scheme is certainly open to small, medium and larger businesses. In terms of reducing access to that scheme, there is a sliding scale of what businesses are asked to contribute to those projects: the smaller the business, the less it is asked to contribute.
Research council funding, for example, enables businesses to work with the research base and provides businesses with that early access to research knowledge and the ability to explore that. Again, I mentioned that we have our LINK and industrial partnership award; other research councils have similar schemes. These schemes reduce barriers to access, because they allow businesses to provide in-kind funding rather than cash contributions, which we find certainly benefits small to medium-sized businesses. We strive to ensure that businesses of all sizes can access and collaborate on research and innovation funding.
On funding, I just wanted to provide some statistics by way of response to the previous question and as part of the access question. For BBSRC, horticulture, as I am sure you will know, sits within our strategic priority on agriculture and food security. On underpinning plant science research, BBSRC committed and invested £68 million per year in the previous two financial years—2021-22 through to 2022-23. Around £52 million of that investment related to crop science, and around £17 million per annum over those past two years related directly to horticulture.
We have heard some views on the Innovate UK-led programmes, in particular the Defra farming innovation programme and the transforming food production programme, in previous evidence, so I will provide some statistics on those as well. Again, on the access point, businesses of all sizes can access those programmes.
On the transforming food production programme, £22.8 million of funding was committed to 31 projects relating specifically to horticulture. On the Defra funding, which Innovate UK is delivering on the farming innovation platform, £14.2 million of funding was committed to 33 horticulture projects. Again, that is specifically to horticulture. It is important that I outline that there will be related projects, such as those on automation and technologies, which are more broadly defined, but I just wanted to provide the committee with a snapshot. Across both those programmes, businesses of all sizes co-invested more than £18 million in those projects.
The Chair: We might have to shorten some of the answers, because we are going to run out of time.
Q164 Baroness Buscombe: In terms of people being awarded grants and so on, in various ways, you have both quite rightly used words such as “adaptation”, “resilience” and “reduction of inputs” to talk about the response to climate change. We should also look at affordability. What questions do you ask before providing or responding to requests for funding? When you look at requests for grants, for example, do you think, “How is this going to support food security? Are we looking at something that is viable in this climate?” That is particularly in relation to edibles, as opposed to, for example, using a lot more water, because it might be a fruit that is not native to the UK.
Do you see what I am saying about diet and so on? Do you look at what people are trying to achieve, just so that we can understand better how those grants play out into outcomes that we can all enjoy?
Dr Lee Beniston: The open responsive programmes of grant funding would always seek to support and fund scientific excellence first and foremost. They are important for continuing our investment in long-term research capability. However, the strategic programmes that I have mentioned—particularly those that involve businesses and other key stakeholders in the sector—will be co-developed with businesses, which will often co-invest in them. On that basis, they have strategic challenges that are specific to whatever that group of stakeholders is looking at, such as reduced inputs.
We have a couple of examples. On bacterial plant diseases, which are applicable across the breadth of the horticulture sector, BBSRC, NERC, Defra and the Scottish Government invested around £13 million against a national priority that was focused on Xylella fastidiosa, a devastating plant pathogen that can cause incredible losses. That is a good example of a programme to deliver a national priority, where the research funded within that would be directed towards that.
There are many examples that we could give the committee but we certainly do both. It requires a balanced approach to ensure that long-term research capability, and a focus when we need to be agile and react to national needs and priorities.
Q165 Baroness Walmsley: How effectively are businesses incentivised to invest in R&D? I realise that this will probably fall into two sections, because grants are never 100%, so they will have to put some of their own money in as well. There may be other projects that are not supported by grants but businesses would like to invest in. I wonder whether businesses’ investment in R&D in the horticulture sector has gone up or down in recent years. If it is down, how could we improve it? How could we incentivise them better? Do tax credits fall into this category, for example?
Professor Alistair Griffiths: On the awareness and understanding of tax relief levels, there is a claim in research and development, but if you look at the leading countries across the world, including Chile, they are giving significant percentages of tax relief to some of those aspects and making it easier, particularly if you have a consortium of growers. It tends to be that that tax relief has to benefit research but also be the thing that benefits wider research. If you have a consortium of growers, all of them should be able to get that tax relief because they are collectively working on something for wider horticulture, but it falls down in some respects because of that.
As touched on this morning, incentivisation is about this whole package. It is particularly around things such as transitioning to net zero. We need to look at how we reduce the risks of market failure and to think about things like water. It is about not only doing the R&D but putting the infrastructure in place and doing the training and skilling together. There is a collective package at the end of it, whereby you come out with that multiple level.
There are areas where investment has benefited. One example I can give is Melcourt composts, which is a peat-free, alternative, sustainable growing medium, which has invested significantly, as have quite a number of others. It has grown significantly and almost doubled its profit margin over the past 10 years. It has been able to reinvest in that while dealing with some of the challenges there.
Those are the key areas of incentivisation. The water one is good, but again, it is not the whole package. It not R&D, the infrastructure, or the training and development. Having a package like that would be really helpful to incentivise that investment.
Q166 Baroness Willis of Summertown: Going back to the potential withdrawal or not—no one is quite sure yet—from Horizon 2020, is that already having an impact or is it something that we are able to facilitate in other grants? Are there other ways around it?
Dr Lee Beniston: UKRI is pleased that the Windsor Framework allows the UK to progress discussion on association. As you alluded to, the timing and process for association following the publication of the Windsor Framework is not yet certain, but we are monitoring events closely and working with DSIT on contingency plans if association is not possible. We absolutely recognise the importance of stable and sustained investment for our research and innovation communities, which includes horticulture. we will continue to listen carefully to those communities, in particular their views on international collaboration.
It is important for me to say in response to this question that UK researchers and innovators can still apply to Horizon Europe. Eligible, evaluated and successful UK applications to Horizon Europe have access to the UK guarantee. Until agreement is reached, it is important that UK researchers continue to apply through the guarantee, which I believe has been extended to 30 June.
Baroness Willis of Summertown: Could I push back slightly there? I agree that you can apply, and I sit on one of the Horizon 2020 panels, but one of the real problems is that UK people are now being excluded from the grant applications. Although you can apply, you cannot join in with the large consortium bids, which is where the real problems come in, because that is where we should be learning. I hope that we can look beyond just Horizon 2020 at other issues that are coming through. How do we develop that cross-country, cross-continent relationship in the UK?
Dr Lee Beniston: UKRI has supported extensive collaborations in the past, particularly in relation to horticulture internationally. It will continue to do that through working with its partners internationally as well as through government. I cannot provide a view on what may or may not happen.
Baroness Willis of Summertown: I am not asking that. Thinking broadly beyond that, should we link it to trade deals that we are building with other countries? What is the way to rebuild those bridges in research? Right now, it is not clear how we will rebuild them. Have you any thoughts on that?
Dr Lee Beniston: As I say, we need to continue to invest in research capability for the long term, and that would, of course, include international collaboration. I cannot comment on government policy in terms of what we should or should not do.
Baroness Willis of Summertown: I am not asking you to comment on government policy. Are there particular areas that we as a committee ought to be recommending that the Government look further at because there may be benefits to be had from them?
Dr Lee Beniston: I would go back to my statement in terms of the research priorities that we have identified. I suggest that they represent priority research and innovation focuses where the committee might wish to consider encouraging collaboration, particularly internationally.
Professor Alistair Griffiths: For many leaders in the scientific community, Horizon Europe is critical. We have built up long-term relationships and friendships with communities and groups with which we can already run and share new developments. There is a real challenge to replicate the full benefits of the world’s largest existing collaborative research programme. It has readymade routes for talent, facilities, equipment, access and collaboration with those multiple countries. That is not to say that we should not build on that, because we absolutely should, and look to work with others. Looking at the finances of that, there is an estimate that it will be more than what we have given but, if you were to truly calculate the money that you are getting from the facilities, equipment, staff and all the others, it would be significantly less leverage of those aspects.
The other thing I would mention—of course I would—is that, although it is brilliant that we are looking for alternatives, the priorities in Pioneer are for green infrastructure, not plants. Those key elements do not include the horticultural sector. We are emailing and having conversations to try to make sure that those things, particularly around cities and green infrastructures, are looked at in relation to research and development. There could be a lot of sharing, particularly with places such as Singapore.
Q167 Lord Sahota: You touched on the Government’s Pioneer programme, as opposed to Horizon. Horizon is a big beast internationally, not only in Europe. I went on a trade delegation to India, and even they were talking about Horizon and wanting to be associated with it. Now, of course, we have pulled out of the EU and the Government have this Pioneer programme, which the Government have called bold and ambitious, with billions of pounds of UK investment in global collaboration and more funding for UK research. How confident are you in the effectiveness of this new programme? Will it be just as good, better or otherwise?
Professor Alistair Griffiths: It is hard to say from looking at the document. We need to work closely on its development, particularly around plant sciences, and environmental horticulture and farming. We need to be there and to have an understanding of what that will mean for existing collaborations and friendships, which often create very good outcomes and impacts. It is hard to say, but again, we need to make sure that greening green infrastructure is high on the agenda within that aspect of support.
Dr Lee Beniston: The Government’s recent update on Pioneer includes a set of commitments that cover four key pillars of funding that long-term alternatives would deliver in addition to transitional agreements and third-country participation. They are global collaboration, infrastructure, innovation and talent. International collaboration is woven across all four Pioneer pillars, enabling UKRI to build and strengthen global partnerships that already exist, as well as creating opportunities for us to increase connectivity for the UK research and innovation ecosystem, and collaborations across the global research and innovation ecosystem.
Lord Sahota: On the green industrial growth, health, innovation and everything, you think it would be something good for the UK out of Europe?
Dr Lee Beniston: I cannot comment further on this.
Q168 Baroness Fookes: Looking beyond what might or might not happen with these various projects, can you give any concrete examples now of other countries using really good R&D policies that have got results? Can we learn from them?
Dr Lee Beniston: UKRI would agree with evidence that this committee has previously received about looking towards the Netherlands, in particular Wageningen, which offers an excellent opportunity to learn in terms of R&D policy. That said, in previous evidence you also heard about the distributed nature of the UK horticulture sector. One might have to take a view as to whether the structure of policies, government levers and R&D funding around Wageningen is appropriate for the UK. We would need to consider the approach that it takes and how it does it in terms of R&D policy, and then understand how that might relate to the UK horticulture system specifically. In terms of best practice, we would look to Wageningen.
Professor Alistair Griffiths: If you look at impact on papers, the top countries that are doing good horticultural science are China, Germany and Russia—all countries that are never really mentioned. Because horticultural science cuts across every policy area, we should lead the way, create the right model and show a good example. At the moment, if I look out there, Wageningen is not the right model. There is no right model.
That model should have R&D policy best practice. It should look at the industry, government and cross-disciplinary hub and spoke model that taps into the UK research infrastructure, equipment and facilities. It should have the ability to merge and have academics from economics, environment and social. It should directly deliver on industry challenges through communicating with the industry. Like I said, I do not believe that there is anywhere in the world that does this model well, and this provides us with an opportunity to lead the way.
Baroness Fookes: Would you not include the United States in that list you gave of Russia, China and Germany?
Professor Alistair Griffiths: There are significant challenges in the USA in relation to the climate adaptation and climate change responses we have to make in the next couple of decades.
Q169 Lord Curry of Kirkharle: I just have a supplementary that links back to earlier questions. Lee mentioned Wageningen in the Netherlands. Is there a gap in our structure that is inhibiting us from the adoption of science as effectively as we should be? I declare an interest. I was asked to look at this concept of a What Works centre as a potential way of translating science and making sure that it is readily available. Is there a gap in this structure?
Dr Lee Beniston: UKRI, specifically BBSRC, has worked closely with policy on structures such as the What Works centre model. In the dissemination of knowledge and policy, the key is to bring together key stakeholders in the sector in a strategic way around research-led innovation challenges, as I spoke about. That provides an opportunity within those programme structures to share and disseminate knowledge, which leads to informing policy at a national and strategy level. That is something we have been actively doing across our strategic programmes, which are directly relevant and of relevance to horticulture.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle: Is that recent?
Dr Lee Beniston: Yes. I can give some examples of programmes that I mean, but it is recent.
Q170 Lord Watson of Wyre Forest: Chair, so inspired by Baroness Fookes have I been that I applied to join the RHS yesterday.
Professor Alistair Griffiths: Thank you for supporting our science and our community work.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest: In that light, you make a compelling argument for a new R&D framework. You have obviously done a lot of work on this over many years. Can you help fast-track the committee’s thinking and tell us how much it would cost?
Professor Alistair Griffiths: I would say between £10 million and £20 million.
Q171 Baroness Walmsley: I was just thinking about the horticulture sector in the UK, where margins of profitability are pretty narrow and there is considerable precarity in terms of businesses’ future viability and sustainability. Is that different from other countries? Does it inhibit those businesses’ ability to put in for grants where they have to provide 20% of the money themselves anyway? Is it different from other countries?
Professor Alistair Griffiths: It definitely is for tax credits. Some places, such as Chile, offer 40% tax credit elements, and there are other incentives. There are countries that are doing significantly more on that.
The other area is investment in horticulture through banking systems and loans, because they see it as risky. I have painted a picture of the opportunity for a thriving industry. The opposite could equally happen if we do not support this industry through market failure of water, peat, plastics—all the things that it is challenged with—and particularly energy. Just recently, at least five nurseries that I am aware of have gone out of business because of energy.
Therefore, I am saying that this is an opportunity not only to grow and thrive but to make sure that the trees outside there that cool our cities, capture the pollution and give us well-being remain so that we have resilient landscapes for the whole of society. There are certainly examples from other countries that could be taken in relation to how they support and invest.
Dr Lee Beniston: UKRI continuously evaluates its programmes to ensure that businesses can be part of them. A recent initiative focused on crop and pest diseases for UK agriculture and horticulture. That was a £2 million investment, where we worked with Defra and AHDB on the UK plant health risk register to identify key emergent diseases. For that in particular, we worked through research and evaluations that we had done with our previous programmes specifically focused on horticulture to understand how to further and more greatlyenable businesses and key stakeholders to be part of our research and innovation programmes. We are continuously striving to understand that. Again, it is not just about quanta of funding.
Q172 The Chair: I get to ask the last question. If there was one thing that you could ask from Government, what would it be?
Professor Alistair Griffiths: To provide funding through the farming innovation funding or other available funding streams to deliver the plan for the industry in Unlocking Green Growth. That would help society as a whole, both in its health and through climate resilience and mitigation, with the added benefit of economic growth from a shift from £28 billion to £42 billion and an increase in jobs in this country.
Dr Lee Beniston: We encourage the Government to follow the Science and Technology Framework recently set out and published in March this year. Through the approaches and priorities set out in that, we would encourage that they continue to work with UKRI so that we can effectively work with stakeholders in the research and innovation ecosystem across the UK, in particular the horticulture industry.
The Chair: Thank you very much for the work that you have put in and for coming to the committee. That is the end of the session.
