Science is Britain’s passport to the world

By making research spending part of the aid budget, we can become a crucible for innovation

At the heart of Brexit is a simple question: what is it for? Is this a moment for caution or for audacious national renewal? Will we be a country that gives all its citizens the opportunity to succeed in a globalised economy by becoming a more global nation? Or will we pull up the drawbridge and insulate them in nostalgic isolation? Quite simply, do we face a national identity crisis or a moment of profound rebirth?

Since the EU referendum 15 months ago, I have argued that Brexit must be the latter – as much to inspire and win over those who didn’t vote for it as those who did. We can’t expect former Remainers to get behind it unless we show them how it can improve their lives. If Brexit is seen by millennial voters as a victory for narrow, nostalgic, isolationist Little Englandism, it will fail – and deserve to.

So how can we fulfil the Prime Minister’s stated ambition to build a more global Britain? If we are going to grow our way out of debt through trade rather than debt-fuelled consumer booms, and if we are going to defeat anti-western ideologies as well as the global dislocation and poverty they feed on, we need to recognise that in the 21st century our aid, trade and security are all closely linked. Our strategy must be too.

It isn’t complicated. We are a science and innovation superpower. We have the opportunity to make the UK a crucible for innovative products that will be key to sustainable development abroad. We are doing this now in a small and piecemeal way: British scientists and entrepreneurs are at the forefront of exciting new technologies, from nutrient-enhanced crops to allowing households in East Africa to use phones to access cheap solar power. R&D is one of the most cost-effective forms of development spending. But there remain considerable research gaps where more funding is needed. It only makes up around 5 per cent of our aid.

Working with the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, the think tank Policy Exchange has looked at nearly 40 different areas of research where the lives to be saved and improved make taxpayers’ money a good investment. Millions of people die every year due to pollution from household stoves, which cleaner cooking technologies could prevent. Asthma inhalers, so easily accessed in Britain, are too expensive or even unavailable in the developing world. Agriculture in sub-saharan Africa could be transformed by more effective irrigation techniques, lifting millions out of starvation.

Public investment in aid-related R&D can be a win-win, boosting global security and prosperity while providing the seed capital for more innovation at home. But we will only unlock this win-win if the public and private sector work together to find out where additional funding can be most effective and to remove current obstacles to investment. We should identify the biggest challenges facing the world, from fighting antimicrobial resistance to delivering better battery technology, and offer support to those British scientists and businesses who think they know how to help.

For example, at Porton Down in Wiltshire we have a centre of vaccine technology which could lead the world. It is owned by Public Health England which takes the £15 million profit it makes every year and starves it of working capital. So it is dying. Instead, we should allow it to keep the £15 million and raise private capital. While we’re at it, let’s turn Porton Down into a Dfid and Mod-funded bio-security campus to develop British leadership in 21st-century vaccines.

As a minister in both the health and business departments I was appalled at how Whitehall turf wars so often triumph over the national interest. Brexit offers a chance for Britain to cement its position as a global leader in science, and our new industrial strategy is a chance to put innovation right at the heart of that process.

We are a science superpower, but for many years we have neglected our industries. It’s time to embrace a global plan for British prosperity through foreign aid, trade and security, based on taking our innovative products into the fastest-emerging markets to drive sustainable growth. That would be a Brexit Britain worth fighting for.