My Lords, rarely have I got to the end of a speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and been crying out for more. On her second amendment, I wanted to know what she had against partnerships and joint ventures. I do not think there was a clear under -standing as to why that is a particular concern, given that many research processes go ahead collaboratively as joint ventures, partnerships or co-projects. I am interested to know, because I am sure there is a good reason; I just do not know what it is. While we are talking about that amendment, I would be pleased if the Minister could confirm that, whatever relationship ARIA is putting together, the National Security and Investment Act applies. I assume that to be the case.
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Coming back to borrowing money, which I think is intriguing, there is a fine balance here. My noble friend Lord Oates and the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, talked about the dead hand of the Treasury. I can relate to that with considerable experience from when I was sitting on the Aerospace Growth Partnership. Even though BEIS was the sponsoring ministry, even though the Secretary of State was the co-chair of the AGP, every piece of spending that went through the Aerospace Technology Institute had to be signed off by the Treasury. This is not what we want for ARIA.
On the other hand, the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, about ARIA’s ability to overborrow, to load up the PSBR as opposed to free will, would become an issue. Frankly, it would cause the Treasury to take a greater interest in the activities of ARIA than if its resources were clearly ring-fenced. In other words, if I was sitting in the Treasury and I knew that ARIA could borrow money, I would make sure that I got into a position to stop it. That would be stopping other things, a bit like the Treasury did with the ATI and the Aerospace Growth Partnership. We do not want that. It is in ARIA’s interests for it not to have this borrowing power because it will otherwise attract the unwarranted attention of Her Majesty’s Treasury.