---

Science Budget

I welcome the opportunity to debate the Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee report on the science budget allocations, and, on this estimates day, to have a debate on the departmental estimates and on budget issues. I am glad that a significant proportion of the Committee's members who were involved in the inquiry are present, and I hope that all of them will be called to speak before the end of the debate. This inquiry sits against a backdrop of significant investment in science and research, and it is worth putting on record the Committee's acknowledgement of, and support for, what the Government have done for science over three consecutive comprehensive spending reviews. The allocation for the current CSR to 2011 is an overall increase of 17.4 per cent. in the science and research budget—an increase of just over £3.5 billion. Inevitably, some research councils have had bigger increases than others, reflecting Government and societal priorities. The Medical Research Council received a 30.1 per cent. increase in funding and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council had a 21.8 per cent. increase. That, in turn, reflects the increase in the volume of translational research that takes place in those councils. At the same time, other councils received different amounts. The Arts and Humanities Research Council received a 12.4 per cent. increase—its budget remained on a plateau—and the Science and Technology Facilities Council received 13.6 per cent. They received the smallest allocations. When the Committee started the inquiry, its intention was to take a short, sharp look at the science budget allocations for the 2007 CSR and then to move on. Immediately after announcing the inquiry, however, all members' mailbags were filled with correspondence from the particle physics and astronomy community. When the Secretary of State announced the budget allocations at Church house on 11 December, he and the Minister were taken aback by the fact that almost every question from the floor on that occasion came from members of that community. It soon became obvious that the allocation for the STFC was causing significant problems, so, although our report was about science budget allocations as a whole, it focused heavily on the STFC. Other Members will undoubtedly want to raise issues about specific elements of the STFC budget, but let me outline some of the key considerations. Inevitably, considering the controversy that surrounded the allocations to the STFC, there has been a fair amount of progress since the publication of our report, and it is important to put that on record. Both the Government and the STFC have responded, and last week the STFC made a number of welcome announcements on its future plans. This estimates day debate offers the Minister an opportunity to give further clarification on some of the still outstanding issues, and I hope he will take it. The Government accepted some of our recommendations, and we should be grateful for small mercies. For example, we recommended that the Government change the name of the science budget to the ““science and research budget”” to reflect the inclusion of the arts, humanities and knowledge transfer, and the fact that they accepted that major change needs to be shouted from the rooftops. We welcomed the Government's commitment to maintaining above-inflation increases for the science budget—now the science and research budget. We also welcomed the Government's commitment to innovation and knowledge transfer. I think that there is general agreement that it is right to turn world-leading basic research into health and wealth benefits for the country, and we compliment the Minister and the Government on that.