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Science Budget

I refuse to respond to such comments from a sedentary position. It is right to say that maintaining blue-sky research is crucial for this nation's future in terms of wealth and of health. All Committee members are conscious of the fact that we have to keep the Government's nose to the grindstone in terms of producing the resources for basic research, and I think that this report does that. It is up to other parties to match that commitment—that might be a comment the Minister wanted to hear. To return to my speech, unfortunately we could draw few other positive conclusions from our investigations. Indeed, the way both the Government and the STFC handled the budget process was, to put it mildly, deeply flawed. Disappointingly, rather than engage with the criticisms, the Government have rejected almost all of the conclusions and recommendations that followed. I know that other Members will wish to return to them, but I want to focus initially on the STFC. The inquiry uncovered profound problems within the STFC—weaknesses in its senior management structure and leadership and in its peer review and consultation processes. To be fair to the STFC, however, it has taken some positive steps following our critique. In co-ordination with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, it has commissioned an independent organisational review following our criticism of its senior management. We look forward to seeing the conclusions of the review and what positive changes will follow. The STFC also consulted extensively within its community prior to last week's publication of its ““roots and branches”” reprioritisation of the entire council programme. Broadly speaking, the views of the peer review panels and the funding decisions taken by the STFC are now closely aligned, and we must question why that was not the case in the first place, because it would have saved much anxiety within the community.