---

Science Budget

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests as a non-executive director of a satellite company. I make that declaration because space comes into the budget of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. I am happy to piggy-back on the report and excellent work done by the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. It is an important Committee, and I am glad that it was rescued following the Government's lamentable failure to keep the word ““science”” in any departmental name. Fortunately, the House of Commons did not allow it to disappear, and I played my part in trying to ensure that that was the case. This debate has been largely dominated by the STFC, which is better known as Swindon Town football club by those who are most active in it. It was a big failure by the Government not to anticipate what the implications of this would be. I happened to be giving a speech at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory at the beginning of December, immediately after Keith Mason made his speech at the same conference. I was able to stir things up a little bit because I had been warned by the science community that the STFC's move to change the budget balance was not very popular, because it had left the gap that the Committee subsequently investigated. Rather than go over that ground again, I would like the Minister to give us some indication of the impact of the £1.9 billion settlement that the STFC announced a few days ago, and to outline whether it largely solves the problems that were previously discussed. That announcement happened only recently, and it is difficult to evaluate its implications. I am glad, however, that there has been a settlement. When I was Minister, a very long time ago, we always had problems with big physics, not least because of the contributions to organisations such as CERN, which often skewed budgets in quite an alarming way. However, CERN deserves a mention today. In 1994, I was involved with the beginnings of the project now known as the large hadron collider, and we are about to see the culmination of that project after a long time—a 14-year gap. It is a hugely important project. For the record, I would like to compliment the Financial Times, which, in its colour supplement at the weekend, produced an excellent article by Clive Cookson on CERN and the large hadron collider, including some useful glossaries of the terms that sometimes make it difficult to explain why CERN is important. The studies of fundamental particles and forces that make up the universe are, perhaps, about to be unlocked, and we could reach a sudden understanding of the Higgs boson and all the other excitements that scientists have pondered for a long time, which would justify the British Government's contribution to CERN over the years. I know it has sometimes been controversial because of its unbalancing of budgets and the difficulties of ensuring that other parts of physics and astronomy got their fair share.