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Science Budget

I do not think that enough is spent on them. We need to support more doctoral researchers in our universities—particularly UK-bred doctoral researchers, because they will mature, become the wealth generators and knowledge creators of the future and help to push forward medical science, which the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about. That is why I back the fund from the Royal Society, Britain's national academy of sciences, for the blue-skies research that gets around the peer review constraints to some extent. We must continue the red-blooded backing of big science projects such as Diamond, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, and the large hadron collider at Cern, which is extremely exciting. As I said in an intervention earlier, it may deliver even more for mankind if it disproves the existence of the Higgs boson rather than proves it, but we will see about that over the next few exciting months. On nuclear fusion, if we ever get Q factors up to the 35 or 40 level, we will take the greatest step ever in mankind's history—by saving the planet and moving forward. I hope that the Minister will give comfort to the House by saying that he and the Government are truly sold on supporting big science, and on continuing to do what they have done—magnificently—over the past 10 years with science, which is to put their money where their mouth is. I back the call of the hon. Member for Norwich, North for the science budget to be quadrupled and for a significant proportion of it to go to blue-skies research.