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Science Budget

The Library briefing for the debate includes some press cuttings. One article, headed ““Everyone loves a man in a white coat””, reads:"““A new book argues that scientists are motivated by sex and status...and they don't need public funding.””" The article, which was published in The Guardian, continues:"““It may come as a surprise, but those white-coated chemists beavering away in the university lab are in it for the sex.””" I do not believe that that is true. Certainly the quality of today's debate has shown that those in this place who are interested in science are interested in what flows from that— namely, what we hope will be an evidence-based policy with the right degree of transparency and accountability to enable us to seek to improve the United Kingdom's enviable position in science. I think it right to begin, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), by recognising the Government's fine record, particularly in comparison with that of the previous Government, but even of itself, in terms of the quantum of funding for and championing of science. Some of the Select Committee's recommendations that seem to criticise the Government, in this and other reports, stem from the fact that the Government are, in a sense, a victim of their own success. They are a victim of the raised expectations to which people in the science world are accustomed. When budgets increase by less than the significant amount that scientists expect, they naturally want higher budgets, but if they cannot get those, they do not want the Government to deny their pain. I was not around during the last Conservative Government, but I know that there was a lot of pain to deny. I believe that Ministers said that a tight spending round would mean cuts. It is terrible that those cuts were made: it was short-termism. This is not the time to go into what happened then, but I think that we now need honesty and a recognition of the realities. Constituents of mine, in the Rutherford Appleton laboratory and in Oxford university, raised concerns, and I wanted the Select Committee to conduct an inquiry. I am pleased that my colleagues in the Committee agreed to include in our general scrutiny of research councils specific decisions about science budget allocations by the STFC. I pay tribute to members of all parties who were prepared to compromise, and to ensure that the eventual report was very clear. While I am speaking from the Front Bench, let me observe that science need not be too party political. I think that that was exemplified by the conduct of the Select Committee under the excellent chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough. Both the hon. Members for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) and for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) mentioned peer reviews. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said, they are better than any other method that has been considered for the making of decisions about the merit of a scientific case in the context of either publication or funding. Nevertheless, I do not think it appropriate to claim that peer review as it currently operates in the United Kingdom is anywhere near perfect. I believe that two reports from the old Science and Technology Committee suggested to its successor that an inquiry be conducted into how the current peer review system could be improved. As Committee members know, because I say this regularly, I still think that that should be done. The stakes are enormously high in terms of getting peer review right, both for individual careers and for getting decisions right. Today, importantly, we have had strong, but measured and evidence-based, criticism of the Government in this matter from Labour Members. I agreed with pretty much everything that the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley said, except his concern that we ought to be worried about micro black holes. I am not convinced by that, although I guess it makes for a good story on the ““Today”” programme. The report has messages that the Government must heed and take cognisance of. I share the view of other Members that it was disappointing that the Government did not seem to acknowledge any way in which they could improve matters, except by renaming the science budget. I look forward to the Minister accepting—I hope he accepts that he will not be criticised for this—that improvements could be made to the Government's performance. For example, the reputation of this country, not just in science but as a collaboration partner, is at stake. Sir Keith O'Nions accepted that there was the potential for harm to the UK's reputation in international partnerships either by decisions that were hard to understand or by decisions that were unnecessarily precipitate and did not seem to be based on adequate consultation or adequate peer review in terms of the quality of the process as well as the outcome. The reputation of the UK is increasingly important because so much science is now done in big international collaborations. A few members of the Select Committee present here had the pleasure and privilege of going to see the large hadron collider before it was closed. My view of that could be described in one word: ““Wow””—““Wow”” at the scale of the undertaking, at the scientific ambition in terms of the questions it will answer and at the recognition there by the scientists of all nationalities of the UK's contribution. Concern was raised there—the Committee touched on that in the report—about whether that was to be maintained. Although there was a firm commitment by the STFC to continue to invest in ATLAS and the big experiments, there were two smaller experiments—LHCb and ALICE; not the ALICE at Daresbury, which forms part of the RLP programme, but another one—which were categorised as medium or low priority. I noticed in the revision to the delivery plan published in the last few days by the STFC that LHCb has been upgraded, but I could not find in a sea of acronyms the right one for what was happening to the UK's commitment to the ALICE experiment at CERN. I remain concerned about that. I do not know whether the Minister could wade through the acronym soup in the document that we received to find that out for me. Those are small experiments but they are international partnerships at CERN. The themes that have come out of the debate are the overall level of funding, dealt with by the hon. Members for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods), for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) and others, the direction of funding and whether too many cross-cutting programmes are determined by Government, sapping the room for manoeuvre of individual councils. I gave a speech this morning at a conference on cellular senescence, the molecular biology of ageing. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council was represented there and set out clearly what its contribution was to a cross-cutting programme. Ageing is one of the cross-cutting programmes that the Government have laid down and there is nothing wrong with that. Another issue was transparency and I shall dwell on two points, one of which is the transparency of the process. This point was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough in respect of whether the Government essentially interfered, legitimately or illegitimately—I will come to that—in the scientific plans of research councils, through the CRS process of asking to see draft delivery plans, there being a view from Government about whether those were adequate. New plans would then come back and the funding would be signed off. If the delivery plans in effect say, ““We're thinking of this because we think project A has scientific merit””, and the Government response in effect says, ““Well, we think project B is the one that ought to be funded, and if you come back to us with that recommendation, you will be rewarded in the comprehensive spending review,”” that will clearly be an example of the Government having an influence over strategic, or even sub-strategic, decisions. We will not know whether that has taken place or not, because we cannot see both sides of the correspondence. It is interesting to note what the Government said on this in respect of the Arts and Humanities Research Council in response to the Select Committee conclusion in paragraph 116 of its fourth report. The Committee said:"““It seems to be a breach of the Haldane Principle that the Government should direct a Research Council to switch funding from postgraduate awards to programme funding merely on the basis of it being out of step with other research councils, or indeed for any other reason.””" The reason is, I think, not material. The Government said:"““All Research Councils were asked to prepare Delivery Plans for publication which reflected the activities that the Council proposed to support once it knew its actual allocation. The draft Delivery Plans were subject to discussion between the relevant Research Council and the Government, to check that they reflected the plans submitted by Councils in response to the scenarios commissioned earlier in the allocations round, and the terms of the Councils' specific allocation letter””." That gives the Government a lot of scope to influence the decisions of the research council at a strategic, or even sub-strategic, level. The Minister might be surprised to hear this, but I do not think that if the Government were transparent about doing that, there would necessarily be anything wrong with that. It is public money, and as long as politicians do not intervene in the peer review process to change the judgments made about the scientific merit of the proposals—there might be a danger of that, but if there were transparency it would be dealt with—the Government are entitled to say, ““We want to have more spending on ageing”” or cross-cutting on stem cells. They will have to defend themselves for doing that because there is an opportunity cost, but they are entitled to do so as they are in charge of public funding. However, if they do that, it has to be transparent. They cannot have it both ways, as it would be corrosive if there were a feeling that scientific decisions were being interfered with in a way that was not open. The same applies to regional policy. I represent a constituency in the golden triangle, but I think that it would be legitimate for the Government to say, ““In this science budget, we think a certain proportion should be spent in all regions””—or a particular region, perhaps—““as a matter of Government policy, and we are accountable for that, as people can vote for us or not.”” However, the Government cannot seek to have it both ways by saying, ““We do not interfere with decisions about where specific projects go, but Daresbury, for example, will be a science and innovation centre””. I think that the Minister has to accept that that implies there will be some large science there, otherwise he would have to accept that it was not going to be a science and innovation centre. We need to know whether this is more than a case of fingers crossed.