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Science Budget

It is important that the Minister should deal with peer review, and I am grateful to him for doing so. He said in his response that the Committee ought to be careful in what we say when we criticise the peer review process, because it might make it difficult to attract internationally renowned scientists to participate, but is that not a lose-lose situation? The Minister has accepted that there are problems with peer review. Surely it is the right of a Select Committee to say so too, even if that has the effect of deterring people.