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Page, Richard

Paice, James

Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Porter, David (Waveney)

Powell, William (Corby)

Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

Redwood, John

Renton, Rt Hon Tim

Rhodes James, Sir Robert

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Rowe, Andrew

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Sackville, Hon Tom

Shaw, David (Dover)

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Shelton, Sir William

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Speed, Keith

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Stern, Michael

Stevens, Lewis

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Sumberg, David

Summerson, Hugo

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Thorne, Neil

Thornton, Malcolm

Thurnham, Peter

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Trotter, Neville

Twinn, Dr Ian

Viggers, Peter

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Walden, George

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Waller, Gary

Ward, John

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Watts, John

Wells, Bowen

Wheeler, Sir John

Whitney, Ray

Wilkinson, John

Wilshire, David

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Winterton, Nicholas

Wood, Timothy

Woodcock, Dr. Mike

Yeo, Tim

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Tellers for the Noes ;

Mr. Irvine Patnick and

Mr. Timothy Kirkhope.

Question accordingly negatived.

Main Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 9134/91 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 27th November 1991, relating to guide prices for fishery products for 1992, the proposals described in the unnumbered Explanatory Memoranda submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 10th December 1991, relating to total allowable catches and quotas for 1992, the reciprocal Fisheries Agreement between the Community and Norway for 1992 and duties on certain fish imports for 1992 and of the Government's intention to negotiate the best possible fishing opportunities for the United Kingdom fishing industry for 1992 consistent with the requirement for conservation of fishing stocks.

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PETITION

Human Rights (Kashmir)

10.53 pm

Mr. Terry Rooney (Bradford, North) : I wish to present a petition signed by about 2,055 residents of Bradford, North who originate from Kashmir and who still have relatives there concerning current injustices and human rights abuses. Wherefore your petitioners pray that

your honourable House will condemn the systematic mass murders, torture, arson and rape by the Indian forces of occupation in Kashmir ; promote international efforts to help refugees fleeing Kashmir and to relieve the hardship and suffering of the people who remain in the territory ; demand that India permit Amnesty International and other international human rights agencies to enter Kashmir, with a view to investigating and reporting on human rights violations ; and calls for the withdrawal of India's armed forces and their replacement by an interim United Nations Administration with the task of restoring law and order, and as soon as practicable, conducting the said plebiscite.

To lie upon the Table.

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Daresbury (Nuclear Structure Facilities)

Motion made, and Question proposed , That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. Chapman.]

10.54 pm

Mr. Chris Butler (Warrington, South) : The former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), visited the Daresbury laboratory in July 1990. Afterwards, she wrote : "It was clear that the Laboratory is at the frontiers of research in several fundamental areas, and I do hope that this will receive the international recognition it deserves."

Little did she know that, within a few months, the Government--not hers-- would rip the heart out of that laboratory by closing the nuclear structure facility, which President Bush's scientific adviser called an absolute leader in nuclear physics. Even Sir Mark Richmond, the axeman himself, called the NSF "a world class facility". In 1991 prices, the NSF cost £40 million to build. The manpower costs were £70 million and, since 1982, the operating costs are £65 million. The linear accelerator--LINAC--cost a further £3.7 million, making the total taxpayers' investment in the facility £179 million. Months after the closure decision, the Science and Engineering Research Council issued a report showing how that investment would pay off, but, strangely, the report assumed that the NSF would continue to operate. I suspect that somebody in SERC has a very red face. It was issued in June 1991 and said :

"The main element in the plan is to maintain the NSF at the forefront of low-energy nuclear physics worldwide The NSF has a clear place in the plans of the Nuclear Structure Committee over the next seven to eight years and Daresbury will play a pivotal role in co-ordinating and organising the efforts of the UK community The mix of people needed may change but they will continue to play an essential part in the UK's programme of nuclear physics research." In November 1990, Sir Mark Richmond opened and commissioned the LINAC with flattering words. Only months later, in February 1991, he announced the possible closure of the NSF. The LINAC was unused and will remain unused. Can it be the same man who is committed to honesty and integrity in public life?

On 8 February, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) answered a written question from me, saying :

"As part of a review of all its future activities, the council decided on 6 February to make plans for the possible closure of the nuclear structure facility. To assist its further consideration of this issue"--

that is, possible closure--

"the council is establishing a study to assess the importance of the nuclear structure science in the context of the council's work as a whole." --[ Official Report, 8 February 1991 ; Vol. 185, c. 257.] Those reporting on the issue--me, the staff at Daresbury and the Institute of Physics--all assumed that that would mean that the NSF would gain a peer review. That would have been the normal scientific practice and the just way to proceed, for a condemned facility--like a condemned man--deserves to be heard. But that promise was broken. Not only was there no peer review, but there was no review of the possibility of keeping the NSF open. Perhaps the authorities feared the result of such a review, but that is not an ethical way to conduct public life.

A review was set up--the Fender committee--whose remit was to consider support for nuclear physics in the

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light of the closure of the NFS. Herman Feshbach of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was on the committee, said :

"To make such a decision and follow it up with a review seems a peculiar way of doing business."

That is true.

On 24 March 1991, the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology said :

"It is incomprehensible to us that a whole area of United Kingdom Science should have to be precipitately abandoned as part of a series of crisis measures and we roundly condemn the practices and policies which have put so much at risk--whatever the excuse."

On 2 June 1991, giving evidence to the Fender committee, Sir Michael Atiyah, president of the Royal Society, said :

"There appears to have been little attempt to assess the case for closing NSF against closing some other SERC facility or reducing staff numbers in the (SERC) establishments. No comparison has been made of value-for-money produced by the NSF as opposed to other expensive facilities. As it is, the decision to close the NSF comes across as somewhat arbitrary and high- handed."

On 7 July 1991, Fender reported--he broke his remit to criticise the closure decision :

"Panel members are struck by the widespread international criticism of this decision and the share planning notice given to the community. The panel sympathises with these comments."

Feshbach went a little further, and said :

"There is, in my opinion, no financial constraint that requires the closure of the Nuclear Structure Facility This is an example of egregious mismanagement To shut down this successful and relatively inexpensive facility, with its admirable past record and exciting future promise, cannot be justified".

Fender recommended that £3.7 million per annum should be added to the nuclear physics programme in order to make it credible. That amount would be enough to continue funding the NSF. Perhaps that is why SERC decided not to accept the verdict of its own committee. It might have been embarrassed at the thought that it had closed a first-class British facility years ahead of its productive life, and may have made no savings and transferred abroad a compartment of excellent British science.

What savings are there likely to be? If the LINAC is not to be thrown away, it will cost £1 million to move, 155 people will be made redundant costing £5 million in redundancy payments, and, as a result, there will be on-going costs of £1 million per year in pension enhancements. If the redundancies had been phased, it would have been possible to save quite a lot of money through the transfer of personnel to other facilities and natural wastage.

The NSF bears a significant share of the overheads of Daresbury laboratory, and £1 million extra per year will have to be shared by the rest of the laboratory facilities. Postgraduates and scientists who use the facility at present will have to be sent abroad, at an extra cost of £600,000 a year. The premature dismantling of the NSF will cost £2 million. That cost would have come eventually, but bringing it forward is a cost in itself. Therefore, we face £8 million of one-off costs of decommissioning, plus extra annual costs of £2.6 million. That underlines the scandal of the misuse of the taxpayer's investment of £179 million. We are being charged for wasting that investment-- £8 million up front and £2.6 million per annum thereafter.

The cost of closure could be even higher if the Europeans start to charge for access to their facilities. A 1991 booklet called "An introduction to Daresbury

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