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7.39 pm

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Douglas Hogg): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:

'welcomes the Government's continuing commitment to science, engineering and technology, as reaffirmed in the Forward Look 1996 (Command 3257-I); and endorses the programme of prior options reviews of public sector research establishments, which aims to secure the best possible quality science and technology for the United Kingdom with the best value for money from the substantial public resources spent on science.'

I very much welcome the opportunity that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang) has given the House to outline the Government's position on the issues to which he referred and to respond to questions that he raised. I shall concentrate primarily on those issues for which I have a departmental responsibility and, in his reply to the debate, my hon. Friend the Minister for Science and Technology will respond to a range of the other issues that I am sure will be articulated in the debate.

I hope that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East will forgive me if I say that one of the themes that seemed to underlie his speech to the House was a profound disapproval of the process of privatisation. I detected in his speech a basic hostility to the process of transferring functions and activities from the public sector to the private sector.

Mr. Marland: Old Labour lives.

Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend has articulated the precise point. Much as I like and respect the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East, none the less, in a very real sense, he represents the articulate but traditional voice of old Labour, and he sits on the Opposition Front Bench making policy.

The hon. Gentleman's general observations sit uneasily with the huge benefits that have flowed from the process of privatisation. In real terms, telecom prices have fallen by 35 per cent., domestic gas prices by 18 per cent.and domestic electricity prices by 8 per cent. All those

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industries were in the public sector at one stage. Those huge benefits flowed to the consumer through the process of privatisation. I know that the hon. Gentleman reads the Evening Standard. He will see today the huge benefits that flow to consumers of electricity, gas and the telephone through the process of privatisation.

Let me make another point which is quite funny. The hon. Gentleman is basically against privatisation, he says, yet when--not very often, I should add--I read the house magazine of the Labour party, The Guardian, which I assume is fairly well informed on these matters, I find that the Labour party proposes to privatise certain parts of the Foreign Office. On the one hand, it displays a deep-rooted hostility to the concept of privatisation, yet on the other hand, although the hon. Gentleman may not know it, his colleagues propose to privatise some of the top ambassadorial posts in the Foreign Office. So there is a certain mismatch of ideas.

I should like to make some general points and then to turn to the particular. First, the Government are committed to science. Our objectives are to maintain a strong and dynamic science and engineering base in the United Kingdom, to have access to the best scientific advice and to secure a strong underpinning of basic and strategic science and the supply of high-quality scientists. Those considerations have caused us to ring-fence and defend the science budget, which has risen in real terms by some 10 per cent. in the past 10 years.

Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): Does the Minister accept, however, that in the past 10 years there has been a reduction in science spending by the Government of£1 billion in real terms? This is plain for all to see in the "forward look" statistical supplement. The Minister does us a disservice by assuming that we are looking only at the amount that is spent by the Office of Science and Technology, as that represents a very small part of the Government's budget.

Mr. Hogg: The science budget to which I have referred is designed primarily to maintain the strategic science base. Therefore, an important part of the research capacity is reflected in the expenditure committed to that. It is perfectly true that Departments have reduced expenditure. There are a variety of reasons for that. The first is the important need to move Departments away from near-market expenditure and into more strategic expenditure. That process was put in place in the mid-1980s, and it is extremely important.

Secondly, it is right to inform private sector organisations that they have an important responsibility to fund research from which they themselves are the beneficiaries. Thirdly, any Government who intend to reduce public spending have to look critically at all heads of expenditure. It is difficult to say that, as a matter of definition, the science budget within any Government Department should be excluded from any economies. That is certainly not my view.

Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall): I am grateful to the Minister. Will he address himself to a slightly wider issue and a genuine dilemma that all Governments now face? The greater complexity of the scientific problems with which they have to grapple--BSE is a classic example--

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means that few people who advise the Minister do not have some direct commercial experience. Indeed, they may be inculcated with direct commercial experience. So the Minister is dependent for advice on a group of scientists whose background is in the particular industry and commercial undertaking that may well be affected by his decisions. He has to recruit his advice from a group of reformed poachers--perhaps only marginally reformed poachers--in undertaking his gamekeeper role.

Mr. Hogg: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that the only advice worth having is that from public sector research establishments. That is absolutely not my view.

I should like to go through the points that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East was making in support of his arguments for the public sector research facilities. He produced four important arguments and I do not find myself dissenting from them as general propositions. Indeed, they have great deal of force. My Ministry, being scientifically based, is as heavily reliant on science in all aspects of its work as any Government Department, and rather than more than most. For that considered reason, we invest about £125 million in scientific research. No doubt the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) will say that we have reduced the amount. We have indeed made a small reduction over last year as part of a process of making economies that are justified and necessary if we are to reduce the volume of public expenditure.

Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak): Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Hogg: I shall make some progress.

In the context of agriculture, we have shifted the main focus of research. I imagine that when the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East began his professional career, he was concerned primarily with expanding food production, as that was the principal concern in the 1970s. That has changed somewhat. We are now seeking to make more effective use of resources by reducing inputs, trying to ensure that agriculture is truly sustainable and having regard to a range of environmental matters that were probably not sufficiently addressed some time ago.

The Ministry has other important functions to perform for which it relies directly on scientific guidance--protection of the public and ensuring that food is safe and, of course, investigation into animal and plant diseases. All those functions have to be carried out effectively--in a cost-effective way. It is perfectly true that one has to be satisfied about the integrity of the advice that one receives, but I do not accept that one can be satisfied about it only if it comes from public sector research establishments.

Dr. Jones rose--

Mr. Hogg: I shall make some progress, then I shall give way.

This is where the prior options review comes into play. It is part of a process that we have put in place to determine where research is best undertaken. The prior options review involves a serious consideration of whether the research undertaken by an establishment continues to be required; whether it should be funded by

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the public sector; whether the research needs to be undertaken by a public sector body or whether it could be as well undertaken by a private sector body; whether there is scope for rationalisation with other public sector research establishments working in similar areas; and how the functions could be managed in future. Those are all proper questions to ask.

As I understood him, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East said, fairly, that the asking of such questions was not driven primarily by a desire to make economies. Indeed, he argued that economies would not be made. He said that the review was a dogmatic approach to the process of providing the functions. Surely it is right from time to time to ask such questions of those departments so that we can ensure that the functions are performed in the best possible way.

Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion and Pembroke, North): The Minister is absolutely right to say that such questions should be asked. What would he recommend in relation to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council?

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