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8.5 pm
Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): I begin by declaring an interest, in that I am a non-executive director of the Welding Institute, a research and technology organisation.
It is obvious why the prior options review is being conducted. We have only to look at the projections for science spending for the next few years to realise that the Government are determined to save a great deal of money on the science budget. A headline in the New Scientist said:
There have been constant reviews since the Government came to office. I remember the Rayner reviews in the early 1980s, and there were reviews of
near-market research in the late 1980s. They continued until Sir Peter Levene's efficiency scrutiny in the 1990s, and we now have the prior options review. There has been an inconclusive response from the Government, which to me suggests a Cabinet split. The Cabinet were determined to make a decision, but found that they were unable to do so. I suspect that the Deputy Prime Minister disagreed with the views of his colleagues and told them to go away and do their work again. That will mean further reviews by the Department, leading to yet more confusion, indecision and doubt.
The result of those thousands of person years of effort is that a great deal of money has been wasted. In that time, we have seen outright privatisation of institutions such as the National Engineering Laboratory, the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, the Hydraulics Research Station, the Transport Research Laboratory, the National Resources Institute and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist. There is a huge number of other institutions that I could mention. The prior options review is the latest in this catastrophic cutting exercise. Some 43 public sector research establishments, employing more than 20,000 staff, with a turnover of about £800 million a year, are involved. That is a huge exercise in privatisation. We are talking about something that is the size of one of our privatised utilities.
I am pleased that the Opposition have selected this subject for debate. It is terribly important that the issues should be aired and not swept under the carpet, as the Government are determined to do. The questions that the prior options review is asking include: is the function needed? Must the public sector be responsible? Must the public sector provide the function? What is the scope for rationalisation? How will the function be managed? Such questions can lead only to the further question: is the institute ripe for privatisation? The Minister admitted that earlier. The Government's question is, "Can we privatise the function and get it as far away from Government as possible?"
Only two years ago, Sir Peter Levene's efficiency scrutiny concluded that only ADAS--the Agricultural Development Advisory Service--and the Building Research Establishment were ripe for privatisation, yet the Government are putting scientists through an appalling exercise that is causing demoralisation. Scientists are leaving because of the uncertainty. The institutes' efficiency is being much reduced because they cannot work effectively when they are constantly being reviewed.
A more important question concerns the role of Government research establishments. The Government need certain scientific functions to be performed. It has been interesting, during the BSE debate, to hear even the Prime Minister say, for the first time, that he is relying on scientific expertise and advice. We would have to look back over many years of Hansard to find senior Ministers making such statements. There has been a realisation that scientists have an important role to play in advising politicians and that it is important that we listen to them.
How can independent scientific and technological advice, which the BSE crisis has proved to be necessary, be made available to the Government? What is the best way of doing public interest research to improve quality of life, health and safety and the environment? Such research will not be undertaken by commercial organisations. It will be funded only by the public sector. How can the Government respond quickly to the
emergencies mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang), such as oil spills? Such disasters require input from a range of Government Departments.
Mrs. Audrey Wise (Preston):
Would my hon. Friend like to add to her list the functions of the public health laboratory service? It has to respond to emergencies and must have the capacity to do so. It has to study disease and the best way to control it. Its scientists are worried about the Government's attitude to its functions.
Mrs. Campbell:
My hon. Friend picks an excellent example from the many public sector research establishments that are under threat. Ministers should pay close attention to that. The general public will be deeply concerned when they realise that the important functions of the public health service laboratories are under threat because they are no longer to be carried out by independent scientists.
How can independent scientific advice be made available to policy makers? How can Government scientists' representational role best be performed? When I was working in a non-departmental public body, an important part of my role was to represent the UK Government and to advise them on scientific policy. Scientists in the UK have a reputation for integrity and impartiality. That is important, and should not be let go of easily.
We need to ask how we can improve the flow of high calibre scientists into policy making. Too few scientifically qualified people have gone into senior civil service positions. Some improvements have been made in recent years, and it would be a pity if the flow of scientists into policy making was stopped by privatisations.
Finally, we must ask what public sector research establishments contribute to the national economic effort and our quality of life. The Royal Society expressed its concern by saying:
Professor Blundell, the head of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, chaired one of the three steering committees set up to review the sell-off plan. He is concerned that the Government may be overlooking the hidden costs of privatisation. He reckons that BBSRC pensions could cost £137 million. From my copy of Laboratory News, I understand that the total cost of pensions from all the institutes under consideration could be as high as £200 million. That explains why universities are not keen to take over some institutes. They are worried about being landed with the high costs of pension provision.
Many scientists are uneasy about the Government's intentions. It has been said several times already that it is feared that, if the Government do not get the answer they want with one review, they will carry out more until they get the answer they want: that the institutes concerned should be sold off.
We must also consider how constant reviews hit the institutes that are on the receiving end. The time and resource commitment of senior scientists during the
reviews has to be borne in mind. It is difficult to conduct high-quality research, whether basic or applied, if it is constantly being interrupted by requests for information and a demand to defend the status quo and undergo review.
There are doubts about privatisation. Jasper Wall, the head of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in Cambridge said:
Why is all this being done secretly? I would like a commitment from the Minister to publish the review report and the associated evidence. We have a right, as Members of Parliament, to see them. The scientific research institutes also want them published.
How can the focus of the institutes be retained as a source of scientific advice to the Government if they are privatised, and therefore have very different commercial objectives? Would there have been any funds for specialists working on scrapie, which was described as a quaint disease of museum interest a few years ago, before its connection with BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was discovered? Why continue with this? The decision is based on political dogma rather than scientific necessity.
There are four BBSRC institutes. The independent prior options review teams have recommended that the status quo is the preferred option, yet the signals from the Government suggest that that will not be the option that they adopt. One of the most important questions is whether funding from public sources will continue if the institutes are made even a little more independent than they are at present. The prior options review says that the function is needed, certainly in respect of the BBSRC institutes, but in the view of one director of a research council institute, that function cannot be delivered without underpinning finance, provided in the form of a rolling programme grant.
Core research funding is vital to an institution--a fact that Ministers do not seem to have understood properly. It is recognised in the university sector that research organisations need infrastructure and core funding. It is also recognised by the dual funding support system, with the higher education funding councils supplying money for research infrastructure and core work, and the research councils providing money for specific research projects. One of my constituents has written to me to say:
Without an assurance of guaranteed long-term support, there is no way a young doctor or research scientist will commit the rest of his or her life to long-term studies. Without such a commitment, we shall never deliver the crucial information that is so important to the betterment of scientific research.
"The fall and fall of Britain's research funding."
The science budget has fallen by £1 billion in real terms during the past decade, and it is due to fall by a further £500 million in the next four years. If that cut is not to be achieved by privatisation, I should like to know what other method will be used. How can the Government make those savings, except by selling off or privatising the public sector research establishments?
"We are concerned that the first tranche of reviews is already well advanced, without adequate time having been allowed for prior consultation with the scientific community."
It was concerned about the haste and apparent secrecy with which the review was conducted.
"I am surprised to hear that you can go to the market place for skills that took 300 years to put together."
If the Minister has not already visited the observatory, I suggest that he goes to see the amazing effort and the technical expertise in the organisation. That expertise is specific to the observatory and not to be found anywhere in the private sector--certainly not in the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils, which is one of the suggestions that has been made for the contracting out of that work.
"High quality research requires a reasonable amount of stability, continuity and long-term planning."
That cannot be achieved when scientists have to apply to research councils for grants for every project.
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