Select Committee on Public Administration Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 160-179)

5 FEBRUARY 2004

PROFESSOR SIR DAVID KING FRS

  Q160 Mr Prentice: Right. I did not fully appreciate that. When we had Professor Blakemore in front of us a couple of weeks ago, I reminded him that he was quoted in the Sunday Times in December of last year as saying that the award to Brian Cass, the CBE, "was clearly a political gesture. Cass's name was probably added by the prime minister at the last minute." Do you have a view on that?

  Professor Sir David King: I think it is simply not correct.

  Q161 Mr Prentice: It is just incorrect. Do you get copied the minutes of the science and technology committee, so you know what is happening there?

  Professor Sir David King: Do I get copied this as chairman of my sift committee? No.

  Q162 Mr Prentice: You will not tell us if you are a member of the science and technology committee. We have established that.

  Professor Sir David King: That was a trick question!

  Q163 Mr Prentice: But what I want to know is whether you, because of the job you have, I suppose, are on the circulation list of . . . You are not?

  Professor Sir David King: Let me rephrase your question, if I may, in a form I can answer directly. As chairman of the unofficial committee in the Office of Science and Technology that does this initial sifting to help the science and technology committee—which is what we are doing—no, I do not receive minutes of that higher committee.

  Q164 Mr Prentice: I ask you that because, when we had Professor Blakemore in front of us and I was asking him about the leak and he was saying it was a rough note and not a considered minute, I pressed him on that and he told me about the assurances he had been given by Lord Sainsbury and he went on to say, "I had a long conversation also with Sir David King, Chief Scientific Adviser, who again confirmed that what appeared to be leaked minutes did not reflect Government opinion." That is what led me to ask you a few moments ago whether you were copied the minutes so that you could reassure Professor Blakemore on their accuracy.

  Professor Sir David King: The precise nature of the reassurance I gave Professor Blakemore is almost identical to the reassurance I gave you right at the beginning of this, in terms of my approach to the animal rights extremists who had harried Blakemore over that long period of time and my views on whether or not his experiments involving vivisection should count against him. I certainly believe they should not, and I believe Lord Sainsbury gave exactly the same answer.

  Q165 Chairman: Again, for completeness, have we established that Blakemore's name came through your unofficial committee, given the fact that all names come through your committee?

  Professor Sir David King: Blakemore is a member of the unofficial committee, so his name could not have come through—

  Q166 Chairman: Could not have come through that route?

  Professor Sir David King: Yes.

  Q167 Mr Trend: Just to help me be clear in my own mind, the unofficial committee, is that the same committee that was referred to earlier as the expert committee, or is the expert committee the Science and Technology Committee?

  Professor Sir David King: We have the Office of   Science and Technology Unofficial Sifting Committee, as it has come to be known around this table, then we have the Science and Technology Committee and then we have the committee that looks at all of the honours.

  Q168 Mr Trend: You referred to an expert committee, or perhaps one of us did?

  Professor Sir David King: The Science and Technology Committee is the expert committee, and that has three civil servants and six experts.

  Q169 Mr Trend: Can you speculate on whether there are more of these expert committees for other subject areas across Whitehall?

  Professor Sir David King: Yes.

  Q170 Mr Trend: Do they all have unofficial committees as well? Would you know?

  Professor Sir David King: No, I do not know, but I imagine so. I imagine there has to be a sifting, and the sifting—let me just be clear in relation to the earlier question—is done entirely within the Civil Service without any interaction with the political system.

  Q171 Mr Trend: Yes, I appreciate that. You said that in this year's list you could, as it were, account for all the names. On a longer perspective, are there occasions, or have there been occasions when names of evidence in the science have appeared on the final list that have not been considered at all by the unofficial committee?

  Professor Sir David King: Yes, and those would largely be members of that unofficial committee.

  Q172 Mr Trend: With those exceptions. Are there sort of maverick scientists—

  Professor Sir David King: Maverick scientists!

  Q173 Mr Trend: —or scientists who perhaps just have caught the moment?

  Professor Sir David King: I cannot recall in the last three years an occasion.

  Q174 Mr Trend: So, broadly speaking, you are the gatekeepers fairly exclusively?

  Professor Sir David King: Fairly exclusively. I think what I did say was learned society's input, Office of Science and Technology, Civil Service input; but we also receive input from other government departments, again from permanent secretaries in other government departments.

  Q175 Mr Trend: The publicity around this leak also concentrated on the question of the refused leaks. Is it possible to say whether there have been people who have been refused honours offered through this system in the field of science and technology?

  Professor Sir David King: I cannot remember a single example in science and technology.

  Q176 Mr Trend: Because it will be slightly confusing if you put forward eight names and one did not come up?

  Professor Sir David King: However, can I just follow that through by saying, but I probably would not know.

  Q177 Mr Trend: That was what worried me, because if you proposed eight names and one did not come up you perhaps would not know?

  Professor Sir David King: I would not know whether that was the higher committee turning the order round.

  Q178 Mr Trend: Without asking who is on the Science and Technology Committee, has it ever happened that either that committee or another committee higher up has returned to you with further questions about individuals put forward by the unofficial committee?

  Professor Sir David King: So you are asking me, as a member of the unofficial committee, whether anyone from the higher committee—and the answer is absolutely not. As a matter of fact, no; no communication with the member of the higher committee whatsoever.

  Q179 Mr Trend: I was thinking really in terms of—

  Professor Sir David King: Unless I did not know they were a member.


 
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