Examination of Witness (Questions 220-239)
5 FEBRUARY 2004
PROFESSOR SIR
DAVID KING
FRS
Q220 Annette Brooke: So how would Professor
Blakemore have even known that he was being considered?
Professor Sir David King: I do
not know. I simply do not know the answer to that. If he knew
he was being considered, I suspect that that means that somebody
who sent a nomination in to the Cabinet Office must have told
him.
Q221 Annette Brooke: Do leaks concern
you? You seem to be comfortable with a secret system. Therefore,
surely, you must be worried about leaks?
Professor Sir David King: I am
comfortable with the opaque system. If I was showing comfort with
a secret system, that is the wrong word. I would not like to use
that.
Q222 Annette Brooke: Right, well, opaque,
and very hard for outsiders to actually see in and how it is working.
Even with your definitions of how it is working, what improvements
would you want to see?
Professor Sir David King: Let
me first of all dwell on the distinction I make between opaque
and secret. I would like the process to be well-understood. I
do not think there should be any question about the process that
occurs. At the same time I would not like the deliberations on
Fellowship of the Royal Society, Nobel Prize or National Honours
System to be anything but discreet and opaque. So the discussions
should be in cameranot in the view of camerasso
that people can express their views amongst each other privately
when the decisions are being made. Equally, if you are appointing
a person to a lectureship, or chief executive of a major industry,
I would hope that the discussion on the appointment would be kept
between those making it, but the knowledge should be there of
those who make it and the process. You are asking me how would
I like to see it improved. Well, I think I have now learnt how
the listing from K to M operatesK, C, O, M, is what I am
referring tobut I am also aware that it goes way beyond
that. There are Knights of the Garter, which is amusing, but I
am not quite sure what these various distinctions are. I am a
Knight Bachelor, which is quite interesting for a married person.
So, if you ask me what should we do here, there is an interesting
point. We have a wonderful historic tradition in this country
and, I think rightly, you ought to be deliberating on the extent
to which we maintain that unique historical tradition and yet
show that we are a modern high-tech society as we move through
the 21st century, and getting that balance right. I think you
have the opportunity here. I think it is odd that people should
be given the Order of the British Empire. It is natural to ask:
which British Empire? If you had wanted to, you could call it,
say, the Order of the British Commonwealth, and that would keep
it open to Members of the Commonwealth and I know what the Commonwealth
is. Let us move on with the times and adjust titles, but do not
throw the whole thing out, is what I am saying. Let us keep some
of our unique historical traditions, but, at the same time, let
us also demonstrate that we are in the 21st century.
Q223 Chairman: On the same thing, what
is your view of titles, you know, name changing titles? We are
the only country that has an honours system that involves people
changing their names. Is that part of our great history to hang
on to?
Professor Sir David King: I did
find when I was in Austria and Germany, before I was knighted,
I was addressed as Herr Professor Doctor Doctor, because people
were aware that I had two doctorates, and you keep all of them
in Germany. So we are not the only society that has some status
quality to titles. My preference, as everyone knows, is to be
called Dave and not to have all these titles hung on to everything,
but, at the same time, I think this is part of that unique British
tradition and so I would not simply throw it out. I think, hang
on, there is something rather neat, something unique; and so I
do not think I would throw outbut I would say this, would
I notthe title Sir.
Q224 Mrs Campbell: Okay, Dave, perhaps
I can ask you about dissenting scientists.
Professor Sir David King: Sorry;
about?
Q225 Mrs Campbell: Dissenting scientists,
scientists who challenge the conventional scientific wisdom. I
am thinking about people like Professor Richard Lacey, who questioned
the scrapey origin theory for BSE, and some other people, whose
names I am not totally sure ofDr Pusztai, was it, who had
some fairly controversial theories about GM potatoes and the effect
of those, and the man who started the whole MMR jab scare, saying
that it was linked to autism. Have any of these dissenting scientists
ever been nominated for awards and can you think of any dissenting
scientists who have been given awards?
Professor Sir David King: Amongst
the group you mentioned, I am not going to particularly name names
here, but if we take the MMR vaccine and its relationship to autism,
I think the scientific procedure is absolutely clear. A scientist
comes out with an idea: there is a possible relationship between
vaccination and autism. We then have a scientific procedure which
comes into play, and, Anne, as you probably know, there has been,
as a result of that, a very detailed study in Denmark of every
child born in Denmark over a long period of time. The study includes
543,000 children of whom 15% in one category did not receive the
MMR vaccine and the rest received it, and the incidence of autism
was percentage-wise within noise in the two samples. For me, that
produces closure on that particular item; and I wish the media
would deliver that message. Therefore, closure means: good idea
that we investigated it; we have now investigated it; it was a
wrong idea. So now when we evaluate that scientist's contribution,
it is often the case that scientists whose contributions have
been negated by subsequent science are not seen to be amongst
the more distinguishedtheir colleagues do not highly rate
people who stick their necks out and are then proved to be wrongand
Dr Pusztai, who you mentioned by name, is another example of that.
Q226 Mrs Campbell: Could I come back
to Professor Richard Lacey, because he gave evidence to the House
of Commons Agricultural Committee in 1990 with Dr Steven Bemo,
who was then in the Public Health Laboratory Service in Leeds.
They suggested that the evidence that BSE is due to sheep scrapie
is non-existent and therefore concluded, "We cannot be confident
that the BSE agent from bovines will still not been infectious
for man." That is going back to 1990. So it was well before
the time that it became conventional scientific wisdom that BSE
could be infectious for man. Do you think there is a case for
people like that, who were perhaps in advance of their time, receiving
some recognition?
Professor Sir David King: Yes.
Let me use this as an opportunity to say that, as a result of
that BSE crisisand it was a crisis not only of agricultural
practice but also, I would say, a crisis of the political systemthe
public's view of scientists was damaged, and badly damaged, I
think incorrectly. You have just stated that it was the scientists
who pointed out this potential connection. This was a new disease.
It was scientistsand I am pleased to see John Collinge
is honoured in this year's listwho made this decision clear,
that variant CJD could follow through from consumption of BSE
cattle. So science got it, I think, right, but the political system,
for various reasons, wanted to sit on the science and we are desperately
now in the process of trying to recover the confidence of the
public by being as open and honest about all of these issues as
we can. That is certainly my position. I hope you are aware of
that. My advice to the Government is also put in the public domain
as a part of that process.
Q227 Mrs Campbell: Yes, but is not the
danger that somebody who does go against the conventional scientific
wisdom in that way would not be offered, would not be awarded
an honour because of the rather controversial views that they
had?
Professor Sir David King: What
I am saying is that we have completely turned our system around,
and we are now in the process of honouring scientists without
any look at whether they are ruffling political feathers or not.
Q228 Chairman: Has Lacey had an honour?
Professor Sir David King: I am
going to have to pass on that. Perhaps I could let you know. I
mean, I literally do not know.
Q229 Chairman: No, but Anne asked a very
testing question. If you have got cabinet ministers force-feeding
their children with hamburgers to prove that there is no danger
here and you have got scientists saying, "Hang on, there
is", in the honours system as we have it now, is it likely
that that scientist is going to be honoured? Of course not. And
he was not, was he?
Professor Sir David King: No,
no. I am saying, yes, that scientist is quite likely to be honoured
now, but was not likely then. I think that those lessons are being
learned.
Q230 Mrs Campbell: But has anything changed
in the structure, or are you telling us that it is an attitude
that has changed?
Professor Sir David King: It is
not just an attitude that has changed. There is a booklet called
"Chief Scientific Advisers' Guidelines", and those guidelines
spell out very clearly to all departments how to operate openly
and honestly with scientific advice to government.
Q231 Mrs Campbell: That was your predecessor,
Sir Robert May?
Professor Sir David King: The
"Chief Scientific Advisers' Guidelines" were published
in 2000. I arrived late in that year.
Q232 Chairman: If government got it wrong
on the instance we were talking about, why did civil servants
at MAFF still get their quota of honours?
Professor Sir David King: I would
just like to remind you that MAFF no longer exists.
Q233 Chairman: No, we are talking about
a period and an episode, are we not?
Professor Sir David King: Sorry?
Q234 Chairman: We are talking about a
period and an episode
Professor Sir David King: Oh,
I see.
Q235 Chairman: which tests the
system. I do not think there is any indication that the people
at MAFF were denied their honours because they misread the evidence
about BSE, and yet the leading scientist who was warning of it
went unhonoured.
Professor Sir David King: You
are talking about a situation prior to 2000. What I am discussing
is what has happened subsequent to that. I think the Phillips
Commission Report has been the real turning point on that issue,
and I have been working very hard with government departments
to see that that report is properly followed through.
Q236 Chairman: Could I ask one or two
questions, and then we are done, if my colleagues are finished.
You said that you thought that there was a question about civil
servantsthat was the only bit of the honours system that
you felt warranted some further attentionbut someone might
say, "If scientists can choose scientists, why cannot civil
servants chose civil servants"?
Professor Sir David King: I anticipated
that question. I think that the distinction is that the scientific
community, for example, through their worldwide academies and
through their normal operation of science, are exceptionally challenging
and critical in their operation. The people who bubble up to the
top of various disciplines are therefore people who have been
through that detailed process. The Civil Service is a very different
sort of body. May I remind you that I have a great deal of respect
for the operation of the Civil Serviceso this is not a
criticismbut I do think that the wish to be whiter than
white means that the decision on these processes should be taken
finally outside the Civil Service Commission, just so that they
cannot be accused of
Q237 Chairman: Do you have any sense
of how it might be done?
Professor Sir David King: I think
inevitably it would need to be informed by some kind of sifting
committee procedure within the Civil Service but that it might
end up with a group of people who would be widely considered to
be of high-standing in society. I am not thinking of political
figures who are of high-standing, but of non-political.
Q238 Chairman: Some sort of independent
commission?
Professor Sir David King: Yes.
Q239 Chairman: Again, so we do not lose
the chance to ask you: your own sifting committee, who appoints
that?
Professor Sir David King: It evolved.
Mr Trend: That is a science for you.
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