Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
WEDNESDAY 14 JULY 2004
LORD SAINSBURY
OF TURVILLE
Q80 Chairman: That could be the last
one in the UK, given that we are competing against the US and
Japan now for particular facilities. The European dimension has
always considered you are European, not a little Englander. That
is the way forward, is it not?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think there are different sizes of project. There are projects
where you might have three across Europe. There will be a number,
probably too many synchrotrons across Europe in the end. There
are projects which are European projects and of course there are
world projects. CERN and the new linear collider will be world
projects, ITER is another one. Then there are some which are European
projects, like the Europe neutron source.
Q81 Bob Spink: Could I take you,
Lord Sainsbury, to the European Research Council proposal?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes.
Q82 Bob Spink: What role is the UK
playing in its negotiations, and are you positive about this potential
move?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes,
I think we are very positive. I think the reason for this is that
there is perhaps a fairly sort of key strategic issue here, which
is I do not think it is clear that bringing together basic research
and industry-driven research, competitive research together in
the same Framework is necessarily the best way to handle research.
The reason for that is: when you are doing basic research I think
you want to do it on a system which is basically run by scientists
on peer review, the criteria is excellence of the research. When
you are doing industrially-oriented research then you have a different
way of managing it and different criteria. You want that very
much to be driven by industry. One of the things we are seeing,
which is I think very disturbing, is that the rate of industry
participation and Framework programmes has been going down. That
is not simply a UK problem, it is a European problem. I think
one of the advantages of European Research Council they will say
this is the basic research. We will run that through an agency,
peer review, criteria of excellence. That means that the rest
of research can be very clearly focused on industrial needs, so
we are supporting that.
Q83 Bob Spink: That is very clear,
thank you. Do you think in the future there should be a merger
of the European Science Foundation with the ERC?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think we are not in the stage of anyone negotiating anything at
this point. There are still final decisions to be taken about
a European Research Council. The important thing is to be very
clear about what the requirements are for a European Research
Council and then see whether the European Research Foundation
meets that in any way, the Science Foundation meets that. I have
to say that on a first look it seems very unlikely. One wants
the research agency to be very firmly run by excellent scientists,
not on a trained association's view, which is the European Research
Foundation.
Q84 Bob Spink: Do you think the ERC
should meet the full economic cost of any research that it supports?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes.
Q85 Chairman: Good answer.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Whether
we get that is, of course, speculation.
Q86 Bob Spink: Would that be a condition
of UK support for the ERC?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think the point is to be clear on what basis it is and then say
do we want to support it. We would clearly be arguing for the
fact it would give full economic cost.
Q87 Bob Spink: Looking at the funding
of an ERC, if it comes forward, do you think that this should
be funded from the existing cake by taking a bigger proportion
of funds from that cake or do you think it should have new money
fed into it?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think it can work at both levels. If one said we will split the
Framework programme into two and have a Research Council and a
set of industrial programmes, I think that probably would be a
step forward anyway. I think there will be a strong move to put
more funds into the research, into Framework or research programmes.
The Commission is already arguing for a very substantial increase.
We would be joining them in that, subject to keeping within the
overall budget constraints.
Q88 Bob Spink: You have been very
helpful. Just one short final one. If in future the full economic
cost of research was not met by the ERC would the Government put
matching funds up to top up for particular researches?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think that is the way that this whole thing is moving. The whole
question of what is the purpose for QR funding. One of the purposes
is quite clearly to cover those areas where there is not full
economic cost, whether it is charities or European money, as well
as giving the discretion to the Vice Chancellor to do particular
Blue Skies research.
Q89 Mr Key: Minister, have you ever
had a discussion about his concerns about science with the Prince
of Wales?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No.
Q90 Mr Key: Do you not think that
is a pity? He is not wrong. He is merely reflecting the feeling
of most people that science is deeply boring and rather dangerous.
In fact, everything we have been saying this afternoon to the
average punter on the street, or in our constituency, would appear
to be astonishingly boring. I know it is very worthy and very
important but I see that you are doubling the budget on science
in society to £9 million a year. That is tremendous, but
it is not going to fire people up, is it?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think you do an injustice to the British people. The British people
as a whole are rather interested in science and excited about
it. What they have is concerns about particularly new technologies;
that has always been the case. I think the two areas you need
to act on. One is: inspiring young people. That is a lot to do
with very good teaching. The second is to deal with this issue,
the science in society issues. I think that has more to do with
dealing with people's anxieties about new technology and providing
the fora in which these issues can be debated, particularly debating
them upstream, the ethical, the environmental, the health, the
safety issues, before a new technology comes in. That is why we
have asked for this work to be done by the Royal Society and the
Royal Academy of Engineering, which I think even the Prince of
Wales approves of.
Q91 Mr Key: I am sure he does, Minister.
Why is it that Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace and Plant Life
International and The Eden Project get all the Brownie points
and they do a great job, but all the worthy scientists, and the
Government is spending all this tax payers money, it does not
get a look in. Of course, what you are doing is excellent. How
are we going to capture the imagination of the British people?
I do not think they are really very interested in science. They
are interested in not thinking about science and saying no to
all sorts of things. How are you going to achieve this? What do
you mean, for example, by responding to public concerns?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think, if I may say so, on the first point the evidence would
suggest that you are not correct. If you look at the survey data,
a very large number of people say they are both excited and amazed
by the discovery of science. By and large they think that helps
take things forward. I think you have only to look at the response
you get to all sorts of areas of science to know that people are
excited about it. That is the first issue. As I said, the main
issue, the problem is that people are concerned about the new
areas of technology. I think the way that you deal with that is
not the old-fashioned way, which was to say, "We must raise
the level of education of everyone in science", and if they
then have their education level raised in science they will then
automatically say: go ahead, do more science because now we understand
it. That is not how people's concerns are formulated. What they
want to know is that scientists have thought about these issues;
not when it hits the public, but well before that. That issues
of regulation and control are thought through and that is what
we are doing, what we have done very successfully in stem cell
research and has been done very successfully on the genetic front
by Helena Kennedy's Human Genetics Commission and one or two other
areas which we should now look at.
Q92 Mr Key: Monsanto thought they
were educating the public, did they not, on GM and I think the
Prime Minister thought he was educating the public. It did not
really work. The Framework says that your new grant scheme will:
"Encourage informed media coverage of science". How
do you plan to achieve that?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think this is exactly the right issue. I think Monsanto's campaign
on that was exactly an example of how not to do it. The reason
for that was they had not thought through and they had not gone
through these issues of safety, environment and regulation before
the products were produced. If you have done that so that when
concerns are raised you can say: "No, we have thought about
these issues, we have done the research, we have looked at whether
there is a problem with nano particles". Then I think, and
if that is done in an open and transparent way, that is extremely
good in terms of informing the public. They are probably extremely
interested to hear it and if it is a convincing case will be reassured.
Q93 Mr Key: Do you think the Office
of Science and Technology should set up a rebuttal unit to put
things right instantly when there is poor reporting in the media?
Chairman: Peter Mandelson would love
to run it.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Given
the cut-backs of staff, the number of people we would have to
employ doing rebuttal I think it is probably rather difficult.
In my experience, newspapers print rather few of the letters rebutting
things on that basis.
Q94 Mr Key: But a rebuttal unit in
the media is very important, like the Royal Institution's Media
Centre which has been a huge success. Seriously, I do wonder if
it would be helpful to the public in any case when, for example,
there is an inaccurate report on radio and television if immediately
someone should phone up the producer or someone and you should
get an authoritative response. Frankly, the media gets away with
an awful lot of murder, does it not?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
have always been a very enthusiastic supporter of the Science
Media Centre of the Royal Institution. It always seemed to me
that it was absolutely essential that that was outside Government
and not inside Government because if you have that kind of unit
within governments, it does not, I am afraid to say, give other
people's views about scientists in government necessarily to help.
It is very important it is outside.
Q95 Kate Hoey: Lord Sainsbury, can
I just ask: have you been asked to get rid of or to find a way
of getting rid of some of your staff as a result of the Chancellor's
announcement or does that not affect your particular section?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It
will undoubtedly affect all parts of the DTI, including my own,
yes.
Q96 Kate Hoey: How many people work
in your section at the moment?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It
is about 264 in the Innovation Group and I think it is about 112,
120 in the Office of Science and Technology.
Q97 Kate Hoey: You are expecting
to have some redundancies?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes,
I mean, I think—
Chairman: Is that a list that has just
come in?
Q98 Kate Hoey: You do not have to
name names.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think there should be, yes, and I think it is very important we
do this and we do it effectively.
Q99 Kate Hoey: Do you know what areas?
Are you going to make the decisions about which areas are suddenly
no longer needed or ones that you feel are no longer important?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
am not certain it is necessarily a question of saying the right
areas which we will not do. The question is: can we do them more
effectively and with fewer people? I think there probably is some
considerable scope to do things with probably a higher calibre
of people but fewer of them.
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