Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 114)
WEDNESDAY 14 JULY 2004
LORD SAINSBURY
OF TURVILLE
Q100 Kate Hoey: You will keep all
the people with the very expensive salaries and the top names
and the trendy titles and get rid of some of the poorer people
at the bottom who are doing most of the real work?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No.
I have never subscribed to the view that there are particular
layers of management which do work and the others do not. I think
all levels do it. The question is whether we get sometimes the
balance wrong between: when we want high level policy work to
be done we do it with too many people not of a high enough calibre.
That can be a real issue in government.
Q101 Chairman: We will ask the Secretary
of State in the next section for more details, so stay around.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
would be very interested to. We have had a discussion on this
issue.
Q102 Mr McWalter: I wanted to talk
about your Monsanto remark, Lord Sainsbury. It seems to me that
was itself a uniquely unattractive aspect of the science community
because if our constituents come to us and they have a problem
with a government's policy, very often those constituents can
themselves make a very positive contribution towards the evolution
of a better policy. Instead of that evolutionary and learning
approach to have, if you like, a discursive approach, to have
instead a rebuttal unit or something that says: well, when somebody
comes up with an objection, oh, we have thought of that already,
is exactly the kind of image that makes people think that science
is a real turn off. You have to have some way of accommodating
reasonable argumentative points in such a way that those making
those points feel that people are listening to them. Would you
not agree that in a sense you have just indicated yourself one
of the reasons why science has such an unattractive image within
much of the wider society?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: As
I hope I made clear I do not accept the first point. By and large,
people have a rather positive view of science in this country.
I totally agree with the rest of what you said. That is why I
think it is so important that you get ahead on this, before we
get to the situation where people say: "We have a real problem
or an issue with nanotechnology". This is extremely important
to me. The scientists in an open and transparent way have looked
at these issues, have given a lot of thought to it and have done
any additional research that needs to be done and we have put
in any necessary regulations to cover the areas of ethics, safety,
health or environment. It is not a question of saying: we have
a rebuttal from that point you made. It is long before it becomes
an issue that work has been done and it has been done in a public
way so people can see that it is being done properly and if they
want to can challenge it scientifically or in other ways.
Q103 Mr McWalter: On a separate issue,
many school laboratories are very unpleasant, dank and unwelcoming
places. School laboratory technicians are desperately poorly paid
and also they work in those circumstances. I accept that there
are exceptions. I am speaking in the round. As I have indicated
already, Further Education science teachers are currently very
poorly paid. What representations have you made to the Secretary
of State for Education and Skills about the provision of adequate
recourse for science teaching?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
have made endless representations and, in the previous two settlements,
of course, there was money specifically allocated to improving
the quality of laboratories in schools. As I have said, we are
doing some things on the science teacher salary. I have made very
strong representations because I believe it to be enormously important
where we have shortages of teachers in particular areas that they
are paid better because in areas like physics, for example, if
you are pretty good as a physics teacher you are almost certainly
able to get a very good job in industry.
Q104 Mr McWalter: What level of salary
have you recommended for, say, school lab technicians?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
have to say that I have not made any representation on that. The
main focus has been on the question of the teachers themselves.
The area where we have done something is in terms of the network
of learning centres which will cover both technicians and teachers.
Q105 Mr McWalter: Will you factor
in the FE sectors as well as schools because I think that, I am
sure you would accept that 10% under the average wage for an FE
lecturer is hardly adequate compensation for the work they do,
particularly if they are doing work in what we all see as being
key areas?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes.
I very much agree with you. I think the FE sector is extremely
important in all this because, in fact, the area where we have
most problems, in a sense, as a country in terms of skills is
not at graduate level it is at the intermediate and technician
level. I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done in
that area in terms of the teaching qualifications of people, I
think a lot of work is being done on that, as well as also the
facilities that people have in FE colleges.
Q106 Chairman: Two more questions,
Minister. The storm clouds are gathering over North London, the
National Institute of Medical Research. You know a task force
has looked into the re-siting of that, not at Cambridge any more
but in terms of talking to universities in London to do patient-based
research. I wonder if you had been part of that decision, the
task force recommendation, to ask those two universities in London
to come up with a plan to take on the work at the NIMR?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No.
I think that is for the task force to do reporting to the MRC
council and then for them to come up with a recommendation of
what they would like to do, which I think will come to me for
final agreement. I think it is for them to do the work of looking
at that. I think last time it was not done properly, which is
why it seemed to me it was important that it should be done again
in a proper, open and transparent way with all the options looked
at. As far as I know, that is what has been done. In fact, I know
it has been done.
Q107 Chairman: Whether it is Kings
College or University College it will cost a few million pounds.
Will the DTI fund that move?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It
would be for the funding to come from the MRC to do that.
Q108 Chairman: But you may supplement
them if they do not have enough in their coffers?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We
could do that, but I doubt if that would be a sensible approach
to make to us. We do not on the whole hand out large sums of money
just because people come and ask for it, as I am sure you are
aware.
Q109 Chairman: I understand, yes.
Suppose it turns out that neither of them can come up with a viable
proposition. Should the NIMR stay where it is and we develop it
on that site? After all, it is close enough to London, and internet
contact, and so on, can still take place. Because I believe that
it has been ruled out as a viable option should those two enterprises
fall through with Kings College and University College.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
think that is the reason for having a task force and asking them
to do this is for them to come up with what they regard to be
the best solution. It is not for me to intervene and say, "You
should do this or that". What I am asking them to do is come
up with a decision and to do so in a proper and open and transparent
way.
Q110 Chairman: You will not consult
the task force independently or any members of that task force?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No.
I think that is for them to do. It would make the whole decision
process extremely confusing if the Minister started lobbying or
arguing for one particular case with the task force.
Chairman: It does sound like storm clouds
are gathering over there from the intelligence we are picking
up in terms of how the task force is going about it. We may be
into a similar situation as Kings is, so we point that up.
Q111 Dr Harris: You will remember
in February Question 56, I was asking about legislation on animal
rights extremism and you said that you will probably be announcing
things fairly soon on that. Then in May Mr Key and I both asked
you about the same thing. You said that there was a meeting and
that you would pick out all those things that would be new powers
or changing in existing powers to be helpful, we will see what
comes out of that and take it forward. Given my constituents in
Oxford are in the front line facing animal extremism, I am rather
hoping for "shortly" and "soon" to mean something.
The report just says: "The Home Office will publish shortly",
again there is that word, "a document setting out in full
the approach by the Government". Will that document be legislation
and will it be soon enough to support the people in Oxford who
are on the front line facing unreasonable pressure from animal
extremism which the police, I think it is widely accepted, do
not yet have the full powers to tackle?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes.
Shortly means within weeks. It can be taken literally rather than
the political use of the term. It does mean shortly, it does mean
within weeks. We will set out in that document what we are going
to do on the legislative front. There are important things that
we will be doing. The absolute primary requirement now is stepping
up the police action on this. Within the last few weeks there
has been a major stepping up of this. We now have a senior person,
whose sole job is to deal with animal rights extremists and coordinating
all the actions of both the police and the National Crime Squad
and the intelligence services.
Q112 Dr Harris: Will legislation
include extending the powers under the 1997 Protection from Harassment
Act?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: That
is one of the issues, yes.
Q113 Chairman: I want to finish now
by just asking you before I bid you off for a restful summer,
how often do you talk to the Prime Minister about these particular
issues or do you not talk to him directly about science in general?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Not
at all, is the answer. That is not to say that he has not shown
an interest in it, but I have not had a meeting to discuss these
issues.
Q114 Kate Hoey: Would he be an expert
on nanotechnology or GM food?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
have never talked to him about GM food very specifically and for
very obvious reasons. He did, in fact, when the issue came up
get Lord May—or Sir Robert May as he was then—to give
him a seminar on it and take him through the whole of the technology.
He also nowadays knows quite a bit about nanotechnology because
we have science seminars for him. I have been present at one of
those. There is another one coming up. That covered the subject
of nanotechnology as from a technical point of view. Of course,
as you know he referred to it in his Royal Society speech.
Chairman: Minister, thank you for answering
our questions. Thank you very much for all you have done for science.
It is good news and you play a major part in it.
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