Examination of Witnesses (Questions 960-979)
DR RICHARD
PIKE, PROFESSOR
MARTIN TAYLOR,
DR CAROLINE
WALLACE AND
DR PETER
COTGREAVE
24 MAY 2006
Q960 Bob Spink: Do you think the
policy makers are too often looking for a quick fix? We will come
back to risk assessment and all of that later, I am sure, but
do you think that policy makers are looking for a quick fix and
are not really tuned into listening to very tight and focused
scientific advice?
Dr Wallace: The Biosciences Federation
would agree with that. Given that Government policy advisers are
not in post very long within departments, they are looking for
answers within a parliamentary session or within their period
of contract in the department. We would say that often they are
looking for a quick fix and not horizon scanning well.
Q961 Dr Turner: Dr Cotgreave, you
have been known to comment that there is a need to distinguish
between decisions which have been based on evidence and those
that are judgment calls.
Dr Cotgreave: Yes.
Q962 Dr Turner: Do you think the
Government does this very well at present or do you think that
when there is a grey area the role that scientific advice is playing
in that decision should be made more transparent?
Dr Cotgreave: The answer to the
first question is that I do not know because the answer to the
second question is yes: it needs to be more transparent and I
do not know whether the Government is making those distinctions
as clearly as it should because the process is not transparent.
If you take something like bird flu/the dead swan in Scotland,
once you know you have got a dead swan with bird flu you could
do everything from, at the one end, nothing to, at the other end,
killing every chicken and turkey in the UK to stop the spread.
We have to do something in between those two things and you have
to balance the risk that the virus will spread with the risk to
the poultry industry and all the other associated risks. How you
judge that balance is a political decision for a minister. How
you then achieve the balance the minister wants is a scientific
question and there may very well be a very grey area because the
scientist may say either, "I do not know", or, "I
cannot deliver what you want but I can do this or this instead".
I do not think the distinction is clear enough at the moment between
those judgment calls and those evidence-based scientific opinions.
Q963 Dr Turner: Yes, I can think
of several controversial decision-making areas where that should
apply, badgers for one, new nuclear power stations for another.
Dr Cotgreave: Exactly.
Q964 Dr Turner: Clearly there is
room for improving the decision-making process there as far as
evidence collecting and evidence presentation are concerned.
Dr Cotgreave: Yes, I think so.
Q965 Dr Turner: Dr Pike, the Royal
Society of Chemistry have had a view on this as well. Do you want
to add anything?
Dr Pike: What I would add is that
there has to be good science in the first place in that if we
take this specific example it would be good, and I am sure it
would be possible, to have said internally before any messages
were sent out, that there is, let us say, a five per cent probability
that so many people might succumb to bird flu and there is a 90%
probability that it could be zero or just one. In other words,
internally, and it may have gone through this process; I do not
know, the science should have said, "Look: these are the
sorts of probability distributions we are talking about".
Get that right and then you can ask yourself, "How do I communicate
that in an easily understandable way to the public?". I am
not convinced that was done either. In summary, get the science
right but understand probabilities. Probabilities turn up so often
that it is very worrying that so few people understand what probabilities
really mean. Get that right and then communicate correctly in
a way that the lay public can understand.
Q966 Dr Turner: Not easy. We have
various methods of deriving evidence. It might be a double-blind
trial or it might be simply a literature survey or there might
be a gap. How do you balance this?
Dr Pike: One can make judgments.
We all work with imperfect data, and I guess I am generalising
when I say that, but you can usually reduce a problem into a scientific
context. Even if there are gaps you can derive, for example, probability
distributions. It is a combination of literature searches but
also good meetings. I come back to my earlier point, that if you
do have a issue to do with, let us say, the probability of bird
flu occurring more extensively in this country, the probability
of CJD developing, you bring in experts, you do literature surveys,
but most crucially you ask the right questions—the what,
the how, the why, the what if, is this not inconsistent with that?
There is some evidence that that does not go on as it should do
because the outcome as viewed by the public is often statements
which I think most scientists would say are quite incorrect or
exaggerated and are worrying to the public. The outcome suggests
that there is not a well defined process by which you go from
the science to the public delivery of the outcome.
Q967 Dr Turner: Do you think there
would be a place for some recognised systematic process for weighing
evidence and the approach to a problem, especially given the fact
that systems are no better than the people that operate them,
so it is obviously crucial on any given problem to have the right
person in the right place to ask the right questions. Can you
see ways so that the public can see that this is being done systematically
and give them greater trust?
Dr Pike: I will be very specific.
I will not mention the country but in my more recent past I was
working to help a state oil company in its interactions with highly
specialist oil industry engineers, so there is an interesting
parallel here. We have specialists dealing with, let us say, the
less informed as they work within the state oil company, and what
we developed was a formalised process by which information came
in and was examined and implemented. That was all documented.
It was all simple stuff, schematics, which meant that everybody
in that state oil company department understood what would happen
when information came in, what was triggered, what meetings were
held, what sorts of questions were asked at meetings. It was formalised
in that sense and then, having established that process, we trained
the staff to work the process, gave them the skills. I see a parallel
that could be applied here in government. Formalise your processes,
do not over-complicate it with lots of words. Just have simple
schematics, simple gate-type questions—what, why, what if—and
continually train people. That is possible. I have done it and
I have seen it done by other people. Then you can track the way
in which the information comes in and announcements are made to
the public effectively. That would be the whole process.
Q968 Dr Turner: Perhaps we should
incorporate this in the Civil Service college.
Dr Pike: Indeed.
Dr Turner: The other problem, of course,
is that there is frequently a gap in knowledge. Without having
extra policy-related research done you will not be able to fill
that gap except by postulates. Do you think the Government is
well placed to commission policy-related research? Do you think,
for instance, it should ring-fence a pot within the research councils
or should it be something separate? It seems to me there is a
gap there. Do you think the Government should address it and,
if so, how?
Q969 Chairman: Could I perhaps ask
you, Professor Taylor, to come in on that one?
Professor Taylor: I can think
of a very fine instance of that and that would be nano-technology
where the effect of nano particles on the environment is something
of an unknown and it could be very important indeed. What has
had to happen at the moment is that we have had to try and commission
research, if you like, to fill the vacuum so that the right decisions
can be made. The problem is that we make these recommendations
and Defra have come forward with some very good proposals demonstrating
fine joined-up thinking but they have not earmarked the money.
They have said that there should be research on nano particles
and their effect on the environment. Nano-technology is a very
fast-moving and active area. In the tensions of a competitive
environment of bidding for grants something like that could come
really rather low down at research councils and would probably
not easily get funded. I therefore agree with what you say but
it needs to be earmarked, ring-fenced money and then this whole
project would be just going that little bit better, but at the
moment I am afraid it is going to run into the sand.
Q970 Dr Turner: So there is a gap
there?
Professor Taylor: There is a gap.
Chairman: But Des's question was also
about who should control that ring-fenced money. Should it be
David King and his team? Should it be the Chief scientific Adviser?
Should it be the research council? Who should control it?
Q971 Bob Spink: Or the Treasury.
Professor Taylor: First of all
I would like to see what the relevant ministry had to say and
then maybe the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser could step
in if necessary.
Q972 Bob Spink: Oh, can he?
Professor Taylor: Yes.
Dr Cotgreave: We have argued for
a long time for a ministry of science that dealt with this kind
of issue. I think now that the OSI is considerably more than half
of the DTI's budget we are moving towards a ministry of science
in all but name and I think that not research councils but that
organisation is better placed to commission research than some
of the departments that do not have a scientific culture.
Dr Turner: That is very helpful.
Q973 Bob Spink: We are with you on
that. You can talk about horizon scanning now. We would like to
ask you about the management of scientific uncertainty, and of
course that is a function of probability and outcome and consequences
and outcome and all of that. Do you think the policy makers handle
scientific uncertainty well?
Dr Cotgreave: I do not think I
want to answer that. I think Martin would be better placed to
answer it.
Q974 Bob Spink: I mean policies mainly
on climate change or on bird flu.
Professor Taylor: Exactly. I was
going to come in at the level of specifics first and then perhaps
move to the general afterwards. I have in front of me three specifics
that leap to my eye: climate change, where, as you say, there
is scientific evidence but it is far from definitive as yet, but
such is the huge, possibly irreversible, risk to the planet that
action should indeed be taken, so I believe the Government has
acted well on this.
Q975 Bob Spink: I think, Martin,
that someone said that it is becoming more definitive as the hours
tick by.
Professor Taylor: I would not
doubt that. I am trying to be generous. I am a complete advocate
of trying to do what we can. I have already spoken to nano-technology
where there was uncertainty. The other one that I remember, because
we recently have done some work with the Food Standards Agency,
is the way things were done for the BSE 30 month rule when initially
it was quite a knowledge vacuum, just as Des was saying. That
is another one I could have picked on. The risks were very serious
and robust measures had to be taken while more research was done
and then they were able to re-evaluate what was to be done. The
ones I am giving you, I am afraid, are the three successes, so
I am afraid I have not got a great criticism. Can I just come
down to the lower level of data, the horizon scanning? I am always
a little bit worried when there is a lack of knowledge, a lack
of scientific evidence. This might just be cause for inaction;
you will see that in our submission. One way to try and get round
that is to try and spot the issues well in advance and commission
or garner whatever research is out there. The Royal Society has
its own horizon scanning. From what I can gather most of the departments
have it, certainly Defra has, and of course there is the OSI that
runs something sometimes called the scan of scans, so there is
a lot of it out there but I do not honestly believe it is terribly
well joined up and that is why I tried to bring it in at your
earlier question when I thought it could be joined up a little
better.
Q976 Bob Spink: How do you spot issues
on the horizon scanning scale across Europe? For instance, are
you looking at what is happening in Europe?
Professor Taylor: At least half
of our scanning is done through the cutting edge scientists that
we are in contact with. We are constantly asking what is coming
up.
Q977 Bob Spink: So would you be looking
at things that are happening in Europe, like, the REACH Directive
or the Physical Agents Directive and horizon scanning and saying,
"Where is this going to lead us?", and if so, how did
we end up not spotting the MRI problems with the Physical Agents
Directive?
Dr Pike: Certainly on the chemistry
side there are various organisations like SusChem which is looking
at sustainable chemistry in Europe. That is looking at those sorts
of issues, what is going to happen in the more distant future.
There are these collaborative bodies that are doing that. If I
could just go back to the thrust of your earlier questioning and
be very specific, when it comes to the future and where things
may be going there are two very important examples I would like
to bring out. One refers to definitions, which may sound rather
dry, and the other refers to process. Definitions is to do with
the oil industry and the specific example I think I will give
you, and I have mentioned it to the Chairman before, is that people
talk about proven reserves, but how many people really understand
what that means? Proven reserves of oil strictly mean that volume
which has a 90% chance of being exceeded. Very few people understand
that and then when they see the proven reserves of country X and
country Y and country Z they just add them up arithmetically and
that is completely wrong. They have to be added up probabilistically.
What you have is that the whole industry is looking at the way
energy is going, but even the most basic definitions, even the
most basic numbers, are incorrect. We probably have twice as much
oil and gas available as most people in the street and in fact
most environmental analysts think. The individual companies understand
the picture but very few people look at the global picture. The
message there is that in looking over the horizon we have to get
things right as basic as definitions and numbers and we are not
doing that. The other example is one of process. You will have
seen a lot of debate about green chemistry and green fuels. Again,
what few people really understand is that to produce this hydrogen
or this bio fuel, to produce this GTL diesel, at the producing
country you have to stick vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Looking at the well-to-wheel process, in other words, the whole
process, it is certainly not green chemistry at all. It is something
completely different. People are making judgments and even research
decisions by looking at a very small part of the overall process.
In looking over the horizon we need to consider what is the whole
process from A to B before we invest in that or do further research.
Chairman: I will stop you there because
we are running out of time. Can I come on to Dr Harris.
Dr Harris: Before I ask you about the
precautionary principle, there is just this outstanding issue
of the role of government in commissioning research. In the Independent
on Sunday two weeks ago the Government announced we wanted
to have more home births and the Health Secretary said that she
was going to commission research "to support that policy".
Do you see that as a common problem in terms of politicians, not
just government, in fairness? How do we deal with that problem
of commissioning the research to support a decision?
Q978 Chairman: Can I ask you to be
very brief in answering these questions.
Professor Taylor: I think this
is a case inter alia of trying to get the terms of reference
for your research right. It is skewed in the way that you put
it. Similarly, it is very important to get the membership right.
Q979 Dr Harris: I did not put it
like that; she put it like that.
Professor Taylor: I understood
that. But when you said it a little snigger went round the room
because the term of reference is clearly wrong. I think there
is a role for the learned societies and external scientists to
help form the terms of reference when studies are made and also
to check that the membership has the right capacity to it.
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