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CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 490-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE Science and Technology Committee
Tuesday 20 June 2006 LORD SAINSBURY OF TURVILLE Evidence heard in Public Questions 166 - 208
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Science and Technology Committee on Tuesday 20 June 2006 Members present Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair Adam Afriyie Dr Brian Iddon Dr Desmond Turner _______________ Witness: Lord Sainsbury of Turville, a Member of the House of Lords, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Science and Innovation, Department of Trade and Industry, gave evidence. Q166 Chairman: Could we say good morning to you, Lord Sainsbury, and thank you very much indeed for fitting us into your diary. I apologise to you for the fact we are rather short on the Committee today by numbers because of the rearranged date. . A number of Members are, in fact, away with other Select Committees on this particular day because we do not normally meet on a Tuesday. It was more important that we met you to hear your pearls of wisdom than to rearrange the date well into the future. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I apologise for having to change the date, but I had a small problem with the Company Law Reform Bill in the House of Lords which needed to be sorted out. Q167 Chairman: It was only a small problem, and we do appreciate it. What we lack in quantity we make up in quality this morning. Could I start with my normal process? We have given you the four major topics, and the first one is about what consultations the Office of Science and Innovation has had with the DfES on measures to ensure that the 2014 target for science teachers is met? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The original target set in the 2004 Science and Innovation Investment Framework was in terms of increasing the number of science teachers. This problem has largely been solved. For example, the rate of vacancies for science teachers in secondary schools has fallen to 0.9 per cent in January this year. However, we have continuing concerns about the quality of science teaching and I, therefore, met with Lord Adonis to discuss ways of improving this. We have set out important further actions in the Science and Innovation Investment Framework Next Steps published in March, and the DfES has set up a School Science Programme Board, on which OSI has membership, to take forward delivery of these. Q168 Chairman: Were you consulted about those targets before they were set? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes. Those came out of discussions that I had with Lord Adonis and with the Treasury as to whether we were making sufficient progress. The issue here, which has become increasingly clear, is not the number of teachers but whether you have physics teachers teaching physics and chemistry teachers teaching chemistry. There are some problems there, and that is why we have set some specific targets in terms of those subject areas. Q169 Chairman: One of the concerns the Committee has are exactly the same concerns you had, and the former Committee also had, in terms of STEM subjects - and we will return to that later in terms of universities - with 26 per cent of teachers with a physics degree and 22 per cent of chemistry teachers with a chemistry degree retiring in the next five to ten years I do not see how on earth you can meet the targets which you have set. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: In terms of numbers, you can see we are actually doing quite well. If you look at the figures we are more than meeting the targets for the number of teachers coming in if you take the total number of people coming through different routes of entry. If you take the conventional initial teacher training places but add on the employment based routes, in 2004/2005 we recruited 3,640 as opposed to a target of 3,225, so the numbers are there. The question is to make certain that we give the right incentives for physics and chemistry people to come in and do what we are doing, which is to see whether we can have conversion courses where we give people incentives to train further in the subject areas where we need them. Q170 Chairman: The bigger point to my question is did you calculate in this demographic trend that we are going to see an awful lot of experienced chemistry and physics teachers actually retire, so as fast as you are recruiting we are losing more people at the other end rather than increasing the pool. Has that been calculated in? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: What we have calculated are the targets overall for the numbers we need. We have set targets within that of specifically increasing those subject areas. We will be measuring our performance against not the numbers coming in but the number of courses being taught by the relevant specialisms. Q171 Chairman: Are you confident that the financial incentives that you have in place are sufficient to actually meet the targets? £1,000 does not seem to be a huge incentive at the end of the day. Are there other incentives in the pipeline? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We have the different incentives, which we have given to you, which are differentiated as follows: mathematics and science you get the £9,000 bursary plus £5,000 gold hello; for secondary shortage subjects such as modern languages you get the £9,000 bursary plus £2,500 golden hello; for secondary non-shortage and primary it is a £6,000 bursary. There is a considerable difference there. Of course, we are asking the School Teachers Review Body to consider whether there are ways in which existing teachers' pay flexibilities could be used better to improve retention of science and mathematics teachers. That is an issue to focus on: whether they come back and say they can be more flexible in relation to these key subjects. Q172 Chairman: Is research going on within your department or is it just the DfES which is tracking that to see whether those incentives are actually working? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The DfES is responsible for producing the figures and tracking them, but we obviously have a look at those as well because we want to make certain that the Science and Innovation Framework targets are being met. Q173 Chairman: You are confident that by 2014 we will have met the targets in terms of 3,000 extra physics and chemistry teachers, and also met the targets in terms of Key Stage 4 students being offered chemistry, physics and biology as separate subjects. You have no worries about that. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No, I did not say that. I would say these are realistic targets to achieve, and whether we achieve them or not will depend upon vigorously following this track and making these incentives work. Q174 Chairman: You mentioned about CPD of teachers actually transferring from one area to another, and clearly that is something the Committee would strongly support, but teachers have actually said to me that a lot of that work has either to be done in their own time or indeed there are few incentives for them to do it. There is no incentive to give up a responsibility post in modern languages to train as a physics teacher. Are you looking at that particular area? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I do not think anyone is talking in terms of moving people from foreign languages to teaching physics. The question is whether we can take some of the large numbers of people with biology qualifications and get them to transfer across. It is a question of whether we introduce incentives to make that worthwhile for people to do. Q175 Chairman: There are no incentives at the moment? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I do not think there are any incentives at the moment but I need to check that point. That is something which is being looked at. Q176 Dr Iddon: I have concerns about practical skills of teachers who are teaching science. One of the things that always attracted me as a student to chemistry particularly, and other sciences as well, was the ability of teachers to pass on their practical skills by way of demonstrating the experiments and then ensuring that the experiments were actually carried out. When we looked at 14 to 19 science education, we heard from a lot of students that teachers more and more are giving up the practical lessons because they were, for example, getting behind in the theoretical syllabus. Is anyone monitoring the quality and the extent of practical work in secondary schools in particular? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I very much agree with you that a good level of experiments and demonstrations are a key part of science education. If you talk to scientists and ask them why they first became involved in science, it seems to me they very rarely say "I read this book" but usually say "I liked growing crystals" or "I liked demonstrations" or "I collected", whatever it was; therefore, it is very important. It is also pretty much agreed that the level of experiments and demonstrations is too low in most schools. The area of debate is what are the reasons for that. There are a number of reasons given which vary from health and safety regulations through to discipline in class, and so on. I suspect there are probably two reasons: one is too much pressure on the curriculum, and the other is the qualifications of the teachers, i.e. if you are not properly qualified in physics you will not have inspired teaching, and inspired teaching in this context would also include experiments because you yourself may be rather scared of doing these experiments because you do not know your subject very well. I think getting up the levels of teacher qualifications is probably the first requirement., and the second is to have a little more room in the curriculum, which the new curriculum will, so that experiments can be put in. Q177 Dr Iddon: You would agree with me that science is a particularly demanding subject particularly in the laboratory aspects. What we need in secondary schools is good back-up from well qualified technicians to help the teachers, and to prepare the laboratory ahead of the teacher going in, which is fundamental and essential. Do you think we are training enough technicians with the right skills to assist teachers in the laboratory? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: To be clear about that, one of the things we are doing with the Science Learning Centres is to include technicians in that area, because I think raising the level of training of the technicians is also part of this whole issue. Again, if you are doing experiments, having good technicians clearly is very helpful. Q178 Chairman: Could we move now from schools to nuclear power? When will the government announce its plans regarding possible nuclear new build? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The Energy Review's remit is to review the UK's progress against the medium and long-term Energy White Paper goals and consider options for further steps to achieve them. It is exploring aspects of energy supply and demand focusing on policy measures beyond 2010. On the supply side, we are examining the potential role of a wide range of generating technologies, including renewables, cleaner coal technologies, gas and civil nuclear power. We are setting the enormous amount of evidence received in response to the Energy Review consultation, and the Review will report in the summer. Q179 Dr Turner: When the Prime Minister said in a recent speech that "nuclear power is back on the agenda with a vengeance", this gave some credence to the views of many cynics that the Energy Review was never more than a cloak to make a decision to build new nuclear power stations. Is there any substance to that? Has a decision been made? Has the Review always been pre-determined in this respect? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The Prime Minister only reiterated what he said previously to the CBI, what Malcolm Wicks has said throughout the Review, and indeed what Alistair Darling has also said, that nuclear power is an option which cannot be ignored. I have to say that is rather a statement of the obvious. He also, in that statement, put nuclear power alongside renewables and energy efficiency as options on the agenda. I do not think that is pre-judging it. To say it is on the agenda is a statement of the obvious. Q180 Chairman: To be fair, there is a great deal of difference between what the Prime Minister has traditionally been saying, that we must have a basket of energy sources, and then saying it is back on the agenda with a vengeance. "Vengeance" means a little bit more than we are looking at this as a basket of options. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No, what it means is this is an area you have to take a decision on one way or the other. To say we will not consider nuclear is, I was going to say, ridiculous. Today, given the goals we have for energy policy and the position of there being a very considerable lack of predictability of energy costs and sources and the great importance of energy security, to say simply that it is on the agenda, with a vengeance or not, is merely a statement of the obvious. Across the world there is virtually no country which is not looking at this question. If you go to China, they are looking at nuclear. Many other countries such as America are looking at nuclear. To say that we will not look at this as part of the Energy Review would be extraordinary. Q181 Dr Turner: It was the emphasis that the Prime Minister gave, and people are very sensitive on this issue as I am sure you are aware. It is the very large technical issues that are involved in the decision for or against new nuclear which is the important thing, and one of them is the fact that in the past the nuclear industry has been the recipient of massive government subsidy in Britain. There is a very real question mark as to whether new nuclear build would be genuinely economic in the British circumstance with our completely liberalised energy market. We have heard from many different witnesses in different Select Committees from the nuclear industry on the fiscal questions, and it seems fairly clear that some representatives of the nuclear industry do want some government subsidy at some point. The Government has quite rightly said no to that. If they do not get subsidy, they say they can do it but they will not guarantee long-term contracts, so they either want subsidy or they want the market bent in their favour. Are you aware of how the Government sees the financial framework in which investors would have to operate in nuclear power? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: This seems to me exactly what the Energy Review is looking at. These are exactly the issues which basically come down to three objectives: energy security, affordable cost and environmental impact. Do we allow nuclear to compete as one of the energy sources to help us achieve those three goals? That is what the Energy Review is looking at. We will need to wait until we have that review to see what they say about the cost level and what they think is the framework within which the nuclear industry should operate. Q182 Chairman: Before you leave that question, will the Energy Review actually answer Des's question about where will be the subsidies? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It will be looking at costs and it will be looking at what is the fundamental issue, which is should you allow nuclear to be one of the options, and, if so, in what framework it should operate. I think the Government has made it clear that it has to be on a cost-equal basis to the other energy sources. That is, as I say, what the Energy Review is looking at. Q183 Dr Turner: That does not quite answer my real question. The Government has made it quite clear upfront: no State subsidy. Can you state equally clearly whether the nuclear industry would have to sell its power through the liberalised energy market without any assistance or whether, for instance, it would have permanent access to the base load supply, which is what a nuclear reactor needs to make it economic because it needs to run flat out at the highest possible load factor? If you did that, then you would be denying other technologies access to that supply. Can you be clear whether that sort of arrangement is off the board in just the same way that subsidy is stated to be off the board? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I hate to keep saying this because it always seems so feeble, but this is what the Energy Review is looking at. It has been given the task of looking at these issues, and in spite of what people think the decision of what it would be saying has not been taken. It is a review to look at these issues and advise the Government. When it produces its report, we will know what it thinks are the answers to these questions. We have to wait until that report is produced before we can give the answers. Q184 Dr Turner: The possibility of the nuclear industry having non-commercial terms of supply which are not available to other suppliers is being considered then? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No. Q185 Dr Turner: That is the import of what you are saying. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: What is being said is it will have to do it on commercial terms. Exactly what is meant by that has to be determined, but there is no doubt that essentially the idea is that it would be on commercial terms. Q186 Dr Turner: Let us look at one of the other major issues, which is nuclear waste. To the best of my knowledge, and I am open to correction, nobody anywhere in the world has an agreed and proven method of dealing with high level nuclear waste. How is this going to be taken into account in the discussion in the review? There is not time to produce, as I say, the agreed and proven method of disposal before the middle of July when the results of the Energy Review are going to be announced. How does the Government plan to deal with the waste issue if it makes a positive decision for new nuclear build? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: That again is the role of CoRWM, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, which is due to publish its financial recommendation in July and emerging finance work published in April. That will be clearly an input into the review. Q187 Chairman: Are you happy with the CoRWM process? There seems to be huge controversy about it with people resigning, people rubbishing the interim findings. You must be concerned. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think it has been a very long process. Q188 Chairman: Is that a delicate way of saying you agree with me? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No, it is just that it has been a very long process to arrive at its conclusions, but it has produced conclusions. The whole point of having this lengthy procedure was to try and get all the arguments firmly on the table, to have a very significant amount of consultation so there could be no doubt that what it recommended was the best way. I hope we can still achieve that. Q189 Dr Turner: We still have the basic problem that none of the technologies are proven under the circumstances in which they have to operate. The Finns, for instance, have a highly detailed scheme; they have wonderful geology for the purpose, a great big stable lump of granite, but they do not have the evidence to show that it will actually work, will actually be safe and will actually contain for the thousands of years that is needed. They will not have evidence from laboratory studies until 2008, and they are probably further down the line than anyone anywhere. Do you not think it is remarkable that after 50 years of operation of a technology such a vital aspect of it is still undecided and unproven? We have gone wrong, not just this government but for the past 50 years we have failed miserably on this. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: To go back over the history of it, CoRWM was set up basically because there was a proposal to deal with the waste under the previous government, and the government at the last moment ducked the decision on the basis there had not been enough consultation and agreement on the method. The result of this was CoRWM was set up, which could not have had more consultation, and even consulted on the consultation. I would hope out of this we do now have clearly a view as to what is the best way of dealing with this. Whether there are still some people who feel there are risks involved, I do not know, that will come out of their report, but it should at least identify what most people think is the best and sensible way forward. Q190 Adam Afriyie: When do you realistically expect new nuclear build to be actually providing energy? What is the timescale? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: That seems to depend entirely on what other processes have to be gone through in terms of White Papers, consultations, planning permission, and so on. The actual time it takes to build a nuclear power station today is about four years. You will find that the various power stations which are being built are taking about four years. The Finnish station started in 2005 and is expected to be operational in 2009. Q191 Dr Turner: It is already nine months behind schedule. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We are talking that kind of timeframe. The really big time issue is what processes you go through before that in terms of planning. That again will depend on whether you are building it on the sites which already have nuclear facilities on them or totally new sites. Q192 Adam Afriyie: It is pretty much undeniable that if new nuclear were commissioned or recommended under the Energy Review Commission, resources and attention would probably move away from some of the other energy forms. Would you agree that would be the case if new nuclear went ahead? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No, I do not agree. I think this debate always takes place in a framework which is completely unrealistic. The reality is that in new energy policy it is quite clear a diversity of sources is absolutely essential to getting the best mix to achieve the objective. You have three objectives. You have a situation where it is extremely difficult to predict prices, costs or technologies of the different energy sources. What that says above all else is that you need a diversity of sources. If you say that, it is quite clear there is room for both nuclear and renewables, and indeed gas and coal. The flexibility between them is also essential. Q193 Adam Afriyie: If there is a finite level of resources, and a decision is made that a certain level of one particular type of energy production is desirable, either subsidising it or supporting it in some way, then surely it is obvious that those resources are not available for the forms types of energy production? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I do not agree. The position faced by energy generators will be very similar to that faced by the country at large, which is that they will want to have access to different energy sources because of the unpredictability of which of these will be the cheapest and best in the future. Q194 Adam Afriyie: The resources that government will be putting into energy are finite, I assume, unless I am incorrect, that if resources are directed in one direction they are not going in another direction. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: This is not about government resources but where the generators put their resources. Q195 Dr Turner: There is a fundamental point here because many people are worried. Though we accept we need a range of technologies and a range of energy sources, and that is fine, in terms of the climate change we want the maximum CO2 reduction, but the question is can you, in practice, have whatever benefits there are from nuclear and renewables, or could we be faced with a situation where it is actually and/or to a very large extent? The very large investment needed in any given nuclear unit - and to make it economic there would have to be many units - is a massive investment which would swallow an awful lot of investment capacity, whereas renewables only need a few millions at a time rather than billions but it would soak up investment. It is already happening in the City I am told by my friends in the renewables world. They are finding it difficult to get investors to commit because they are all waiting to see what happens to the nuclear decision. That is a very real worry here. Do you not see that? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No, because everyone keeps arguing this, and this is why it is extremely valuable to put this in a commercial framework. You cannot argue at the same time that it is not commercially viable to have nuclear and then say that investment in nuclear will drive out all the other sources. The answer is if you have a commercial market people will take commercial decisions. Almost without exception none of these energy sources would you want to get above a certain level, which again means that there is room for the other energy sources. It is very difficult to see how you would get renewables in any timeframe above 20 per cent. Equally with nuclear we currently have about 20 per cent, and most people think in terms of replacing that. I think a commercial framework is exactly the right one, and you will see investment going in, which are the commercially viable ones. I think generating companies will do on their level the same as the national level, which is to say they want a diversity of supply because if they do not have that they may get caught out very badly. Q196 Chairman: On the next session, Lord Sainsbury, you can ask Des Turner questions. Moving on to strategic science provision, will the Government reconsider its funding mechanisms for university science departments? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: In 2004 Charles Clarke asked HEFCE to report whether intervention was necessary to protect subjects of national strategic importance. A group led by Professor Sir Gareth Roberts reported in response to this in June 2005 recommending a target programme of support for strategically important and vulnerable subjects. £46 million has been allocated since then to research capacity in areas identified by the research councils, with further funding to raise aspirations and demand in STEM subjects. While the Government is firmly committed to universities being allowed to decide for themselves which courses they run, we continue to monitor the position of strategic subjects closely. However, the main challenge for us all is to interest more students in pursuing STEM subjects and careers. Q197 Dr Iddon: Are you satisfied that science departments are fairly funded according to all the sources from which they collect their funds at the moment? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No. There are three key issues here which perhaps do not get enough attention. The attention has all gone on a particular chemistry department closure and what is the role of HEFCE in this. The three fundamental subjects are do we have the right number of chemistry departments; is it clear that 73 is too many or too few? [1] That is the first question. The second question is are we happy that the money which goes to chemistry departments for teaching fully covers the cost of teaching, or is the reality that Vice Chancellors are having to fund the teaching out of research money and other money so that there is always pressure on to close it? The third question is how do we raise the level of the number of people who want to do chemistry, because there is not really a shortage of places for those people who want to do chemistry. Those seem to be the fundamental questions. To answer your very specific question, there is clearly still debate about whether the funding for science teaching in chemistry is at the right level. Q198 Dr Iddon: Are you aware of the report published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, a study of the cost of chemistry departments in UK universities? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes. What I was referring to were various reports coming out where, in areas like physics and chemistry, people are saying that the cost for the teaching is not properly covered and we need more information on that. The DfES is putting in the TRAC system to get the costs on the teaching subjects now as well as the research subjects, but I do not think they have at this point the evidence to be able to say we are absolutely certain that we are covering the cost properly. Q199 Dr Iddon: It is not just the cost of teaching. This report is on two 5 Star departments, one of which is one of the best in the world I am told, two grade 5 departments - these are RAE 2001 scores by the way - three grade 4 departments, and one grade 3b department. The interesting thing is in figure 5 of this report the two 5 Star departments were more in the red than the other departments that were looked at, eight all together. Of course, the 5 Star departments get quite a lot of the funding from R&D activities, from industry, from the research councils, and so on. It is not just the fact that teaching is a problem, this report suggests that the money is not being put in either for the infrastructure or to support the R&D activity in general in these eight departments. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The difference is on the research. We now have the TRAC system which tells us what the costs are, and we also have the full economic costing system. If in these circumstances a department gets into problems with its funding of research, you have to say that this has something to do with the way that the department has been run. The whole point of the full economic cost system is to say that university research departments should know what the cost of the research is, and if the grant they are getting does not cover the full cost then they have to know where they can use other funds, such as QR money, to cover those overhead costs. That is the point of the system. If that is not happening, then it has something to do with the responsibility of that research department. In the teaching issue, this is more serious because I do not think we have a good handle on what the costs are. It may be we are just systematically under funding the teaching. Q200 Dr Iddon: I know I have pressed you on this before and I press you on it again. After all the information that has been coming through in the last few months, would you accept now that the change to the 1.7 to 1 ratio between science and the arts and humanities was a mistake and we should go back to 2 to 1 as it was previously? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My view would be strongly that we really do now need proper costing systems and to make judgments based on that. Clearly in the context it is not clear we are covering them properly. I have concerns about whether it was right to make that decision. Q201 Dr Iddon: You mentioned the closure of chemistry departments, and the South and South-East have suffered considerably in the last years. When HEFCE were in front of us giving evidence a few months ago, they admitted they did not have the power to intervene in the autonomy of universities to prevent the closure of departments in regions where those departments are seen by industry and commerce to be essential. Do you think that HEFCE should be given powers to intervene in the closure of departments which are essential to the economy in different regions, and not just science departments? Q202 Chairman: Could I add to that, if not HEFCE, do you think somebody else should be, particularly in your own department? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No. I personally strongly support the idea of the autonomy of universities in this. If anything, we want to increase the independence of universities and force them to make decisions about their research, and so on, on an independent basis. This is where I would come back to the question about the proper costing of teaching courses. I believe if there is a flow of students coming through and you receive proper funding for teaching, then universities will provide those courses because it is very much part of what a research-based university should be about. Unless there was a really extraordinary situation where there were a lot of students coming through and no courses for them, I do not think one should intervene. We are not in that situation. There are 73 departments of chemistry teaching students, so that is about 46 students a year per university. It seems very difficult to make a case we have too few courses. The key issue is, are they getting enough money for this teaching so they are not under pressure to close the departments in order to save money. Q203 Adam Afriyie: What is the point of HEFCE if it has no power to intervene? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: HEFCE is there to allocate the money to universities. Q204 Adam Afriyie: It is just a funding mechanism. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It actually does rather more than that. As a whole one wants to, if anything, make HEFCE more about allocation of funds and less about micro-managing of universities. If you start saying "You, university, have to run this course", then you take away quite a bit of the financial responsibility of the university for its own finances. Q205 Dr Iddon: We would challenge you on the 73 chemistry departments. There might be 73 departments teaching chemistry within them but they are not chemistry departments. My figure would be nearer 44 chemistry departments at the moment, but we will leave that in the air. Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My figure was simply the Higher Education Statistics Agency figure. I agree it is chemistry departments which have more than 20 students. Q206 Dr Iddon: My final question is do you think the government has an analysis of how many science students from the different disciplines that we have to support our knowledge-based economy for the next ten years? Has any analysis been done by consultation with industry on this figure? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think the answer is no. It is an incredibly difficult figure to actually produce. You have to remember that in most of the science subjects the number of undergraduates or graduates that then go into the subject area is on average about 60 per cent. The problems are rather more specific to particular subjects and particular parts of this, but I think the answer is no. To be quite frank, to get a real understanding of the number of people doing science and how that is changing is also quite difficult, and that is why we produced a paper in the office of Science and Innovation which tried to bring some clarity to what was happening on the student numbers. They are going up very fast on STEM subjects generally. The question is what is the balance between the different subjects, and is the growth coming in the right places. Q207 Chairman: I am very much aware you have given us your allocated time but I wonder if I could finally ask you about the PPARC Large Facilities Council and when a decision on the future arrangement for Large Facilities will be announced? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The consultation period on whether to bring together the UK interests in large scale research facilities under a single council ended on the 16 June. We are analysing the responses now and are looking to reach a decision soon. Q208 Chairman: What are the main messages coming to you from the community? Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We need to have analysed all the responses, and as you would guess quite a lot of responses came on 16 June which was the end date. As a whole, there is quite a lot of enthusiasm for bringing together PPARC and CCLRC. That is as much as one can say at this point. Chairman: We thank you very much for this session.
[1] Note by the witness: 73 refers to the number of Institutions teaching chemistry. |