Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-64)
RT HON
HILARY BENN
MP AND PROFESSOR
BOB WATSON
22 APRIL 2008
Q60 Chairman: I am grateful for that
because I think that confirms what the Committee concluded, but
we made a proposition. We understood the difficulty, for instance,
of the research councils which say, "Look, our job is basic
research. Monitoring is not basic research, even though we use
the results of monitoring for our basic research". The Departments
say, "That is not our job. Our job is to make sure it is
the here and now that we are looking after". We made a proposal
that, in fact, the agency or the new committee would have a budget
which would control the issue of long-term monitoring, in other
words to take it out of, if you like, that constant football match
between departments and research councils. Why do you think that
was rejected, Secretary of State or Professor Watson? It seemed
a fairly sensible solution.
Hilary Benn: It remains a problem.
The difficulty is finding a solution for it, given what you have
just very clearly set out, as to what the different partners think
their responsibility is, but I would be very happy to ask the
MSCC because it is there to do a job of work to look at this.
If you take examples like the ARGO Programme or Jason-2, it would
be good to try and find a way of doing it. What I am reluctant
to do is to sit before the Committee today and say, "I have
got a pot of money that I could draw upon", because I have
not. One of the things I have had to do, as all Secretaries of
State have to do, is to make sure the budget of Defra balances.
We have got things we are investing more money in, going back
to Dr Gibson's question, flooding and coastal defence, a big increase
over the next two years, I have got animal diseases to deal with
and in the end we have to take some decisions. Bob and I have
had a lively conversation about the research budget and what Bob
describes is what we have ended up with in terms of the cash sum,
but could I suggest that we ask the MSCC, as part of its work,
to look at this.
Q61 Chairman: The UK Marine Monitoring
and Assessment Strategy identified somewhere in the region of
£20 to £25 million which was required to plug the gaps
within our monitoring system and maintain existing monitoring
systems and there is no way of filling that gap. What Professor
Watson and yourself agree are crucial areas in terms of maintaining
these long-term data sets will not happen, so what do we do about
it?
Hilary Benn: I am being straight
and saying I have no money that I bring to the Committee today
to say, "I can tell you we are going to fill the gap",
but the issue that you identified does not go away for the reasons
you set out very clearly in the report. I would suggest humbly
that we ask the MSCC to apply its mind to this and to see if there
is a way of providing some greater reassurance so there is not
the kind of hand to mouth existence which there has been. I think
that is all I can say in answer to the question.
Professor Watson: That would be
my comment. I think we have again to go right back to what are
our policy objectives, what are our research objectives, what
are the needs in both the research side of the equation, what
are the monitoring requirements and then I would also ask how
do these prioritise relative to, say, the atmospheric monitoring
or the land surface monitoring. Personally, I cannot take the
marine, even though we are talking about marine science and monitoring
here, completely out of the equation of the other elements of
the earth's system because normally we are trying to answer some
big earth system questions, of which marine is a part, but I think
there are major issues with long-term monitoring. You are absolutely
right, I have seen it in other countries as well, everybody points
at each other and says, "You're in charge of monitoring",
and it is one of the biggest dilemmas. I would argue, just like
Hilary, that this co-ordinating committee should look at this
as a very specific issue of how you prioritise limited resources.
Q62 Dr Gibson: Of the financial interactions
in the consortium sense in other areas of endeavour, you would
try to say, "Look, you have a responsibility for this, so
have you; can we put something together". In the Norfolk
coast you will have Bacton, for example, and the Home Office has
got responsibilities there and so on. You do need some kind of
creative activity between different organisations to meet the
problems because we will all suffer.
Hilary Benn: Let us ask the MSCC
to see if they can provide that creativity.
Q63 Chairman: Finally, could I ask
you, Secretary of State, both of you have mentioned this issue
of raising public awareness and certainly Dr Gibson mentioned
it too. Is there a distinct strategy within the Department for
you, as Secretary of State, to lead in terms of this raising of
public awareness? Some of the issues that we raised within this
particular report were very, very crucial to the marine science
community but did not really ring many bells, for instance, in
the broader media which did not pick it up as a major issue.
Hilary Benn: I could say equally
that when the Marine Bill was published, I suppose because there
is a large measure of support for it, it did not get as much coverage
as it might have got if people were raging and screaming about
it. It was a reflection of our broader society, which we will
leave for another occasion. The Marine Bill, as well as the Committee's
report and the strategy that is going to be drawn up are all opportunities
which each of us has got to seize in the most effective way to
make the point. The greatest advocates of all for marine science
are the folk who are doing the scientific research and providing
opportunities for them to tell their stories about what they have
done and what they have found; that is actually how you inform,
inspire and encourage. It will also help to address one of the
other issues that you put down in your report which is encouraging
more people to come and do this, for young people to think, "Hey,
that's what I want to do. I want to help discover what is down
there so we can have good, decent marine conservation zones based
on proper evidence". It then becomes a virtuous circle and
there is a lot of fantastic stuff out there, which I am just beginning
to learn about. Let us work together and find ways.
Q64 Dr Gibson: Have Nobel Prizes
been won in this area yet, Robert, not that is the sole criterion,
but it certainly helps?
Professor Watson: No. In fact,
when you look at the Nobel Prizes they are very explicitly, as
you know, for physics, chemistry, et cetera. There is one Nobel
Prize for the three scientists who understood stratospheric ozone
depletion, Roland, Crutzen and Molina, and there has been one
Nobel Prize, of course, the Peace Prize for the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. There are other major prizes. The Japan
Prize has got two big prizes, the Japan Prize and the Blue Planet
Prize and they are quite significant amounts of money, and then
there is something called the Zayed Prize, of which the Millennium
Eco-System Assessment was one of the winners. They do not get
publicity in the newspapers, even the Nobel Prize is there for
half a day in some newspapers and it is gone. The way to get to
the public is, indeed, through documentaries and maybe we need
to work far more with a guy called Robert Lamb, who is a superb
person who worked for TV and is an adviser to the BBC, and David
Suzuki in Canada. The marine environment, as Jacques Cousteau
found out, is so photogenic, so you can bring in the issue of
fisheries collapse and the magnificence of underwater, even if
they are short documentaries, that is the way we need to get to
the public basically the importance of these systems.
Hilary Benn: Fewer body makeover,
home makeover programmes on the TV and one or two on marine science.
Let us hope somebody is listening.
Chairman: I am sure they have got mindreaders
listening. Could I thank you very much indeed, Secretary of State,
Professor Watson, for a very, very useful afternoon's session.
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