Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340
- 359)
MONDAY 18 MAY 2009
18 MAY 2009 RT
HON LORD
DRAYSON AND
PROFESSOR JOHN
BEDDINGTON
Q340 Dr Gibson: I did not know, but
Tim O'Riordan the other day, you probably know about coastal erosion,
and he was saying similar things, that it was very difficult to
say things because they had implications at a government level,
so therefore you had to weigh it up.
Professor Beddington: I am not
aware of that, I am afraid.
Q341 Dr Harris: It is a question
of academic freedom, to a certain extent, is it not?
Professor Beddington: Well, there
is academic freedom, which is where you publish and peer review,
and then there is an issue of a responsibility if you actually
have a particular public position. I do not think in this case
there is much one can do to explore this in any detail. This is
a particular instance, but I think it is a thing that we have
to watch, and I think if this happens again in another situation,
I may choose to act in a different way. I felt this was the appropriate
way to respond at the time, which was to write to the Home Secretary
and express my concern.
Dr Gibson: Let us move it along.
Q342 Mr Boswell: We are moving along.
It will sound like nuts and bolts, but I think you will realise
that it is pretty cardinal to what we are looking at. First question
to you, John, and I am not sure I know the answer to this, so
I am not asking the question as if I do: you as chief scientific
adviser, do you report directly to the Prime Minister?
Professor Beddington: Yes, that
is correct.
Q343 Mr Boswell: In practice, who
do you actually see more of? Is it John Denham, as Secretary of
State, or the Prime Minister?
Professor Beddington: I have seen
the Prime Minister I think on four occasions in the last year.
Q344 Mr Boswell: About once a quarter?
Professor Beddington: Yes.
Q345 Mr Boswell: Not regularly, not
diaried in?
Professor Beddington: Not at all.
But I obviously see John Denham and Paul much more regularly.
My line management within the civil service is to Sir Gus O'Donnell,
who I see much more regularly.
Q346 Mr Boswell: If you were to have
a major concern, and I will not hypothesise what it is now, would
you seek an appointment with the Prime Minister, to say, "This
is cardinally important, I need to see you and brief you about
this", rather than as it were going up the line?
Professor Beddington: Yes, I would.
Q347 Mr Boswell: You would not be
at all frightened of doing that?
Professor Beddington: No, and
indeed I have written to him on a couple of occasions about things
that I felt were really important and should be treated as such.
Q348 Mr Boswell: If we turn to the
latest Council for Science and Technology report, which is the
one on the relationship between academia and government, pretty
central, who commissioned that? Would that have been John Denham
or the Prime Minister?
Professor Beddington: That was
John Denham.
Q349 Mr Boswell: But presumably Number
10 would have known about it?
Professor Beddington: Yes, there
is a group which meets regularly to deal with commissioning government
reports, which also includes foresight, horizon scanning, work
of this sort, as well as the strategy unit.
Q350 Mr Boswell: Is that run by the
Cabinet Office then?
Professor Beddington: Yes, it
is chaired by Jeremy Heywood, which is Number 10, I guess. Just
to complete, I think the CST essentially see themselves as a body
that if ministers of state ask them to do something, they will
examine it, to see whether this is an appropriate thing to be
doing. When the CST met with the Prime Minister last year, he
specifically asked that the CST did a report on infrastructure
going into the future, and they are working on that now. So it
is a mix, and I think they are available to do it. Indeed, some
come from their own agenda, which is important for independence.
Q351 Mr Boswell: So it is not purely
reactive? They can generate?
Professor Beddington: Indeed they
can, and for example, they did one on innovation in the water
industry, which I think was generated entirely from themselves.
Q352 Mr Boswell: Officials and advisory
councils who are supposed to report to the Prime Minister, is
it important that they actually physically report to the Prime
Minister, rather than the report mediated through a Secretary
of State?
Professor Beddington: I think
from time to time it is a very good idea that an organisation
like the CST meets with the Prime Minister, and they certainly
felt that, and they indicated to me pretty early on in my time
with them that they felt that they would like to be more involved.
I think you have had evidence from some of the members, not necessarily
in this inquiry, but in a previous one. I think that is very much
the feeling that I have, that this is a very well qualified body,
I think that they can actually make a difference, and I think
that there is real opportunity when they engage with the Prime
Minister on a one to one basis. I can also say though that they
also have a practice of having both ministers and senior civil
servants to dinners, they have a dinner before each meeting, and
people are invited. So, for example, Jeremy Heywood was invited
to one, and Paul and John Denham were invited to another one,
just some of the recent ones.
Q353 Mr Boswell: I think some of
us would say -- you may or may not wish to comment on this --
when we went to Japan, we were very struck by the analogous institution
there, who were -- I will not say seeing the Prime Minister every
month, but certainly had ready and frequent access in a way that
I think is not historically applied here, although it may be coming.
Do you have any comment on that?
Professor Beddington: Yes, I think
we need to be thinking also about other analogies. I am going
to America next week to see John Holdren and the PCAST ( DN spell
out) group. Advising the president there has a different frequency,
and I think one of the things that I am rather keen to see happen
is that we actually engage and start to think what is best practice.
Q354 Mr Boswell: This one is probably
for Paul Drayson, although you may wish both to chip in. Do you
feel now that GO Science might be better placed in the Cabinet
Office?
Lord Drayson: I think John is
best placed to speak from GO Science's point of view, but from
my perspective as Science and Innovation Minister within DIUS,
it is really excellent having GO Science in the same building,
it enables me to develop a good and strong relationship with the
government's chief scientific adviser. So although geography is
not everything, I think actually having GO Science together with
DIUS has its advantages.
Q355 Mr Boswell: John, do you want
to add any comment?
Professor Beddington: Yes, I have
answered this question before, and I think there are merits on
both sides, but I think the key one is the link with both the
Science Minister and the Secretary of State for DIUS, but also
with the Director General for Research Councils, Adrian Smith,
and that whole team, which are responsible for so much of science
funding. The fact that I can walk up a floor and find Adrian Smith
and his team and talk on a day-to-day basis makes a tremendous
difference, whereas if I was down in Whitehall, that would be
rather more difficult to do. I think that the other aspect of
it, which is easily ignored, is also it is not just myself seeing
Adrian Smith, but it is my officials seeing his officials on a
regular basis, and I think that is the real advantage of this
co-existence.
Q356 Dr Gibson: Do you have spats
together, or are you just chummy-chummy? Just to get a feel of
the kind of meeting.
Professor Beddington: Well, you
have seen Adrian Smith, he is a tough man to have a spat with.
Q357 Mr Boswell: You have frank exchanges
though.
Professor Beddington: Yes, I do
not think we have disagreed fundamentally on anything, but we
have, as you say, frank exchanges of views, and Adrian obviously
sits on the group of chief scientific advisers that I have. One
area which I did explore with him very soon on in his tenure was
the importance of independent assessment of the science budgeting
process, and he and I talked a lot about that. As I am sure he
will have told you, his plan is to consult with a number of entities,
including the Council for Science and Technology, obviously the
Royal Academy and the Royal Academy of Engineering, but also the
team of chief scientific advisers. We talked long and hard about
that, because one alternative might have been to actually have,
as it were, a group of individuals who were charged with some
degree of assessment of that science budgetary process, and I
think that we evolved this as a solution, and I think I agree
with it.
Q358 Mr Boswell: Can you also express
adequately the cross-departmental role of GO Science, given that
you are located in, although I appreciate you are not formally
part of, a department? This is partly, I think, a matter of substance,
but it is also a matter of perception, in that if you are another
department, be it the Home Office or DEFRA for example, are you
seen as them and not part of us, if you see what I mean?
Professor Beddington: I think
I can probably do it by example. Quite a lot of the last two or
three weeks has been spent dealing with swine flu. I went in and
immediately discussed it with the Department of Health, and it
was agreed I would chair an independent science advisory group
in emergencies. I am co-chairing it with Sir Gordon Duff, who
was chairing the independent group on influenza. So I chair now
an independent group, I have co-opted independent scientists on
to that, that is the group that independent of the Department
of Health and HPA provide advice to COBR on this particular pandemic.
So that is the role that I play there. In the case of other activities,
for example I have been quite closely involved in providing advice
on aspects of the CONTEST strategy, which is straight into the
Home Office, and I have been involved in regular meetings, I sit
on the CONTEST board and I sit on the science and innovation board
of CONTEST, so there is a fair engagement with that. In the case
of DEFRA, I have been making one of my agendas to be the importance
of food and water in the future, and I think DEFRA are well aware
of that, but I also chair the research panel of the food strategy
taskforce of the Cabinet Office, and I go to -- sorry, I am going
on and on, but I attend MoD's science advisory council, and so
on.
Q359 Dr Gibson: Do you ever get back
in the lab at all? Do you ever talk to young people in the lab?
David King used to say he did that on a Friday at Cambridge. Have
you got a chance to do that, with all these committees?
Professor Beddington: I certainly
do not get a chance to talk to anybody in a lab because I have
not been in a lab since I was about 17, wearing a white coat,
but I certainly talk to modellers and people of that ilk at Imperial
College. But you raise a good point, Chairman. I have been down
to visit a number of laboratories, where I really think it is
important to actually find out what people are doing, what they
are thinking; you know, these are civil servants, and what excitement
there is. So I have visited Rutherford Appleton, I have visited
Culham, I have been to Pirbright, I have been to VLA, and so on.
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