Examination of Witnesses (Question 20-39)
LORD DRAYSON
AND PROFESSOR
JOHN BEDDINGTON
14 OCTOBER 2009
Q20 Mr Cawsey: This is very much
down at the layman's level, I am afraid, but we all know that
when it comes to vaccines there is the whole issue of public confidence
in their safety, and I have been quite surprised when talking
with some health professionals in my own area that, whilst they
have been telling me about the arrangements for a vaccine, they
have quite candidly been saying, "But we didn't have it ourselves."
When asked why, they said, "Because of the sheer speed at
which this vaccine is being rushed through. We do not accept that
it can be properly safe to be used." I would have thought
you might like to give us some reassurance today of the safety
of this vaccination. The seasonal flu vaccine, which of course
is done every year anyway, is not a vaccine, as I understand it,
that is just rolled over from year to year: it depends on which
strain of flu it is decided is likely to be the most virulent
that particular year. If we have people working in the NHS expressing
personal concerns about it, I have great fear that that might
roll over into the public. What would you say to reassure the
people who maybe make decisions on these things?
Professor Beddington: It depends
on the timing. The European authority for assessing the safety
of vaccines has given it a licence. These things are not done
lightly. There was a proper examination of it. The effect of vaccination
will be monitored as it goes out, to see if there are any unintended
consequences or consequences of some form of harm coming from
the vaccination. That will be monitored and any problems being
raised will be taken up. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and
Immunisation [JCVI], who have been advising, have indicated that
they believe the vaccine is safe and the benefits of having it
far outweigh any potential risks. This is the expert group. It
has been reviewed not just by the JCVI team but by a wider group,
including eminent virologists and immunologists, and that is their
advice. To the extent that one needs to reassure individual professionals
in the system, I think we need to be thinking about how we communicate
that appropriately. But the advice is unequivocal.
Q21 Mr Cawsey: Is the process similar
to that of the seasonal flu vaccine?
Professor Beddington: One of the
issues of swine flu is that it is a unique virus. We have not
encountered viruses of this sort before. GSK has developed something
which, talking in very loose terms, has a relatively broad spectrum.
It has used an adjuvant-based vaccine, which has the ability to
stimulate the immune system, which means that you will get a better
result and, therefore, if the virus changes somewhat you have
a reasonable chance that there will be some degree of efficacy
of the vaccine subsequently. That is not the type of vaccine that
comes out in the seasonal flu. However, in earlier days, when
there were concerns about bird flu—which still remain a
concern—there was quite extensive testing of the H5N1 vaccine
development using the this adjuvant. As we move forward into the
future—and, I am sorry, this is really quite complicated—there
is an expectation that the current seasonal flu, which has an
H1N1 component, is likely to be replaced by the swine flu in some
sort of competition amongst viruses, but there are two other types
of seasonal flu: H3N21 and B. These are two different types of
viruses. We may expect to see them coming up and for the seasonal
flu of the next winter flu season you might get a tri-valent vaccine;
that is, one that is produced that gives immunity to all three.
That is the sort of activity that is happening in Australia. I
am sorry, Mr Cawsey, it is very difficult to answer that in non-technical
language.
Q22 Ian Stewart: I should say before
I start that I am the Chairman of the All-Party Group on Vaccine-Damaged
People. The group is well aware that with all vaccines there will
be some small number of accidents that are unavoidable. That is
why the Government has the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme. Have
other solutions been looked at rather than vaccination? For example,
in America there is some development of hydronanon technology,
as I understand it, a solution for H1N1. Are other solutions being
looked at?
Professor Beddington: I cannot
answer your particular question on what is happening in America—I
am just not aware of it—so I will get back to you on that,
if I may. In terms of the issue, we knew that we had an epidemic.
The World Health Organisation declared it a pandemic. There were
already contracts in place for the expectation of an H5N1 pandemic
and they were brought down automatically once the WHO declared
a level 6 pandemic. The contracts that we had—from both
Baxter and GSK, which is public knowledge—are slightly different.
At the time the unanimous advice was that we needed vaccine. That
vaccine takes some time to develop. We had real concerns about
how severe that was going to be as the evidence started to accumulate—a
lot of deaths and so on in Mexico and deaths occurring in the
USA, fast spread and so on. There was a real issue about "Do
you or don't you?" The unequivocal advice was that we should
go to procure the vaccines and take these forward. In terms of
the concerns about the damage that can happen, the issue here
is that current policy is to focus on those groups most at risk.
That is the aim of avoiding morbidity and mortality in those high-risk
groups. In that situation, all the analysis that I have seen indicates
that the risks of secondary effects or reaction to vaccine are
far outweighed by the potential benefits. It is important to know
that we do not know everything, so the key issue here is to make
certain that there is a monitoring of the use of the vaccine to
see whether there are unintended events. We know about the problem
of the Guillain-Barré syndrome that occurred 20 or 30 years
ago. We will be monitoring that and any indication will of course
be addressed by a change in policy, but we are seeing nothing
at the moment.
Q23 Chairman: I want to move on from
swine flu—because I feel like I am going down with it at
the moment!
Professor Beddington: I know the
feeling, Chairman.
Q24 Dr Harris: As a former vaccine
man you showed great self-restraint during that exchange. In your
recent debate with Ben Goldacre—I think a welcome engagement
with the issue from government—you expressed the view as
the basis for your position that media reporting of these sorts
of things had improved. Are you optimistic that the reporting
of swine flu vaccine issues will be better than it has been in
the past with previous vaccine issues like MMR?
Lord Drayson: Yes.
Q25 Dr Harris: Would you like a bet?
Lord Drayson: Yes.
Q26 Dr Harris: Okay. You saw the
Sunday Times coverage of the cervical cancer jab which
had a picture of a girl who dies of a mediastinal tumour as far
as I can tell, under the headline What Are You Doing To Our
Children? in the Sunday Times—not a tabloid the
last time I looked. Does that give you pause in your confidence?
You probably have deeper pockets than me, so it might have to
be a small bet.
Lord Drayson: I will leave it
to you, Dr Harris, to choose the size of the bet but I sincerely
believe that, although there are some really poor examples even
now, in general, overall, the quality of reporting of the cervical
cancer vaccine and issues around swine flu that have taken place
over the last few months is of a different order to the quality
of reporting that took place over MMR. If you look at the example
of the quality of reporting that took place over BSE and compare
that to the reporting over the hybrid embryos—if we go back
to big science questions of the day eight/ten years ago as compared
to now—because the reporting is being done by specialist
science journalists, often scientists themselves, it is much better.
We must not be complacent: there are bad examples.
Dr Harris: I accept that point
but mine is vaccine specific. I want to put on record that the
Chairman has just agreed to underwrite me on this bet, so we can
proceed on that basis.
Chairman: I will have to share
it with Mr Legg first!
Q27 Dr Harris: Could I turn to the
question of the STFC.[2]
It is hard to know where to start. In your online notepad on your
website, which I presume is one of these modern manifestations
of communication with the public, you stated that the STFC "budget
has increased year-on-year since its creation." If you look
at what is available for them to spend, is that really correct?
If you take out non cash and just look at the near cash and capital,
it is pretty much flat, is it not, rather than increased?
Lord Drayson: The issue in relation
to STFC, I accept, is a difficult one because of the history of
the creation of STFC, the structure therefore of its budgets and
what has happened in terms of the international economic situation—which
has put pressure on the budgets because of the exchange rate change—and
the large proportion of the STFC budget which is committed to
large projects where the UK is a part of an international collaboration
which therefore does not allow much flexibility in terms of decision
making over funding. But I do not accept that the STFC budget
has remained flat. The contribution that has been made to the
STFC beyond increasing inflation, with extra contributions from
the Government to offset the change in the exchange rate, means
that the STFC should have sufficient funds to carry out its mission.
But the STFC has to decide—and that is not a matter for
ministers—which projects for it go back within that overall
budget.
Q28 Dr Harris: Let us break down
that answer. The near cash from the CSR-07 allocation—the
near cash is the spendable cash—even before you take out
the problem with the exchange rate, where they have to take the
first £3 million hit on each subscription even before any
help comes, is £432.25 million 2008-09, £428,932 million
2009-10—which has been augmented, I understand, from taking
the next year, 2010-11. But taking from next year's allocation,
which was only £432,741 million, to boost this year's, 2009-10,
is not going to be an increase in near cash. In effect, what matters
to the scientists is what is left to spend after all the pressures.
Do you not think it might be sensible to say, "Let's insulate
STFC from profit and losses on exchange rates?" It is not
appropriate, is it, that research councils, given that they have
to think strategically and fund strategically, should have a windfall
or a big loss based on exchange rates?
Lord Drayson: I absolutely accept
your point of concern. It is Treasury policy now, though. We perhaps
could debate the appropriateness of that but it is Treasury policy
that individual departments have to bear the exchange rate risks.
The research council which has the biggest exchange rate risk
is the STFC, because of international collaborations. Therefore
we have accepted the particular difficult position the STFC has
found itself in and have compensated the STFC with additional
funds to meet the exchange rate risk.
Dr Harris: It is a loan, is it
not? That additional fund is not a grant; it is a loan, in a sense,
from future allocations, I am told. Is that correct?
Chairman: It is not additional
money, Lord Drayson. That is the point.
Q29 Dr Harris: Maybe you could let
me know. Let us not speculate—either of us.
Lord Drayson: The important point
is that the researchers in this community need to be clear that
their research grants have not been penalised or reduced because
of the STFC having to accept exchange rate risk. The STFC has
been compensated. The difference has been made good. The additional
funds have been provided to the STFC for the past two years to
cover the exchange rate risk. That is a very important point to
get on the record, because my position is that the STFC, therefore,
has been provided sufficient funds to carry out its mission.
Q30 Dr Harris: The reductions in
the budget to run ISIS and Diamond Light Source cannot be blamed,
therefore—I think you are saying—on the impact of
the exchange rate mechanism.
Lord Drayson: Absolutely not.
Q31 Dr Harris: Because that has been
compensated for. I would like clarification as to whether that
is new money and a new good for them or something that they will
have to find to pay back in later years. They told me it was not
grant.
Lord Drayson: My understanding
is that it is additional funding. I will write to the Committee.[3]
Q32 Dr Harris: The reason I ask is
because, if it is additional funding, it is essentially that they
are not taking the risk at all at any stage from future allocations.
If there is this Treasury rule—and I accept there is—science
can be made an exception. Science has a ring-fenced budget, which
is unusual, therefore a case could be made, and will you make
it to the Treasury, that uniquely because of the strategic nature
of science, compared to every other budget pretty much, an exception
could be made that they do not risk loss or gain, as it were,
from exchange rates. Would you pursue that?
Lord Drayson: Some important points
of background. The significant movement in the exchange rate,
the pound against the Euro, a 25% movement, has created a significant
issue. The decision has been taken on an in-year basis to compensate
through additional funding to the STFC to make that up, but it
has not been done on the basis of setting a precedent. I do not
have Treasury agreement that this is a policy which can be maintained.
Treasury policy is that departments have to bear the burden of
exchange rate movements if they are negative or if they are positive.
Therefore, although the decisions have been taken for this year
and have been taken for past years compensating the STFC for exchange
rate movement, the question for future years is still an argument
that has to be made and has to be won.
Q33 Chairman: Lord Drayson, there
is an inconsistency here. The only department that I understand
can hedge against currency fluctuations is the Treasury itself,
so allocating STFC an extra £20 million in-year in order
to be able to deal with this, either from future budgets or as
additional grant, becomes a problem again, unless, in fact, they
can start to hedge forward in terms of being able to buy currency
over a longer period of time. The Treasury can do that. First
of all, do you agree that it would be good if STFC could do that
with their budgets; in other words, to get greater cost certainty
over a longer period of time—for instance, if only over
a three-year comprehensive spending review? If you do agree with
that, is that something that you would support?
Lord Drayson: The practicalities
are, Chairman, that in the environment of the level of market
volatility which exists in exchange rates, the cost of hedging
against exchange rate movement over a period of time like three
years is prohibitively expensive. It is just not viable for a
research council to do it, even if it had the ability to do that
under the Government policy. We have the overarching issue, which
is the exchange rate movement itself, the volatility of the pound
versus the euro, and then there is policy whereby government departments
have to bear that risk themselves. This is something which is
a real challenge for departments which needs to be managed. We
need to find a better way of doing it. I recognise that in the
case of the science ring fence it is also a particular problem
because this is a ring-fenced budget. I do want to make it absolutely
crystal clear to the community which is really concerned about
this that they have not suffered as a result of losses of grants
because of exchange rates. Those have been made good up to now,
but we do not have the commitment in the long term for that always
to be done.
Q34 Dr Harris: Thank you for that.
If it is not exchange rates that is causing the pressure, then
it must be just essentially the flat cash allocation. I am not
saying there should be more money; I just think there needs to
be recognition. Scientists see that the amount of time on these
facilities is reduced, their programmes are being reduced—or,
as the STFC say they have "adjusted", which I think
means cut, the proposed programme for 2009-10—and then they
see you say that there is a year-on-year increase all the time.
There is a feeling that something is not clear as to what the
cause of this is. Do you accept that there are pressures that
are not fully met in the budget, leading to cuts?
Lord Drayson: No. There has to
be a judgment overall, made by government, as to the absolute
amount of money which would be invested in science—which,
as I have said many times, has been significantly increased and
maintained. Then there is also a judgment of how that is allocated
within research councils. If one looks at the STFC as a particular
case, then that has received significant increases of funding.
I accept that within the STFC, the particular nature of the responsibility
of that research council provides it with specifically more difficult
challenges—the nature of the large facilities, the inflexibility
of a large proportion of their spending—but in the end,
the job of the STFC is to make judgments on how it allocates those
budgets based around how they principal peer review—the
independence, if you like, from government—and therefore
its decision as to whether to allocate x amount to ISIS,
Diamond or whichever laboratory is a matter for STFC.
Q35 Dr Harris: The problem is that
MRC gets much more money and government says, "Isn't it great—we've
allocated much more money, so all these things are being done."
With a research council that does not get much more money, or
arguably any more money, then we get ministers saying, "Well,
this is their decision; it is nothing to do with us." It
is centralising the praise and delegating or decentralising the
blame. That is what we are faced with. Let us turn to ISIS and
Diamond Light Source. You said in one of your earlier answers
that you wanted to see cost-effective use of our resources. Many
people would argue and have argued in the science community that
it is not rational or sensible or efficient to invest all this
money—in partnership with Wellcome in the case of the Diamond
Light Source—and then see the funding reduced so that there
is either less time available, as with ISIS, or, as with Diamond,
less time available next year because this year has been protected,
but they advertise that there will be "fewer resources for
scientists" (as they describe it) and other negatives. Do
you understand the logic of having these big facilities and then
not maximising the use of them? You just have a deadweight that
has had all this capital expenditure. Opportunity costs as well.
Lord Drayson: I do accept the
argument but prudent management of taxpayers' money requires us
to make decisions about how to manage the allocation of resources
between research councils. Where you have a situation where this
particular research council has projects where the budgets for
those projects is getting significantly overspent, where that
therefore leads to pressure on other projects within their portfolio,
the answer is not to provide extra money to the research council.
The answer is to say to that community, "You have to live
within the overall budget which you have been allocated, which
is seeing considerable growth. Where there have been outside pressures
which are beyond your control—like the exchange rate movement—those
have be compensated for, but if you have a project over here which
has gone significantly over budget, you are going to have to find
the savings from over there."
Q36 Dr Harris: Is there not an argument
that to create a single research council that builds these big
facilities but then does not have the funding essentially to maximise
the use of them, to sweat the asset for UK science, is a problem,
and that there is an argument for restructuring to separate out
these two approaches so that there is much more clarity, so that
you do not lose out on the utilisation of these big projects in
order to deal with problems elsewhere in an unrelated discipline?
Lord Drayson: I accept that we
should continue, as we do, to look carefully at the funding structure
and the mechanisms by which the allocation of funding is made
and the way in which we can make sure that we are not missing
opportunities to maximise the utilisation of these very expensive
resources because of some anomalies, if you like, in the funding
structure. But I do believe there is a fundamental principle here:
overall the Government has continued to invest more and more within
science. It has made a judgment as to the allocation of that within
the research councils, but then the research councils have to
manage within that budget, and they have to be really good at
managing the pressures which come up where there are international
collaborations which then put pressure on their internal affairs.
Q37 Mr Cawsey: I would like to move
on to the final frontier, which of course is space. Lord Drayson.
In July you launched a consultation on the funding and management
of UK civil space activity which asks, amongst other things, whether
a UK space agency should be established. Is that a development
that you personally would support? Irrespective of whether you
do or do not, in 2007 the Government very clearly said that it
was not appropriate for the UK to have its own space agency. What
has changed for it to even get to the stage of consultation?
Lord Drayson: What has changed
is the experience that I had as the Science Minister, going to
the European Space Agency Ministerial last November and being
in a quite difficult position of negotiating on behalf of the
United Kingdom against other partner nations, such as Italy, Germany,
France and others, who do have such a mechanism, which allows
them much more efficiently to determine their policy on the allocation
of the overall space budget. It means that we have to change our
view on this. Common to a number of research areas within government,
a lack of cross-departmental budgets and clarity as to where funding
is going to come from puts us in a more difficult position in
negotiation with our international partners. I believe that this
consultation is timely. The problem was highlighted last November.
The consultation is just about to close and we will take views
from that consultation and make a decision. But my personal experience
was that the lack of a central budget has meant that we are not
in as strong a position as we otherwise would be to have these
negotiations.
Q38 Mr Cawsey: That is very clear.
Thank you. There is also a Cabinet Office review on the strategic
security for the UK's interests in space. You spoke earlier about
having to straddle the different departments in the role that
you have. Perhaps this is one example where that straddling might
be extremely useful. Are you involved in this Cabinet Office review?
Lord Drayson: My involvement is
as Science Minister. I do not have any additional involvement
from the point of view of the security aspect. My MoD responsibilities
do not lead me to have any additional involvement in that review
beyond the involvement as Science Minister.
Q39 Mr Cawsey: Is there anything
that you can share with the Committee about what the remit and
timescale of the review are?
Lord Drayson: I can certainly
write to the Committee and give you a full description of that.
2 Science and Technology Facilities Council Back
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Ev 13 [Letter from Drayson, 16 October] Back
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