Letter from Rt Hon John Denham MP, Secretary
of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills to the Chairman
Thank you for your letter earlier this month
following up on your earlier evidence session with Bill Rammell.
I agree with the importance of my Department
keeping in regular contact with the Welsh Assembly Government
(as with the other Devolved Administrations). I had a phone call
earlier this month with Jane Hutt of the WAG. In addition, Bill
Rammell had agreed to meet Ministerial Counterparts in the Devolved
Administrations on a regular basis, and David Lammy will be following
this up. This is in addition to the opportunity for regular discussion
at official level at the Research Base Funders Forum (chaired
by DIUS and including representation from the WAG and the Higher
Education Funding Council for Wales).
I would not want to raise expectations of a
DIUS "strategic science" fund or site in Wales. Our
policy for science and research funding is to fund the best science
wherever it occurs in the UK, not to aim for a particular national
spread of research investment. You mention the Harwell and Daresbury
Science and Innovation campuses: whilst we have taken a strategic
approach to these two Science and Technology Facilities Council
sites, the rationale was effectively the other way around: it
was because there already were major research facilities at those
two sites that we need to take decisions on how to develop the
sites in a strategic way to make the most of them, not because
we were looking to have certain levels of investment in particular
places.
I cannot comment on your points about additional
funding for Wales beyond the Barnett formula, since these are
outside of my Department's responsiblities.
I look forward to reading your Committee's findings
and recommendations.
30 November 2008
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