Examination of Witness (Question Number
1-31)
PROFESSOR
SIR JOHN
BEDDINGTON
27 OCTOBER 2010
Q1 Chair:
Sir John, thank you very much for coming this morning. I am sure
you would have liked to be a fly on the wall at our earlier session,
no doubt.
Professor Sir John Beddington:
Regrettably, I wasn't, Chairman.
Q2 Chair:
We want to cover the Government Office for Science this morning
in some detail. How effective do you think the Government Office
has been in the past 12 months?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
That's actually quite a difficult question because I'm a modest
man. I think we have done well. I think you can see the benefit
of a lot of the ways in which the Government Office for Science
has operated in the result of the CSR. I think it was absolutely
essential that we were able to provide at the highest level to
the Government appropriate information about the importance of
the science and engineering base in the country, and the evidence
base that was produced in part by the Government Office for Science
but also by Adrian Smith and his team in BIS has been enormously
important in achieving what I believe to be a very successful
settlement. If you ask me what the successes were in the Government
Office for Science, I would point to that one as being reasonably
important.
There are a number of things also which are
of importance. One of them is the acceptance by the Civil Service
Board that I should take up a programme of reviews of the quality
of science and engineering across all Government Departments.
To an extent, I inherited that from my predecessor, Sir David
King, but his reviews were of a rather different type and we are
actually in the process of conducting those reviews on all Departments,
including those Departments which you wouldn't see, prima facie,
as a major user of science, in the labcoat mathematics sense.
Those reviews have now extended, and I think that has been very
successful, to involve other heads of analysis and concerns.
For example, we did a review of the Department for Education in
which we had people from the statistics field and the social science
field as part of the review team. Those are on-going.
We have had to slightly alter the programme. The
aim was to finish the entire period of reviews so that every Government
Department would have had a review by March 2011. Resource constraints,
which you will be fairly familiar with, means that is going to
extend probably into the autumn of 2011. I think that would be
a second thing I would point to as a success and importance for
the Department.
The network of Chief Scientific Advisers has done
well. As you know, and I won't repeat it, we now have it in each
of the main scientific Departments. We meet regularly. We meet
every Wednesday for a breakfast meeting. Clearly, not everybody
can attend because of diaries but we usually have a good attendance.
Today we had 10. The Science Minister, David Willetts, comes
to these occasionally. In fact, he was at the breakfast meeting
this morning, so it is a good way of actually getting a proper
network across Government of science and engineering. That is
another thing I would point to that is an on-going and continuing
success.
The other area that has expanded, and it was started
in the previous year but I think it is now working very well,
is the Government's Science and Engineering Community. We now
have well in excess of 3,000 members. We've had regular meetings.
My job as head of the science and engineering profession in
Government has been recognised and we are taking it forward. We
have 3,000 or so fairly active members. We have had, I think,
three conferences this year. Another one is planned for early
next year, and we will have an on-going programme dealing with
a whole range of matters. The forthcoming one is actually on
Science in the International Domain. One of the ones we had last
year was, for example, Conveying Uncertainty in Science. So that's
another area that I am proud of.
I could go on but I will not, I promise you. I
would also single out the Foresight work that is going very well.
We will be reporting on the Foresight Study on the Future of
Food and Farming almost certainly early in January. The work is
pretty much finalised but I think we will be reporting on that
in January. We have a Foresight Study on Environmental Migration
looking at issues of the major drivers of environmental migration.
That is likely to be reporting round about this time next year.
We also had reports during the year—one on Land Use and
one on Mental Capital and Wellbeing.
We have just started and had the first meeting of
the Lead Expert Group for the latest study, which is sponsored
by Her Majesty's Treasury, which is looking at the future of computer
trading in financial markets and posing questions about the increasing
use of high speed computers, high speed trading and the increasing
proportion of trades on many markets which are being done by algorithms
rather than human traders. We are posing too, in a sense, I suppose,
engineering questions about the financial system. We had our
first meeting at the Bank of England this week. So that is where
the Foresight Group is going.
Next week we will be publishing some work on Horizon
Scanning, looking at new technologies which will have the potential
for a significant benefit to Britain—technologies where,
essentially, the necessary conditions are that there is some degree
of comparative advantage in our science and engineering base but
also the potential for working forward.
Finally—and I do promise you, Chairman, that
I will then stop but you asked me a very open-ended question—the
Council for Science and Technology has put in a number of reports.
In particular, the one I would want to highlight is that on infrastructure,
which has been accepted. The Treasury has now responded. There
is a programme on developing and looking at the future of our
infrastructure. Brian Collins, the Chief Scientific Adviser,
both in BIS and the Department for Transport, chaired an expert
group at the Treasury this week to look at the problems of getting
proper science and engineering advice and how we develop the infrastructure
in the UK. I will pause there, Chairman.
Chair: That was very helpful.
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I am very sorry, but it is a very open-ended question.
Q3 Chair:
Just to comment on the first part of your comments in terms of
the settlement, it was interesting to contrast your response there
with David Willetts yesterday, who said that the science community,
including the protesters outside the Treasury, did a good job.
Perhaps all the science community did.
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I am very proud of the science community as a whole, Chairman.
Q4 Chair:
In which areas do you think you could have improved your working?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I think the area where I feel we could do better is actually making
certain that we link in better with the social science analysis
community. We have a number of Departments where social science
or statistics or, I suppose, economics are the main scientific
activities and to an extent, historically, we have been neglecting
that. We now have Chief Scientific Advisers in those departments,
many of whom have a background usually in economics, sometimes
in statistics, but that is an area where, I believe, we need to
build on it. Social science needs to be built up more and I think
on that I could have done better. It is, arguably, a question
of resources.
We were slightly presented with a difficult problem
in the sense that Professor Paul Wiles, who was Chief Scientific
Adviser at the Home Office and also Head of Social Science in
Government retired. We recruited Bernard Silverman as the Chief
Scientific Adviser in the Home Office, but Bernard is a statistician,
with primarily a mathematical rather than a social science background.
So that has left a bit of a gap and this is work in progress.
It is difficult. We have two people who are heads of the social
science research profession in Government and they are doing an
excellent job. But I do think we need to be thinking about it.
The attraction of this is that we now have a new
head of the ESRC, Paul Boyle, with whom I have already had conversations
about trying to engage with the social science community to deal
with some of these big issues in Government. So I singled that
one out as one area where I think "Could do better"
would be a reasonable comment.
I won't go on as long. I can think of other areas
where I could do better but I think they are more to do with resources
and so on. I don't think we made what I would perceive as any
significant mistakes and I don't believe that we have actually
had enormous omissions other than those that are driven by resources.
Q5 Chair:
Should the Committee, perhaps, re-think its position on the desirability
of a Chief Scientific Officer at the Treasury, or do you think
the need is even greater now?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I do believe it would be sensible to have a Chief Scientific Adviser
in the Treasury. It is a thing I have discussed with Nick Macpherson,
the Permanent Secretary in the Treasury. In the run-up to the
CSR I did have meetings with the Senior Management Board of the
Treasury, which Nick chairs. We were discussing primarily the
Science Settlement and there are people in the Treasury who do
absolutely know a lot about science and the importance of science,
but I don't think that is a substitute for actually having somebody
who comes in from outside who has an appropriate external experience
of science and engineering. I do think it is still important.
The last month or so has been quite busy, so it is not a thing
I have been pursuing with much energy, I confess.
Q6 Roger Williams:
I was very pleased that the Comprehensive Spending Review process
identified science as important in ensuring that the economy in
this country flourishes. But, of course, it did have some more
negative effects as well, particularly in cutting administration.
Could you perhaps say how cuts in administration might affect
your particular role and your department?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
Yes. We all have to recognise that we need to do more with less.
Within my own department, it forms, as you will know, part of
BIS, not in the sense that I report to BIS Ministers but we are
part of BIS, if you like, for pay and rations. The agreement
I have within BIS is that we will be taking exactly the same proportional
cut on administration as it will. There will be no special preferences.
Within my own department, obviously, we have a big
agenda. One of the implications I mentioned earlier was that
we are having to slow the pace of our reviews of science and engineering
in departments. That will take six months longer now than it
would have done if we had not had to cut back on resources. The
current structure is that I have a deputy and four senior people
in the senior Civil Service who report via him to me. I think
that will drop from four to three, and 25% is the figure. That,
obviously, will present problems but we will have to address it.
On the extent that I feel we are not viable, I don't
believe that. I think we can deliver on what the expectations
are with a reduced group. I think the way I am going to try to
organise it is that some things may take a bit longer, rather
than us omitting things. I think that is my philosophy of dealing
with these problems.
Q7 Roger Williams:
You have already said that there may be a delay in a review of
the effectiveness of scientific advice across the Departments.
Are there any other particular areas, given the fact that BIS
said it was going to reduce expenditure on administration by £400
million?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
We will take our proportional hit. My budget is of the order of
£5 million, of that sort, so we will be taking a hit. It
is early days yet. The CSR is just out. Quite how exactly that
is going to be working needs still to be worked out. I think
the concerns I have are that we will have to cut back in particular
areas, we will have to make choices, but my aim will be that nothing
is omitted. But sometimes it will take a little bit longer to
actually do. That will be the way I will try to address those
issues.
Q8 Roger Williams:
Could you give us an overall view on how the outcome of the Comprehensive
Spending Review will affect UK science?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
Yes. I can give you my view. I wouldn't say it would be definitive,
Mr Williams. First of all, since the review, I have been talking
to a lot of senior scientists and engineers out in the community.
I have also had the opportunity to talk to a number of senior
industrialists. I think, by and large, the overall view is that
this is an excellent settlement and shows its commitment to science
and engineering in taking it forward.
In the context of how British science is, we have
always been highly productive but there are always going to be
some efficiencies. I think over the next couple of months we
have got to be thinking about ways of doing things in a more efficient
and more cost-effective manner. I think the message that it sends
out, though, in the context of a very significant reduction in
Government spending, is that there is a flat-cash settlement and
potential efficiency savings. I think Bill Wakeham identified
some in his Review of Physics where we could actually improve
things. Some of the assistance in terms of some of the capital
spend, the £200 million from the Department of Health going
into the CMRI, will also help things.
I think it is looking attractive. If you look across
to other areas, one of the major spenders in R&D is the Ministry
of Defence. You would have to talk to the Ministry for exact
details—I don't think it is publicly known—but my
understanding is that there is a relatively good settlement for
R&D at the Ministry of Defence.
What I am concerned about and I am actively engaged
in at the moment is the research base—the universities,
the science base and the research councils and their institutes.
Where we have not got agreed funding and where we have not got,
as it were, a ring-fence to defend that is within the research
and development in Government Departments themselves. So it was
agreed earlier on this year by the new coalition Government that
where Departments were actually having plans to cut their R&D
spend they would be required to consult with the Treasury and
myself. Most of the plans that were going up to the CSR were
at too general a level to be able to actually assess that. So
I have discussed that with Nick Macpherson, the Permanent Secretary
in the Treasury, and we will be starting a programme of engaging
with each of the Departments over the next couple of months to
look at their R&D spend and see how they are changing it.
The key thing here is that we are trying to ensure
that what is optimal for an individual Department is not sub-optimal
for the Government as a whole, because cuts in one Department
will have knock-on effects in another. So part of the job of
the Treasury, and which I will be taking on, is to ask questions
about these various proposals.
We will put a timetable really led by Departments.
Some Departments have already well articulated their plans and
they are wanting to have that examination starting very soon.
We will probably be starting it at the latest the week after next
but probably next week. We will just have to explore the Departments.
So that process is going to be on-going. It will enable us to
look, at the end of that process, at what the overall science
spend has been, not just in terms of the research councils but
also in terms of the actual science that goes on in Government
Departments. At the end of that process, I think we will be
in a position to indicate what that looks like.
Quite clearly, given the administrative problems
and the overall cut to a number of Departments there will be an
issue in which they will be making choices. The good thing, I
think, is that at least we will have a chance for the Treasury
and me to debate those choices with them and pose issues about
cross-Government work.
Q9 Roger Williams:
If you had real reservations about the way in which a particular
Department was planning to continue expenditure and investment
in science, how would you make your views known and where does
the influence come along that line?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I would, first of all, make it known to the Permanent Secretary.
Q10 Roger Williams:
In the Department?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
In the Department concerned and say, "Look, I'm really worried
about this for the following reasons", and, hopefully, one
could have a debate that would resolve it. That would be the
first way. Permanent Secretaries will have a letter. They know
this is happening and will be expecting it.
In the event that there was a real problem, and I
suspect the main problem will be cross-Government, I would try
to engage the discussion between the Permanent Secretaries in
the Departments concerned to widen it and hope to get it resolved
there. Ultimately, I suppose, it is a question for Ministers
to decide. Then I would raise it with the appropriate Secretaries
of State. That doesn't mean to say they would agree with me but
I do, at least, have the measures to raise the issue and have
a rational discussion about it. I think the fact that this is
being done jointly with the Treasury is obviously important.
Q11 Roger Williams:
People have argued that one of the strengths of the system of
quangos that we have had in this country is that Government were
able to receive very independent scientific advice on some difficult
issues. The perception amongst the people of this country was
that that was independent. There are proposals to reduce the
number of quangos that would give that sort of advice. What are
your views on that?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I engaged very early on with the Cabinet Office in these discussions.
One of the main issues is that, first of all, some of the organisations
had lost their function. So I think that the closure of those
will have no particular deleterious effect and in fact the benefit
of some money-saving. However, quite clearly, across Government
there are a number of areas where we do need independent scientific
advice. What I have actually got is a complete assurance that
where there has hitherto been, as it were, a non-department public
body—a quango, if you will—providing scientific advice,
if the terms of reference of that are moved to the Department
and you have, as it were, within particular Departments an advisory
committee, those committees will still operate in exactly the
way that is determined by the COPSAC formula that we have actually
set out and by the principles for underlying scientific advice
to Government, which were accepted by the previous Government
and have been endorsed by the current Government and, indeed,
incorporated in the Ministerial Code. To the extent that those
are assurances, I am comfortable.
I held a meeting with the chairs of all the Science
Advisory Committees prior to these announcements and indicated
to them that this was broadly what I was expecting and suggested
that if there were cases to the chairs of these committees that
there were problems they should initially take it up with the
chief scientific adviser in their Department but also copy me
in. I have had a couple of pieces of correspondence where there
have been areas, but by and large they seem to have been resolved
to the satisfaction of both parties. So it is a very different
looking arena but I feel confident that, at the moment, the assurances
are there to ensure that there is no undermining of scientific
advice. The issue that "We only want scientific advice when
it is convenient" I don't think is going to be the case.
What I would plan to do, though, is to continue to
have meetings with the chairs of these committees on a regular
basis and actually say to them, "Look, if you have problems,
please let me know and I will take it up initially with your chief
scientific adviser and then, subsequently, perm secs and so on"
because I think it is absolutely essential that you have the sort
of things that we expect to occur, which are complete independence,
the ability to report and, if necessary, report at the highest
level within the Department.
I am reassured at the moment, Mr Williams, and I
hope that it works out as well as I hope it will.
Q12 Roger Williams:
I recently visited the John Innes campus in Norwich and I was
very impressed with the work that they are doing there. They
have just set up a new genome facility there. They spoke very
highly of the partnership between the research councils, the RDAs
and the local authority to get that facility established and put
on a commercial basis. With the abolition of the RDAs, do you
think this will affect that type of development and UK science
in general?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I hope not. I know another Committee has talked to David Willetts
about the RDA issue. This is work in progress in the sense that
some of the RDA money will be going through into the Technology
Strategy Board. Decisions on actual allocations to individual
RDAs are still being discussed, but I would hope that these entities
like the John Innes, which are quite clearly world-leading, have
got to be preserved in the best way we can and enhanced, indeed.
Given that the John Innes is an institute of the BBSRC, the funding
will, at the very least, help on that.
I should add in, as a personal anecdote, that the
new director was a student of mine at the University of York a
long time ago. To show how much better than me he was, we both
got elected to the Royal Society in the same year.
Q13 Chair:
In terms of the departmental budgets, as they become clear, in
the interests of transparency, it would be extremely helpful if
you could let this Committee know so we have a good picture starting
to emerge because, clearly, we need to look at the impact of the
CSR in the round, not just in the context of—
Professor Sir John Beddington:
Yes. I am happy to give you that assurance, Chairman. I think
the only slight caveat has been that because of the cross-Government
nature of some of the discussions—for the sake of argument,
we are going to look at DEFRA next week, but there are implications
of DEFRA's decisions for another Department—it will take
a while. So I don't think it would be appropriate to be reporting
after each one, but what I would hope to do is to give you a very
clear idea in the round after we have completed that process.
Q14 Graham Stringer: I
don't want to make a special pleading for any quangos. The Government
may not have gone far enough, as far as I am concerned, in getting
rid of them. Of course you know what is coming next. I'm going
to make a special plea. It is difficult to see how the Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Authority will continue to work as
well if it is absorbed into the Department of Health. Do you
agree with that?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I think the straight answer is that I don't know. I hope it will.
There are the sort of assurances that I have actually had from
the Cabinet Office and from the Department of Health. I think
the question would be that, if we feel it is not working as well,
then that needs to be drawn to the attention of both the Chief
Scientist in the Department of Health and myself, and we will
look at it. At the moment I wouldn't want to say, a priori, Mr
Stringer, that this will necessarily be a problem. The straight
answer is I don't know. I can understand the concerns. I think
the thing that would be so important here would be independence
and the clear ability to actually make reports that are independent
of the underlying Department.
Q15 Graham Stringer:
Independence and speed of decision when it comes to authorising
stem cell research and other issues. It is going
to be much more difficult in the middle of a political Department,
isn't it, to take those decisions independently and quickly.
Professor Sir John Beddington:
If that does become a problem, I will discuss it with the Department
of Health and see whether we can actually address that problem.
I understand your concerns. They are, if you like, common sense
concerns, but we can look at that as a problem and I will raise
this, following this remark, with David Harper and Sally Davies
in the Department of Health, and say, "These are concerns.
How will you address them?"
Q16 Chair:
Again, we would be interested in those implications with other
quangos that interface with science—how you will manage
the independence aspects. Again, following on Graham's remarks,
it would be helpful if you would keep us abreast of broader discussions.
Professor Sir John Beddington:
Yes. Prior to this, there were something like 65 such bodies
in Government as a whole. My fear is that, if there is something
that is really urgent and seems to be going wrong, then I should
be addressing those immediately and trying to deal with them.
But, in general, it is important to get an overall picture of
how it is working. So perhaps one of the things I might usefully
do is come back to you round about now next year with a view to
saying, "This is my overall assessment. This is what is
happening", and I would be happy to take that on as an obligation.
I think I would have some nervousness about giving
you responses in the interim, let's say, by Easter or something,
because I just don't think the full picture is out there. But
if there are particular problems that are identified I would be
more than happy to come and discuss those particular problems
if anyone has raised them with me at any time.
Q17 Stephen Mosley:
So far, Sir John, you have given some very detailed answers to
some quite specific questions. Can I look at the bigger picture
a bit here and ask this? With the change of Government, how do
you feel that that has affected the role, the work and the aspirations
of the Government Office for Science? Indeed, how do you view
the way that the new Government does science, and does this differ
in any way from the way that its predecessor worked?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I wouldn't say that there is anything fundamentally different
in the sense that both the previous Government and the current
Government are committed to evidence—including scientific
evidence—based policy, and I think that is accepted. I think
both the current Government and the previous Government were significantly
committed to the importance of the role of science and engineering
in the British economy and the ability to actually generate growth
in the economy was recognised by both Governments. So I don't
think there are any significant changes there.
I have had very good access to Secretaries of State
and the Prime Minister. I saw the Prime Minister about four or
five weeks after the election with a one-to-one interview at his
request. I have subsequently seen a number of Secretaries of
State. So I am not seeing any change in the ability to get access
at the highest level in Government. I think it's one of the benefits
of our system, really.
In North America and in the United States, when there
is a change of Government, their Chief Scientific Adviser changes
as well. So my equivalent in the USA, John Holdren, is essentially
an Obama appointee. If President Obama moves on, then a new President
will appoint a Chief Scientific Adviser. I have been happily working
for the previous Prime Minister and the current one and will continue.
I think that continuity gives our system an advantage over the
one in the USA. In general, the obvious issue has been the fact
that there was a significant determination to cut Government spending
by the incoming Government, and I think that that, obviously,
had a potential danger of indicating that science might lose out.
The results, as I said at the very start of it, show that the
Government are committed to the importance of science and engineering.
Q18 Stephen Metcalfe:
I would like to look at the Foresight and the Horizon Scanning
Programmes, if we may. You touched on those a bit earlier. Certainly
on the Foresight Programme, following the spending review, do
you see changes in the work that you are undertaking on that side
of things? Will it have an impact on it or have you allowed for
that already in what you are doing?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I think our resources are somewhat less, and we would expect that
to be so. In terms of administrative structure, I think we are
trying to resolve it so that the Horizon Scanning work, which
was almost independent from the Foresight, I think that was not
a sensible way of running the operation. So we are getting efficiencies
by largely amalgamating the Horizon Scanning work with the Foresight
work. They are very similar. So that is part of the administrative
response to that issue.
I don't feel at the present that we will be producing,
on average, less Foresight reports than we have in the past.
One of the things that I was slightly concerned about was the
length, size and duration of some of the Foresight reports. We
have one Foresight report which is operating on a much faster
time scale than previously, which is looking at international
climate change and its effect on the UK. That is operating, probably,
from start to finish, it will be about a year as opposed to some
of the other Foresight projects which, typically, run nearly to
two years, so we are addressing that.
In terms of deciding what next, as I mentioned, we
have the project on looking at computer trading in markets. That's
just started. We will be looking to start another project in
the next three or four months, and we are in the process of consulting
fairly widely about where there could be most benefit. We will
be seeking the views of a whole series of stakeholders, as we
usually do, looking at shortlists and then having some discussion
about what we should do next. To that extent, we are open for
business but we don't know quite where we are going.
In terms of the results, one of the good things,
I think, about the Foresight Programme is that it just doesn't
stop when there is a report on the shelf. We have a team that
is involved in following up the individual reports so that they
have some impact. That I feel very comfortable with. The Food
and Farming is the one that is going to be reporting probably
in the new year. It is obviously of international scope. There
are a whole series of events and engagement at the international
level that we are seeking to have following that theme. For example,
I will be making some presentations in North America at the AAAS
meeting in February on the Foresight Report. We are already engaging
with the World Bank where it is concerned about the future of
farming and the agricultural sector generally. So we will be
doing a lot of engagement. That will certainly not be reduced.
I think that is rather important.
There are some interesting issues. We need to ponder
a little bit on the Foresight process. At the moment, we have
historically looked at, typically, maybe 50 years ahead—40
or 50. So the Food and Farming one is looking out to 2050. I
think there is an argument that we should be having projects that
look at a slightly shorter time scale. For example, in food,
I think that the time scale to 2030 is extremely important. Of
course the ability to address uncertainty is actually rather better
the nearer you look into the future. I don't want a Foresight
study which looks at the next three years. That would be absurd,
but I do think we probably need to be addressing slightly shorter
time scales as part of the process. So Food and Farming will
look to 2030 but also beyond to 2050.
Q19 Stephen Metcalfe:
Does that mean that the Horizon Scanning Programme is looking
further into the future now or is it just looking at different
things? Is it a question of time or is it a question of subject
matter? On the Horizon Scanning, could you give us some examples
of the sort of areas that you are looking at at the moment, just
briefly, just project outlines?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
The one that will report next week is looking at the technologies
which could, arguably, benefit Britain, where we have competitive
advantage and so on, where there is a market out there. In fact
we will have a list of something in the order of 50 technologies,
of which 15 or 20 we are singling out as being particularly attractive.
We will be expecting to do something like that. The time scale
of those will vary in the sense that we might be expecting, if
we have particularly attractive technologies, that we will be
addressing them and seeking to see whether there is an appetite
for investment in them or, indeed, to stimulate that investment.
I see it very much as providing useful information for decisions
made by the Technology Strategy Board, by BIS and so on. So that
is operating. That has been a substantial project, as you might
imagine, surveying the potential roles.
In terms of what is in the pipeline, we haven't decided
yet. We were waiting to see what the CSR was before we did it.
Horizon Scanning projects are of a much shorter duration than
Foresight, so they can be turned on and off rather more easily.
We will be looking about taking that forward now.
Q20 Stephen Metcalfe:
Is there anything particularly that you, though, think we should
be looking at on the Horizon Scanning Programmes?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
That's an interesting question. We have been looking at food
generally, at climate change generally, but I do think that the
whole issue of water is rising up the agenda. I believe that
water needs to be looked at seriously. There is a question whether
that should be done by asking about particular areas. For example,
with Horizon Scanning, where are we with water? Have we got technologies
which will actually address significant problems? Some of them
are already addressed. For example, you know, there are programmes
to look at plants that are tolerant to saline or drought conditions.
That is happening. But I am not sure that, with water, particularly,
for example, in hygiene and the fact that we have major issues
of urbanisation in the world and that the number of people living
in urban communities is increasing and is expected to be about
60% over the next 20 years, we have a way of actually looking
properly in the different environments at water, both in terms
of technology but also in terms of management. So I think that
is one that is in the forebrain, and I will be posing a question,
why don't we look at water, at some stage? If there is a good
answer I will accept that answer, but it is one of the questions
I will be posing to the team.
Q21 Pamela Nash:
The recent GO-Science's SEA Review into the Department of Business,
Innovation and Skills reported that scientific and engineering
advice was not given the priority that it should be given. Did
this come as a surprise to you?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I'm really sorry. Could you say that again? I'm slightly deaf
in my left ear. I will turn round and give you my best right
ear.
Q22 Pamela Nash:
The recent report "Government Office for Science's Science
and Engineering Assurance Review of the Department for BIS",
which was published earlier this month, showed that the scientific
and engineering advice wasn't given the priority that it should
be given. Did that surprise you?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
Yes, I think it's a real concern. We have had an issue in BIS
that the Permanent Secretary of BIS moved off to run the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office—Simon Fraser. So his temporary
successor inherited that review. I met with Martin Donnelly,
who is now the appointed Permanent Secretary in BIS, and said,
"We have serious concerns about the science and engineering
work that is actually being done in BIS." One of the recommendations
of that review—and it was very clear; we had a very distinguished
panel—was that they were extremely concerned about the quality
of science and engineering advice, not that they were criticising
the Chief Scientific Adviser, Brian Collins, who they thought
was doing an excellent job, but they really felt that the resources
that had been devoted to science and engineering within BIS were
inadequate.
I discussed that with Philip Rutnam, who was the
Acting Perm Sec, fairly early on as soon as the report was out.
His view was, "I note this, but I'm the Acting Permanent
Secretary and this is a problem that my successor will have to
take." I will be engaging with Martin Donnelly on that in
some detail. We have already discussed it briefly and we will
be thinking about ways to do it. Of course in the context of
significant administrative cuts it presents difficult problems,
but I do believe that the recommendations from the panel were
unequivocally that BIS needs to devote more science and engineering
resources within BIS, largely to enhance the role of the Chief
Scientific Adviser and his team. I think that is where we are
at the moment. It is work in progress, Ms Nash, but you can be
assured that I will be continuing to engage with the BIS Permanent
Secretary and his staff.
Q23 Pamela Nash:
Do you find similar problems in the Departments for Transport
and Education in those reviews?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
The Department for Education—I think the review of that
came out and it was truly excellent. The review is published.
That was a review that did not involve, primarily, natural science,
obviously. There we were able to get social scientists, statisticians
and economists involved to assess the quality of the work, so
it was wider than pure science. We got inputs from the other heads
of analysis, particularly in statistics. The recommendations
were that the work was pretty excellent. There were a number
of recommendations but these were not, "We are very worried"-type
recommendations. They were, "Well done. Would you think
about doing something like that?"
Transport was somewhere between the two. There
were issues raised in transport. I think I will be discussing
those, and I have already had a discussion with the then Permanent
Secretary. A bit of a move around is going on at the moment.
I had a meeting with Robert Devereux about our recommendations.
He accepted the recommendations but indicated that, with the
Spending Review, the response of the Department for Transport
to those recommendations would have to wait a little while. That
is understood. They will be looking at it and we will be engaging
with them. Robert Devereux, as has been announced, will be moving
to the Department for Work and Pensions as Permanent Secretary
there. His successor in the Department for Transport has not
been announced yet. I suspect that this is going to be slightly
work in progress until the Permanent Secretary settles in. I
think the recommendations from the panel were that there were
a number of things that could be done better. That we will have
to see. So, in a ranking, I would say that BIS has a problem,
Transport has slightly less of a problem and Education came out
very well.
Q24 Chair:
Just as an aside to that, with the move of the Perm Sec to the
FCO, did he take with him a good understanding of the need to
have good science counsellors in our principal embassies? Given
the cuts that are going on, do you think that is going to be a
problem?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
Obviously, I talked to Simon Fraser about this and Adrian Smith,
where the international unit is embedded, and I think we all recognise
how important it is to have that group out there. I think the
change in focus of the Foreign Office to actually engage in trade
speaks to the need to have, if anything, more people and perhaps
with a slightly different pattern of locations. That's work in
progress.
David Clary, who is the Chief Scientific Adviser
in the Foreign Office, will be working closely with Simon Fraser.
We will wait and see but the agenda is there. I think the importance
that the Foreign Secretary has placed on using the Foreign Office
to help UK trade and UK exports means that we have got to engage
in these ways.
While we are talking on the international level,
I will be shortly going, in November, to a meeting of the Carnegie
Group, which is the G8+5 now, which is a meeting of Chief Scientific
Advisers but also Science Ministers from the G8+5. That is a
forum where we actually do get the opportunity to discuss at a
fairly high level the sort of priorities we see for science and
engineering into the future.
Also, quite clearly, we need to engage with key economies
to develop scientific co-operation. During last year I signed
a Memorandum of Understanding with the Thai Government for increased
enhanced co-operation between Thailand and the UK. That has moved
on. There are a number of things we could point to of that success.
I had signed one in the previous year in Brazil, and we have
already got some excellent co-operative work with Brazil. Clearly,
we have a Science Commission with Japan, we have one with Russia,
we have one with China and we have one with India. All of those
are on-going and we meet regularly, sometimes every year, sometimes
every two years. So there is quite a lot going on, as it were,
within my own office as well as the network.
The SIN network has been fantastic in supporting
these sorts of things and I have nothing but very high praise
for them.
Q25 Graham Stringer:
When you were before our predecessor Committee, you said that
global warming is happening. It is induced by human activity.
This is unchallengeable. Given that the Royal Society has re-written
or clarified its position—perhaps that is a better word—on
global warming and put it in terms more of probabilities rather
than certainties, and New Scientist seems to tell us that
the physical laws change depending on which direction you are
looking in the last edition, is it wise to be so certain? There
is no ambiguity or probability in your study at all.
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I could have caveated it and said, "This is almost certain"
or "It's nearly unequivocal", but, actually, I think
that would be playing with words, Mr Stringer. There are a lot
of uncertainties in climate science, but I don't think there are
uncertainties about some of the basic physics and some of the
basic information. I think those are the things that are clarified
in the Royal Society's report as being completely unambiguous.
You may be aware that, on the Government Office of
Science's website I have set up a whole series of pieces of scientific
information which go to the global warming issue. We've put this
out for comment. It's very much John Beddington's review of the
science, having talked to the climate scientists in its compilation.
We have not had anyone as yet write in and say, "This is
nonsense", which I would not claim won't happen, and possibly
me making that statement will virtually guarantee that I will
be getting such commentary. I think the general picture is this.
I think that the fundamentals of the physics, of
the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that have
been going into the atmosphere, the general issues on overall
global temperature, on sea level and so on, are all pretty unequivocal.
There is, obviously, a scientific uncertainty in all matters,
but I feel that that science is pretty much unchallengeable at
the moment. Things may change. It is not impossible that there
will be a totally different understanding. I don't believe that
is very likely. These things are examined enormously carefully,
but it's not to say that there is no uncertainty. The big uncertainties
are, obviously, to do with the shorter time scales. The ability
to actually predict weather is a problem because of the fundamental
characteristics of the weather system. Climate is the statistics
of weather. That point is that we will always have uncertainties.
I think the key thing here is that we are fairly open with those
uncertainties.
In terms of the scientific process, I think you have
heard me say before that the climate science could, with merit,
be more transparent, that data, where it is freely available,
should be made available for people to look at it because it is
such an important issue for policy. So, on that, I am very strongly
in favour.
Q26 Graham Stringer:
What do you think the implications for the Freedom of Information
Act are from the reviews into the University of East Anglia affair?
Apart from freedom of information, are there any other things
that you would like to say about that?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I won't comment on East Anglia. I think that has been a well-worn
area of discussion in terms of the East Anglian e-mails. But
in terms of the scientific data, I think there are some really
quite difficult issues. First of all, I think the basic principle
is that, if it is publicly funded science, then the data should
be available. This is funded by taxpayers; it should be available.
Within that, there are obviously some constraints on timing.
I think we need to be pondering quite how data collected on, say,
a particular research grant—you do at least give the principal
investigator a chance to publish it first, but then the data should
be available. I think there are some quite thorny issues there.
David Willetts has actually charged Adrian Smith
and me to examine this issue in a lot more detail, looking at
the complexities, and that is work in progress. Maybe we will
announce a consultation but that hasn't been firmly decided.
But, certainly, I think that is a real issue.
In the case of some of the climate data, the problem
you have is that the collection of these kind of data was actually
taken on the basis of some degree of confidentiality. This was
given to the Met Office and said, "You are very welcome to
work with it, but it's our data and you mustn't pass it on to
a third party." That is a problem, obviously, and we are
actually dealing with it. The question is: should we refuse such
data? I don't think we should. I think we should use it as best
we can, but there are quite thorny issues out there and I don't
have any slick answers on it at the moment.
Q27 Chair:
You recall the Council for Science and Technology's reports on
how academia and Government can work together in 2008?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
Yes.
Q28 Chair:
In this seamless transition that there has been from the old Government
to the new one, perhaps even with you steering the ship there
in the field of science, has the 10-point plan been accepted by
the incoming Government?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I am sorry, Chairman. The bell rang just when your final question
started. I got the preamble but it was the actual question.
Q29 Chair:
You will recall that the report had a 10-point action plan. Has
that been accepted by the incoming Government?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I can't comment on that, Chairman. If I may, I'll get back to
you. First of all, embarrassingly, I don't remember those 10 points,
but, if I may, I'll write to you and respond to that.[1]
Q30 Chair:
And also some assessment of what you would expect to see from
the implementation of those recommendations?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
If I may, I'll write to you. I feel reasonably pleased about
the way that the CST has gone, that their infrastructure report
has been accepted, the report on the relationship with academia
and Government has been accepted, I think, in the round, but those
particular recommendations I'll write to you about, if I may.
Q31 Graham Stringer:
This Government like the last Government may think that their
policies are evidence-based. Why on earth are we still funding
homeopathy?
Professor Sir John Beddington:
I talked to your predecessor Committee, and you, Mr Stringer and
others on this. I think I can say as follows. I have made it
completely clear, and I believe a number of colleagues have, that
there is no scientific basis for homeopathy beyond the placebo
effect and there are serious concerns about its efficacy.
I have discussed this at meetings with the new Ministers
and Secretary of State of Health and indicated that. Decisions
have been taken which are to do with public choice which are actually
beyond the realm of science, but I can give you an assurance that
there is no ambiguity in the scientific advice that the Department
of Health is getting. We do not believe there is any scientific
basis for homeopathy beyond a placebo effect. I think it is really
important that we think about the communication issues, and the
fact that homeopathy is still being funded by the Department of
Health through the National Health Service. We have to put that
in the context that there is no real evidence for efficacy. There
is a danger that the public will think there is real efficacy
for some of the serious conditions. I believe we have to work
on that and make clear that this is not correct.
I was particularly worried when there were reports
coming out that certain private homeopathic practitioners in Scotland
had actually been indicating that there were homeopathic remedies
or vaccines for some of the rather serious diseases. Indeed,
I understand that there is some poor man who actually used a homeopathic
vaccine for malaria shortly before he caught malaria. This is
the sort of thing that we need to be thinking about. Whether it
is illegal or not I can't judge, but it is certainly completely
unacceptable as a practice.
Chair: Thank you very
much for attending this morning, Sir John. We look forward to
meeting you again shortly.
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