Examination of Witnesses (Questions 296-299)
Rt Hon Lord Rooker and Rt Hon Margaret Hodge
21 MAY 2008
Q296 Chairman:May I welcome the Ministers very
warmly indeed. We appreciate you are very busy people and have
given us time. We are starting a couple of minutes early on our
schedule which I hope is helpful and I am assuming we will be
about an hour if that is possible. We have a number of questions
we would like to cover. Lord Rooker and Margaret Hodge welcome.
I mention your names not because we do not know them but for the
record it is important to have them on file. We have our names
around the table. There is a sheet declaring what our interests
are so we need not go through all of that. Would either of you
like to make an opening statement?
Lord Rooker: I have one comment I would like to make.
I realise you were due a Defra minister a few weeks ago but I
just want to put on record that at moment my department is involved
in 28 Select Committee inquiries, leading on 24. We are stretched
to breaking point in terms of resources. I want to make that absolutely
clear. It is not a criticism of this Committee, it cannot be,
but we have never ever been involved in so many inquiries at the
same time.
Q297 Chairman: It is important to
have that point on the record. We appreciate the pressure you
are under which is why we welcome you here today. Our own Committee
has had some of the consequences of that. Even identifying which
would be the most appropriate minister to come from the department
is sometimes an issue which doubtless is a reflection of the spread
of responsibilities of, in this case, the two departments. My
first question is reasonably apposite in that context and is to
do with the fact that government funding for taxonomy and systematics
is very, very widely dispersed. Our earlier report, which Baroness
Walmsley chaired, recommended quite strongly that we would like
to see a single focus. Clearly that relates to the amount of work
any department takes on but equally it relates to where the community,
and groups like ourselves trying to inquire into the situation,
go when they want a statement of what government policy is. I
wonder if you would like to react to that question.
Lord Rooker: I have read some of the background.
I freely admit, by the way, that I have been at Defra for two
years and a week at the moment and the only time I have actually
addressed this issue is in the last week since I came here. I
realise I have probably come across the issue more than I appreciated
when I first heard what the subject was having visited a range
of laboratories. We have three laboratory agencies, Central Science
Laboratory, CEFAS and the VLA, but we directly fund Kew which
although it is independent is actually funded by Defra. Then there
is the John Innes Centre, ICAR and Rothamsted all of whom we buy
research from. We are, as a department, probably second only to
the Ministry of Defence in having our policies based on science
in Defra. I think I can say that without qualification. I have
never been challenged when I have said that and that was the line
some years ago. We are very heavily dependent on science for our
policy right across all of Defra's responsibilities and, that
being so, we have three agencies of our own but we are a customer
of all the others. We have occasionally had problems over funding
of some of the research councils, because we were such a heavy
customer of their own agencies they seem to think we should do
the core funding. The point I want to make is we are a user of
this particular branch of science to a greater or lesser extent
and, of course, we help fund projects through the Darwin Initiative
around the world in taxonomy. I have no evidence that we are hamstrung
in achieving our objectives in terms of our contract. We do very
little blue skies in that. There is horizon scanning but 95 per
cent of our £300-odd million worth of science expenditure
is very much applied to cover our policy areas. We collaborate
with other departments and discuss with other departments. We
probably have not made it so clear in our memo the kind of contacts
we have around departments but we do not see ourselves as a provider
of the science or the individuals. We have assisted funding training
abroad through Darwin but essentially we are a customer of the
particular science maybe on a grand scale to a greater or lesser
extent. Kew is, as you appreciate, very much a large user.
Margaret Hodge: From my perspective, I am speaking
to a group of very eminent scientists. Until I realised I was
coming to give evidence to this Select Committee I knew not a
lot about taxonomy, to be honest, so I am grateful for the opportunity
of being able to mug it up and learn a little about it. Is there
a problem? Our role is we fund the museums, and in particular
we fund the Natural History Museum, but there are a number of
other museums which have collections that have to be assessed
through the science of taxonomy and systematics. I think both
of us would say we deal with a whole range of issues where there
are a number of government departments with an interest and involvement.
We have learnt to work across government rather effectively where
there is a mutual interest. To give you one example on this area
with Defra, I managed to convene recently a meeting around Darwin
200, which is going to be an important commemoration year, where
I brought together a colleague of Jeff Rooker's from Defra, someone
from DCSF and somebody from DIUS and sitting around that table
there were probably five or six other departments represented,
all of whom had an interest. People often get worried that things
fall through the cracks in the way that Ian Pearson mentioned
to you when he was giving evidence. I think when you try to paper
over one by re-organising departmental responsibilities all you
do is you find new cracks emerge. It is quite appropriate we have
the responsibility for the museums, particularly the national
museums. They have a number of purposes and an important one for
you is the scientific purpose, but they do have others around
visitor attractions, education resource and all that sort of stuff
which we are well suited to pursue. Where there is an issue where
we need to talk to other departments, we do very quickly either
on the phone or in meetings.
Q298 Chairman: There are two aspects
which have concerned us and one is that whatever structure you
have within government of departments it will not match completely
what human life is like. There are bound to be variations and
that is just part of the reality of life but that makes it very
important to pay attention, as you say, to making sure that the
cracks do not develop into great fissures of one kind or another.
What kind of cross-departmental discussion takes place, how it
is facilitated, is it ad hoc and is there a regular set of meetings
is one of the questions. I know that scientists and academics
often feel neglected and that is just part of the reality of life.
I have been one so I know. On the other hand, something that was
put to us very strongly by the community is the health of the
discipline and the community where decisions in one department
might affect the consequences of being able to deliver the services
for another department. We are concerned whether there are enough
trained people in the system and whether the flow of funds from
one direction, be it DIUS or the research councils, is inhibiting
or enhancing that training for skills that other departments,
Defra not least, will require. There are really two aspects to
this.
Margaret Hodge: First of all, in relation to
taxonomy I have never been asked to attend a meeting with other
ministers around this issue because nobody in that world has raised
it as an issue about which they have a problem. Were that to arise,
we would meet. It would be ad hoc meetings but we have never been
asked for one. If the community is saying to you they feel that
there is not coordination, I think they have not articulated that
in any way effectively into government and if they were to do
so we would respond pretty promptly. The second is I think diversity
of funding for this and other areas is always a strength rather
than a weakness. It is a strength because it means you are not
entirely reliant on one department or one institution. There are
a number of bodies with funding potential from the research councils
through to HEFCE, to Defra, to ourselves. You can go on and on
who could support this particular discipline. I think that is
a strength and also makes the discipline itself think and justify
its relevance in a whole range of policy areas and I do not think
that is a bad thing either. It may feel neater to have one minister,
one department and one budget but I actually think there is a
lot of benefit to be said from the relationship that exists now
particularly for taxonomy. From what I picked up in preparing
for the Committee today, actually taxonomists need to work rather
closely with other disciplines if they are to fulfil their objectives.
Probably the status quo is right and if they are worried they
should tell us.
Lord Rooker: I agree entirely with that. The
seven organisations I mentioned in my first comment, the three
Defra laboratories and the four others, I have visited them all,
gone behind the reception areas as it were, and to the best of
my knowledge nobody has ever raised an issue relating to training
or not enough people coming through at all. The contrast I would
give, so as far as Defra is concerned, is another branch of our
service, the veterinary service. Quite clearly there is not much
argument that we are the key user as a ministry and in many ways
a provider. If there was a problem with the number of vets in
the country, particularly with farm animals and disease control,
and we use an enormous amount of private sector vets, we would
be the department and we would know about it. Indeed people go
off into the cushy part of the veterinary service rather than
the farm animals but we would know about that. With this issue,
this crosses species. We are dealing with plants, animals, all
kinds of little bugs. My private office checked on one of the
web sites to find out what it was all about and I got this incredible
note which says basically there is estimated to be 30 million
species of animals, plants and bacteria in the world and we have
identified 1.7 million so there is quite a bit of work to do.
Q299 Lord May of Oxford: 30 million
is a bit over the top.
Lord Rooker: There is clearly a job to be done
but that goes right across and it is a planet issue in that sense.
With our Darwin Initiative we have funded 700 projects in 146
countries over a period of time and, as Margaret says, this crosses
the boundaries. There are other parts of government where it is
very convenient for the centre to lump everything in one place
because it is easier to cut and control the budget when you have
done that but you reduce flexibility if you do that. I am not
saying there is no scope for change. Maybe, but I do not know,
it goes on a par with machinery of government issues but there
are always changes going on in the science and the way we organise
ourselves. Central Science Laboratory is being converted and will
be called the Regulatory Science Agency and plant health is going
into that. There are these issues going on all the while with
changes. In the memo that Defra provided the Committee early on
in March, we gave the set up in our own three laboratories, SEFAS,
CSL and the VLA, of the number of people qualified in various
branches of taxonomy. As I say, I have seen no evidence, and have
had it confirmed from officials more recently, that we have any
problem getting the work done that needs doing either for ourselves
or with our collaboration because these things are a collaboration
with other departments.
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