Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-319)
Rt Hon Lord Rooker and Rt Hon Margaret Hodge
21 MAY 2008
Q300 Lord May of Oxford: I agree
with you that a certain amount of diversity can be constructive.
I can give you an example when the Natural History Museum became
able to go to the research councils, which happened when I was
a trustee and before. Just to declare the interest, I was chairman
of the trustees. That is good but, at the same time, there are
lots of counter-examples where it is a problem. To give what I
think is an example, we have a hugely important fungal collection
which is a really important resource of growing importance under
climate change. It used to be owned by a thing called CABI that
is now at Kew. My understanding, which is imperfect, is that it
is not at all clear who is going to fund this. In a time when
money is short, it is natural that people of goodwill will all
suggest that it is somebody else's responsibility. We have heard
a lot of evidence to the general tenor that it would be helpful
perhaps if there were an identified point of definitive reference
which would stop the ping pong that can go on.
Margaret Hodge: There are so many issues across
government that I have to deal with day to day. No doubt when
you were advising government you found that there were a number
of people involved in the funding and of course you try and bat
it off to somebody else in the first instance. When money is tight
that might be your initial reaction, but actually I found that
over those issues over time you just do sit down with other people
involved and sort it. You have to sort it. We do have a machinery
of government mechanism if things go very badly wrong and that
is Cabinet Office will then, from the centre, instruct us what
to do if we are not able to come to a decision among ourselves.
A very different example is Ironbridge Museum which is outside
Telford. Defra is involved and we are involved because we have
the World Heritage Site and there is a flood challenge there.
There is lot of money involved to put that right. We have had
quite a number of meetings over time between local government,
Department for Communities and Local Government, yourselves, ourselves,
and others involved. In the end, because that was a lot of money,
Cabinet Office took the decision as to who should be the lead
department with accountability. There is a mechanism in government
should things go wrong. I have to say we are the main funders
of the Natural History Museum. They are the key specialists, as
I understand it, in this particular discipline and I think they
have done pretty well in terms of funding through us. This time
around, interestingly enough, we managed to get an extremely good
Comprehensive Spending Review settlement relative to other departments
and we have passed that on to the Natural History Museum and others
so they have done well. Nobody has come to us, either from the
producer or the consumer side, and said there is a problem here
of under-funding. I can see people feel a bit nervous about having
to relate to four or five different departments and all that goes
with that, but nobody has flagged this up to us. Maybe the Committee
will, as an issue which requires us to get around the table and
sort it through. That has not been flagged up with me at all.
When I was looking at the evidence, going back to your very original
question about lack of people with appropriate training, the Natural
History Museum themselves said they can recruit people quite easily.
Of course, they will want more money, everybody does. They, amongst
all our museums, were pretty relieved and gratified by the spending
review settlement they received this time around.
Chairman: We will probably come back to that
but I should stress it is not simply the money but is an issue
of the health of the discipline. Is someone looking across the
board at this where pulls in one direction lead to gaps in another
direction?
Q301 Baroness Walmsley: That takes
us to the next question. The Committee may have some sympathy
with Mrs Hodge in terms of knowing what taxonomy and systematics
are before she came to read up for this. Both ministers will be
aware that I chaired the last of these reports, the second one
and this is the third one. My theory was I was one of the few
members of the Committee who knew what it was and that is why
I was chosen. Going to the last report, one of its recommendations
was that Defra take the lead in setting up a co-ordinating body
to bring together the researcher and the user community. At that
time Defra actually initially accept that recommendation but has
not actually taken it forward. In oral evidence we have heard
that Defra sees itself both as a user, and we have heard that
again from the minister today, but also as the co-ordinator but
we do not actually see that co-ordination role happening. Although
I think the Committee accepts that it is healthy to have disparate
sources of funding, there is a feeling, and there certainly has
been in the evidence we have received, that somebody needs to
be the leader to make sure that people do work together and co-ordinate.
Somebody should take the lead, as Mrs Hodge has just said, in
sorting it and this is a real problem. In the evidence we have
had from the Fresh Water Biological Association and from the Centre
for Ecology and Hydrology, they have told us that they have difficulty
in fulfilling their responsibilities under the Water Framework
Directive because they cannot get enough of the right trained
people. Although, as Mrs Hodge rightly says, the Natural History
Museum, and they have told us themselves, do not have difficulty
in recruiting it is a world-famous organisation and of course
they do not have difficulty. They have been getting their people
from abroad and there is a feeling there is not enough home-grown
taxonomic expertise available. It is emerging to us that it is
a symptom of the fact that nobody is taking the final responsibility
about the health of this whole discipline. Why has Defra not done
that, will it do that or should it be the Cabinet Office? It seems
a last resort suggestion from Mrs Hodge that that should be the
case. Perhaps the Committee is feeling that one should not have
to go to that last resort. The other thing we wonder is why if
we are hearing that there is a problem that the ministries are
not hearing there is a problem. Clearly you are not and you have
just told us that. The question is who is listening to the systematics
community and where are the roots by which they can make their
concerns known? There is a growing demand for these sorts of specialities
because of climate change.
Lord Rooker: On your point about you hearing
the noises and we are not, I am obviously concerned about that.
If there is substance in that then quite clearly the communications
are not working. If you are searching for a Manpower Services
Commission on taxonomy so you can look at what is going to be
done, where the flow of people are and fit them into the right
slots, then that certainly is a task that is not a function of
the user government departments. You are asking whether we train
but presumably it starts maybe in the research councils and universities.
It is a fair point. If I go over the past, obviously clearly having
chaired the previous Committee you no doubt feel personally aggrieved
and offended that Defra did not do everything that you thought
it should do which is why I have this little note to read out.
Defra told the inquiry that officials in Defra pursued the spirit
of that recommendation through the two key committees concerned
with priorities for biodiversity research, that is the Biodiversity
Research Advisory Group which does the national issues, and the
Global Diversity Sub-committee of the Global Environmental Change
Committee, which handles global issues and on which both users
and providers are represented. Kew and the Natural History Museum
attend both and that meets the need for facilitating co-ordination.
Defra saw its responsibility was not to co-ordinate the user community
but to co-ordinate its activities with those of the other users
and providers. Defra saw its role somewhat narrower. It also says
here this is not a hair splitting distinction. We do not own this
sector and that is the point. This may be, by the way, a factor
in other branches of science. It is self-evident that if it is
happening here then it is happening elsewhere. Is it good that
it has split and diversified or have we problems where someone
can see the way the science changes and if you do nothing in 10
years time you have a real problem on delivering on what you need
for the users like Defra? I fully accept that. We were looking
at getting value for money but making sure we co-ordinated our
activities with others but not to seek to co-ordinate, if you
like, the sector and become the champion. I do not want to have
a problem between ministries but Lord May mentioned about CABI
and I am not sure if that is the shortened version. Was that the
fungal group that moved?
Q302 Lord May of Oxford: Yes.
Lord Rooker: This is where a problem arises
if it moved from the Natural History Museum. It has moved into
Kew now and someone has asked Defra for more money to fund it
but we have no money. We are strapped for cash. I just heard Mrs
Hodge say that they had a very good settlement.
Margaret Hodge: We have given it all away.
Q303 Chairman: I am beginning to
feel like a ministerial dating agency!
Lord Rooker: This is under discussion with Defra.
Our director of science, Miles Parker is discussing this but there
is very little likelihood of funding. The request is for some
£750,000 over the CSR period with a following open-ended
commitment. We are due to have a meeting with the Defra Kew Quarterly
Liaison Committee on the 18 June. I am not sure where the funding
was originally and how it has arrived at a Defra-funded body because
although Kew is independent, and rightly so chaired by the noble
Earl, and I declare an interest as a friend of Kew, the fact of
the matter is we do not run Kew. We fund the grant-in-aid and
we have protected it as much as we could. I was up before the
Committee in the other place on this defending to the last no
more cuts at Kew. We have increased the capital but we have truly
a straight line on the revenue. Everybody else has had some cuts
at Defra so there is an issue there. If something is transferred
into the body and they pop along to Defra and say we have this
new responsibility now and we would like the funding then I have
to have a serious look at this. I will have to see where the funding
was beforehand. I am not criticising this because it is a good
thing to have done, and I presume that is the reason it has been
done, but we will have to look at that. To answer Baroness Walmsley's
question, Defra made the best of trying to operate in the spirit
of that recommendation but we do not own the sector so we cannot
order or boss other bits about who would not necessarily listen
to us in that way.
Q304 Chairman: A bit of co-ordination
there might have been helpful insofar as if somebody is coming
from there to there and it is cross-departmental do they carry
the money with them?
Lord Rooker: As I already said, the director
of science is onto this and it is being looked at by officials
and will be on the agenda of the meeting on the 18 June.
Q305 Baroness Walmsley: I understand
the distinction that the minister makes between what the recommendation
thought it was and what Defra thought it was doing in terms of
co-ordination but, in the end, somebody has to take responsibility
for making sure there are enough people with the appropriate skills.
I just wonder whether we ought to go back to where the taxonomist
is born. A taxonomist is trained initially at a university but
then gets the meat of his or her experience and usefulness actually
working somewhere like the Natural History Museum or Kew or one
of your laboratories. Perhaps it should be DIUS who should have
the responsibility because no one university can do it. If we
have a lack of appropriate skills, given the rising demand which
we do believe there is, somebody really needs to take hold of
it. I wonder if the ministers feel that perhaps DIUS might be
the appropriate ministry given that we accept that diversity of
funding is fine.
Margaret Hodge: DIUS has clearly the responsibility
for ensuring that the higher education places are available. I
am coming at this with some experience of other areas where we
have skill shortages all over the place in all sorts of areas.
What you try and corral is the employer, the student and the institution.
You have to get those three elements coming together. If there
is a real shortage, and Jeff has said he does not experience this,
among the users one would expect them to be in very close discussion
with the higher education institutions to make sure they provide
the training places. I know that the Natural History Museum has
90 PhD students in there at any one time, and they have a lot
of international students at any one time. If there is a need
for more, again that has to be expressed and negotiated through
those three elements: the universities working together with the
users and then of course attracting students. The other thing
I know, as with so many science areas, in the last 10 years with
the endless jobs I have had, is we are trying desperately hard
to encourage young people to see science as a future. I am sure
that this Committee has probably done endless inquiries. Again,
we all work very hard together. I am quite proud of the work we
have done with DCSF and the Natural History Museum to encourage
and bring alive to young people the exciting and challenging prospect
of a career in science be it taxonomy or elsewhere. I am not sure
it is all your responsibility. We will lead you to the outcome
that you want but I think it is a shared responsibility. DIUS
clearly fund the higher education sector and are responsible for
the research councils. They have to bring that to bear and come
together with the users and all of us doing what we can to attract
young people to see this as a good career prospect.
Lord Rooker: I am not in favour of leaving it
to the market and I make that absolutely clear. I am not in favour
of a laissez-faire approach to this. We are world leaders in many
fields and one of the reasons we are world leaders is people have
thought about what needs doing and have tried to adjust ourselves
accordingly to that. On the other hand, you need ideas to gel,
people to change careers, have the flexibility. I presume with
over 100 universities and the courses we have that the courses
are run for a purpose and a reason and by and large you get an
output. We do want a flow of international people to come to our
laboratories and our facilities as that is not only good for our
economy but good for the collaboration we have around the world.
I am not in favour of central planning. I am not saying there
should not be a responsibility to seize the problem, to measure
the problem and see the necessary levers are pulled to create
those. I have said in a narrow area, another part of Defra, we
would take responsibility and work if we were seriously short
of experts. In this field it is more diffused across government
but quite clearly it needs to be looked at. If you are getting
evidence there are difficulties, I have not picked it up, and
I have not picked it up from officials since being alerted to
this inquiry.
Q306 Lord Warner: I want to approach
this more from a very simple supply-side proposition. All the
evidence we have had suggests that there is a shortage of what
you might call the foot soldiers called taxonomists in this area.
Users are moving into a position where the age structure of the
existing taxonomists is such that a lot of them are going to retire
in the next few years. The demands for their services are increasing,
the supply is reducing and people are looking abroad increasingly
for some of the key posts that have to be filled. That has come
up in relation to the Natural History Museum. In other areas,
nursing is a good example, government has accepted that it cannot
supply enough and has gone abroad and has a highly skilled migrant
programme. We would like to know if the government is, in a sense,
relaxed that you deal with the supply side problem by recruiting
abroad or is it their policy to actually grow enough of their
own to meet the needs in the sector? Whatever is the government's
responsibility, and this goes beyond individual departmental responsibility,
in view of that you have to have a mechanism for responding to
it. The Department of Health responds to the shortage of nurses
by recruiting abroad and has a policy and a strategy for doing
that. It may be that we should have a strategy and policy for
doing that in relation to taxonomy. We are struggling with knowing
where the government is on that supply side issue.
Margaret Hodge: The Department of Health is
the employer. The Department of Health, in effect, represented
the employers. It found a shortage in a particular area of nursing,
if you take that as an instance, and it then intervened to do
that. In this particular area they would go to DIUS as the obvious
place to go. If those who employ and use taxonomists feel that
there is a shortage of training places in our universities for
taxonomists, they would have to engage in a conversation with
DIUS and HEFCE to encourage that. If they feel strongly that they
want to introduce some financial incentives to recruit young people
into that particular discipline for study, they would have to
look at that. I am with Jeff on this. We cannot centrally plan
this in any other way. You can touch any sector of the economy
where there is a skills shortage and, in the end, the employers
have to put the demands. The young people go where the jobs are
or where the incentives are. The incentives maybe financial, we
can make it more attractive to them and work on all that, but
that is where the relationship has to be; I do not think it is
for us to do it.
Q307 Lord Colwyn: You have dealt
with the funding issue of Kew asking Defra for more money for
their merger. My question is about government response to emerging
priorities. UK conservation priorities in the past have been supported
by a vast wealth of taxonomic knowledge. However, improving our
scientific understanding of the emerging field of ecosystem services
provision requires vastly improved knowledge of microbes, fungi,
soil, fauna and marine invertebrates to mention a few. How is
the government responding to these new scientific priorities specifically
the demand for new taxonomic knowledge?
Lord Rooker: We work with other departments.
Defra's science expenditure is about a third of a billion pounds
in various forms. I suspect there is not a research council that
we do not actually work with in terms of funding arrangements.
We are developing an initiative side on the Living with the Environment
Change which we are developing with the research councils. This
has been mentioned by previous witnesses to the Committee. One
of the objectives is to address the need for evidence on the ecosystems
services. The research programme for this is currently under development
and I think it will probably be a bit later before we can come
back to give more details on this. We are looking at the views
of the users of the science in the community and if there is perceived
requirements for systematics and taxonomy we will seek to address
that. There is work going on. It is not as if we are out of the
loop, as it were. I do not have a ready-made answer but there
are discussions going on at the present time and we will develop
that with the research councils. That is the same in other areas
of science. Essentially Defra are a customer. I hate the term
in a way but it explains where we are. Virtually all of your science
is bought in. We have three of our own agencies. For various reasons
they are in-house but they work for the private sector and other
government departments and deal with the European Union. We are
essentially a customer and, therefore, we will look at individual
projects and fund research projects. It is not a question of us
handing over what is core funding to other bodies and institutions.
This issue that you raise is covered by our present discussions
with research councils, and proposals are being worked on at the
present time.
Q308 Earl of Selborne: That brings
me on to relationships with the research councils and the extent
to which the research councils are fulfilling the sort of basic
research that might be helpful to the executive agencies and to
Defra. I should say in parenthesis that we are talking about this
in the UK context but one has to recognise that at the moment
so many countries have signed up to the Convention on Biological
Diversity that we suddenly realise there is around the world what
is known as the taxonomic impediment which, in the supplementary
evidence, Defra has addressed very helpfully. They recognise that
around the world there has to be a lot more expertise. It is no
good importing nurses from Zimbabwe as the National Health Service
might, we have to provide the expertise for these countries to
identify their own biodiversity and to manage it. There is, as
I say, this taxonomic impediment which we, as a host of collections
at the Natural History Museum and Kew and the like, have a responsibility
as part of our Imperial baggage. We do have a responsibility to
help people manage this. In fact, it seems to me systematics seems
not to be the dreary discipline that people imagine. Taxonomy
has a bad reputation but it is actually moving rather fast and
DNA is moving it on rapidly. I am not sure, after the initial
prod we gave the research councils after our first and then our
second report, whether we have not lost the momentum again. I
wonder whether you, as a customer, in Defra think that the research
councils, BBSRC and NERC, are losing interest and whether they
need a little bit of encouragement to go back to funding this
sort of area of work.
Lord Rooker: Probably they do need a kick and
do need to put more funding into this, but we would say that would
we not. We would encourage that. I do not think there is any doubt
about that. We always want more to be done. You are absolutely
right referring to our baggage from the past. Given the fact that
most of the countries on the planet are far richer in biodiversity
than we are but a lot poorer in resources, there is a massive
contribution. It works both ways as well. I am sure there are
economic advantages for us. We would always want more but we are
not satisfied that the research councils have put enough into
support our policy objectives. As I say, there has been an ongoing
area, particularly the BBSRC, believing that we should fund the
core funding simply because our customer spend is more than 15%
of their total. They seem to think there is an issue in the past.
I know this has been addressed by the Select Committee in the
other place and I had a long session in front of them with our
late Chief Scientific Adviser on this. There is an issue there
but we welcome the extra work they are doing. We continue to work
with both NERC and BBSRC to identify the areas that we want to
work in. We would like them to be strong in the areas where we
are a customer, which means we need to discuss in advance the
kind of projects we want to be working with. It is people's careers,
people's lives, and there is a value for money issue as well,
there is no doubt about that. I suspect they could always do more.
Q309 Earl of Selborne: Given your
interest as a department in trying to sort out this taxonomic
impediment will you be talking to the research councils to see
if they could help you more?
Lord Rooker: I have to, having just given that
answer. Defra is involved here in a big way. As I said in my opening
remarks, we are a huge user of science second only to the MoD.
As we are a user and a provider we need to know the providers
have the capacity and wherewithal, but we do not necessarily fund
the capacity. We deal with lots of other research organisations
so it is certainly an issue I would be happy to follow up, on
the basis that we are not the bottomless pit some would wish.
There are financial limits that we are up against, I do not deny
that, but we want the system to work well so when we come along
as a customer for a project we can get it at home, in-house as
convenient as possible for our own users as that makes common
sense.
Q310 Lord May of Oxford: As you probably
know, my fifth question was DCMS devolves decisions on spending
for taxonomy but I am going to skip that in the interests of time
and go to two somewhat sharper follow-ups I would like to ask.
I should say Lord Krebs is the person who knows more about this
than I but he could not be here so this is partly his question.
Declaring the interest, I know it is true in Oxford at the museum
there where the Huxley-Wilberforce debate was first, the Committee
has received evidence that many local and regional museums do
not actually receive grant-in-aid as such but receive money under
an initiative called regional hubs or renaissance hubs. It is
used, in a sense, for two purposes. It is used for outreach partly
in support of the curation of the collections which themselves
are a vital resource in delivering the biodiversity action plan,
but there is another interface between DCMS and the renaissance
thing and Defra delivering biodiversity. I think it is super the
way all sorts of amateurs and NGOs are involved in doing that.
It is something we can all take pleasure and pride in and is an
important thing for these local and regional museums. Secondly,
it is really important in sowing the seed corn in engaging young
people. It is not just the big things like the Natural History
Museum but it is all the local things. I would like to be reassured
that DCMS feels that its policies are indeed ensuring that these
two purposes are being served well and will continue to be served
well.
Margaret Hodge: I am really excited by the Renaissance
programme. I think it is one of the really good things we have
done over the last five or 10 years. Most of those regional museums
were in appalling decline and neglect before we started focusing
some additional resources on them. We are convinced of the importance
of the programme. We again funded it with inflation proof funding
which was the best we could do in this funding settlement. It
is good and secure for this period. All I can tell you is I am
a huge and enthusiastic supporter of it. In fact, you will be
pleased to know we are working hard with all the national museums
to get them to give even further added value into curatorial support
into the regional museums and also sharing their collections much
more widely. The big emphasis at the moment is how we can do more
in the regions than we are currently doing. The funding is secure
for this spending review.
Q311 Lord May of Oxford: That is
encouraging. Defra have a Chief Scientific Adviser. They had someone
who was pretty good and they have just had somebody come on board
who is really quite outstanding. He was co-editor of the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, before that chair of part of the IPCC, Bob
Watson. The new chief scientist is somebody with a background
in this general area so I think you are going to be more driven
from within. DCMS, on the other hand, with my experience in the
Natural History Museum, was up and down. The Natural History Museum
is a pretty odd entity in some ways. It is not like the other
museums. It is one of leading institutes in taxonomics and systematics
not just in support of museums. Do you think it would be helpful
if you had, perhaps like transport on one or two days a week,
a Chief Scientific Adviser who would have more expertise in this
area and understanding of the interfaces and connections?
Margaret Hodge: I did pick up in the papers
that it was a recommendation from the previous Chief Scientific
Adviser and we had not taken it forward. We are now taking it
forward apparently, in stretching the definition, by bringing
in an economist which is a probably a good thing for DCMS.
Q312 Lord May of Oxford: I would
argue strongly it would depend on the economist. Some of these
people believe in all this fundamentalist stuff. It has to be
the right one.
Margaret Hodge: We are a small department but
where we are cutting back is on our central bureaucracy and that
is how we are affording the better settlements out in the field.
What I see as a positive way forward is what I do in other areas
for which I have responsibility, you bring in experts as and when.
Q313 Lord May of Oxford: If you just
had a person one day a week, and if you get the right person,
you would have an anti-bureaucrat.
Margaret Hodge: The budget is jolly tight on
the internal bureaucracy. However, I do think you have a point
in saying should we need advice on particular issues, arising
perhaps out of the conclusions of this inquiry, we would need
to secure expert support to ensure that we respond properly to
it. I do not think that will be somebody on the books even one
day a week. We could bring in people, and we do that, for example
advisers on fine art to determine whether or not we accept works
in lieu of death duties and that sort of thing. It would be on
that basis. The point is well made but all I say to you is these
are really tough times and we are losing 20 per cent of our in-house
staff at the moment and that is where the cuts are coming.
Lord Rooker: I reiterate what Lord May said
about Defra, obviously being a re-tread minister at MAFF in 1997
to 1999 before the present system arose and then coming back in
2006 to virtually the same department plus a bit of environment
and to see the difference in having a Chief Scientific Adviser
who is actually part of the management but actually an outsider.
Howard was one day a week, nominally at Warwick University where
he had been a professor for many years. Bob Watson is at East
Anglia University, part of the Nobel Prize winning team but a
part of the management at Defra but not of it in that way. Also,
because he is there all the while rather than particular projects,
he actually sees the bigger picture in Defra and is able, therefore,
to call in the extra advice that we need in support of our own
scientific team. I pay tribute to the suggestion. Originally it
came out of Bob and Dave King that it had to be done differently.
My experience of this department, because I have now been in it
in two phases, is it is an incredibly superior system to what
used to be the case. To have someone who is with us but not of
us and actually linked outside as well works extremely well at
Defra.
Chairman: That is probably why one of our other
sub-committees on heritage and the arts and science made the same
recommendation with regard to DCMS. It is not just this particular
group that is raising the question of science advice. We put that
to you but we hear what you say.
Baroness Walmsley: Could I go back to regional
museums and ask what their role is in attracting young people
to taxonomy perhaps through the means of their education programme
or their outreach programme? Is the funding for this also secure
and stable? Given the shortage that we have identified, does government
have a role in encouraging young people to take up careers in
taxonomy? I tend to see taxonomy as the football premier league
of science. By that I mean that the premium league is the most
successful football league in the world and that is because it
is full of footballers from other countries who are the best of
their kind, but they are not qualified to play for England that
is why the England national team does not do as well as the premier
league. I draw a parallel here.
Lord May of Oxford: I think is a muddled parallel.
Q314 Baroness Walmsley: I personally
feel we should not be relying on foreign taxonomists exclusively.
It is very important to encourage our own young people to take
up those careers.
Margaret Hodge: I agree with that. Whether it
is taxonomy or other sciences, I agree whole-heartedly. It is
an incredibly difficult nut to crack and one that we have been
attempting to address, and I say this as an ex-Education Minister.
We took endless initiatives trying to make the whole of science
and engineering a much more attractive career option for young
people. Of course we have a role and we try hard but we could
always do more and we are always up for new ideas. From my previous
experience I think employers do not do enough. It is getting young
people into the situation where they can see if they trained they
could then embark on the exciting career. I have to say it is
also the academic institutions. I will never forget having tea
in the House with four young people who had all won engineering
awards of excellence from the Russell Group of universities. They
all said they nearly gave up engineering and would have done because
it was so boringly taught, but the only thing that kept them in
it was the work experience. We have all got something to learn
about trying to make science an attractive discipline which young
people choose to follow. The things we are doing from DCMS in
our little way with our tiny budget with DCSF, what we call our
real world science programme which looks particularly at children
in the secondary school phase from Key Stages 3 to 5. I think
it is successful. The work that the Natural History Museum has
done around taxonomy courses they tell me they are going to have
1,000 A-level students attending those courses this year. That
is not bad going but again we can do more. You asked me about
the regional museums. I have not brought the stats with me but
I can let you have them. If you look at the statistics about attendance
at museums, which is one way in which you can open people's eyes
to the potential, we have done far better at extending access
to groups who would not in the past have attended in the regions
than we have done in the national museums. I put that down a lot
to the Renaissance programme that we have, the Renaissance hubs,
which pays massive dividends. We know that once a child goes into
a museum once they are likely to return again either with their
family or on their own so that is very important. The only thing
I would say is we have this new programme, Finding Your Talent.
We have the money to pilot it during this Spending Review. The
idea there is to build on the success of the five hours a week
access that young children have to sports. 85% now do at least
two hours, building up to five hours, and the ambition is to do
the same around the rest of the DCMS family, the culture part.
Part of that programme will be visiting museums and getting engaged
in activities within the museums. Interestingly enough we have
enough money for 10 pilots and we had 150 applications which shows
the enthusiasm out there for trying to find new ways of engaging
children in culture in the broadest sense of which the museum
sector is a part.
Q315 Earl of Northesk: Biological
recording schemes which help deliver data supporting conservation
and environmental policy have traditionally relied on wide engagement
and skilled volunteer recorders but the declining number of volunteers
makes the future of this system precarious. What is the government
doing to help build capacity in this voluntary sector?
Lord Rooker: That is a good question but I do
not have an answer.
Margaret Hodge: Is this around volunteers working
in local and regional museums?
Earl of Northesk: Yes, gifted amateurs.
Chairman: Even recording sightings and selection
of insects, birds or whatever.
Lord May of Oxford: What is the evidence for
this? For example, I think bird recordings are about half the
data and that is on the up and up. At one point somebody did an
estimate that there were 64 million bits of data about plants
and animals in Britain of which 37 million were on birds, which
is OK and understandable but a bit weird.
Earl of Northesk: It was reported over the past
few days that the British Waterways Board was inviting members
of the public to do a recording exercise for them. The volunteer
system is out there so where does the government engagement lie?
Q316 Chairman: We did have evidence
but not in relation to birds, it was fresh water particularly.
People like looking for birds and get up at four o'clock in the
morning to look for them.
Margaret Hodge: Every government department
is trying to grow the volunteering capacity for all sorts of reasons,
civic engagement and building the strength in communities as well
as contributing to the particular discipline. We have a fantastic
number of volunteers who support our heritage infrastructure.
Half a million is the figure that comes to mind—400,000
or 500,000. Around the Olympics one of the key principles there
is to try and ensure that we grow the volunteering capacity in
every potential. Yesterday visiting the Chelsea Flower Show they
were really keen that we should ensure a proper green element
to what we do there. We are all trying to do what we can on volunteering.
We are passing the buck a little bit. The lead department is the
Office of the Third Sector which sits in the Cabinet Office and
co-ordinates all that activity around volunteering. The RSPB has
the biggest voluntary membership.
Q317 Lord May of Oxford: 1 million.
Margaret Hodge: All political parties look on
it with huge envy.
Q318 Lord May of Oxford: People like
this deliver the Biodiversity Action Plan.
Lord Rooker: Because I have good support behind
me I have an answer to the question which I had not previously
seen. There is a contribution, and for us it is about 300,000
through the National Biodiversity Network for local record centres.
Our contribution in 2007-08 was, through the National Biodiversity
Networks, about 104,000 which is going up to 160,000 in 2008-09,
and the fund for innovation in local record centres over £180,000.
The ad hoc funding includes the development of the butterfly monitoring
scheme and the production of trends from the various national
bird surveys co-ordinated by the Trust for Ornithology. We do
have a programme and there is an area for volunteers. What happens,
and what I find with many of these projects, is when those volunteers
are out there it is not Defra badged. They do not know they are
working for the government, if you know what I mean. This is one
of the great problems in some ways. Sometimes it is a good thing
because you get more people to help if they do not know it is
the government. Funding through the voluntary sector where you
can cut corners, cut red tape, get cracking and get a commitment,
that can be really enthusiastic is something we wholly support.
Those are a couple of examples. It is not a small amount of money,
and the money goes father in the voluntary sector as well.
Q319 Chairman: The evidence we have
is mixed. People love birds so you get a lot of that, but they
are not so keen on snails but that is quite important. Certainly
fresh water, we have been told, is a problem. If we do feature
this in our report perhaps you might take it on yourself to ensure
that the Cabinet group realise that volunteering goes a long way
beyond helping old ladies and gentlemen across the street or bob-a-job
or whatever and this is very important. This is how we capture
many of the young scientists who become the future leaders in
the field. This has been a very helpful session and we thank you
very much indeed. You will see our report in due course. It is
a follow-up report and we will see it in sequence and, if necessary,
come back to it.
Lord Rooker: Thank you for giving us a chance
to learn a bit more.
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