Antarctica: Centenary of Scott Expedition

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Hooper for giving me the opportunity to add my voice to those of other noble Lords in objecting to the NERC proposal to merge BAS and NOC. It is short-sighted and dangerous, will not necessarily save money and must not happen.

Along with the noble Lords, Lord Oxburgh and Lord Mitchell, I visited the Antarctic and the Falkland Islands in January 2004 for a report of our Science and Technology Committee about international scientific treaties and the UK’s contribution to them. Of course, some of the most successful treaties to which the UK has made a massive contribution are the Antarctic treaties. Therefore, when we were invited by BAS to send four representatives to the south, we jumped at the chance to see for ourselves.

We saw plenty, because it was summer and we had 24 hours’ daylight. We saw the extreme nature of the conditions under which the programme operates and the need for operational expertise and proper resources both to enable the scientists to do their work and to keep them safe. Of course, if we had gone in the Antarctic winter we would have seen even more extreme conditions.

We were impressed by the quality of the people at Rothera and the outlying camps, and the care they took to abide by the treaties; for example, nothing must be left behind. The Antarctic is very important environmentally and also very beautiful—the last real wilderness—and it is vital that, in studying it, man does not destroy it. The camp at Rothera needed to be entirely self-sufficient so it had its own water treatment and sewage plant and generators, and in the winter it needed to carry supplies for many months—so the plumbers were just as important as the scientists.

We were all impressed by the professionalism, flexibility, egalitarian attitude, team spirit, loyalty, pride and commitment to their organisation of all who were there. These things are not easily generated or retained in an amorphous organisation but they are very important to a polar programme. Despite all this, the staff of BAS are not even mentioned until paragraph 36 of the consultation and then only as a set of numbers. Staff are BAS’s capital asset and the structure within which they work must serve them and not the other way round.

This has never been an inward-facing organisation. It faces outwards and is the greatest possible credit to UK science. It already demonstrates scientific synergies, mentioned in the consultation, and has partnerships with the NOC and many other organisations and universities. Of course, it is also very important geopolitically in a very sensitive part of the world. I warn the Government that, as Argentina makes rumblings about its claims to the Falkland Islands and the British Antarctic Territory, this is not the time—if there ever was one—to make major changes to the status of our national presence there.

The Government must understand in what very high esteem this organisation is held throughout the world, and how important its scientific work is. We all know that BAS scientists discovered the hole in the ozone layer but their achievements amount to a great deal more than that, as we have heard in earlier speeches.

The reputation of BAS contributes massively to the general reputation of UK science and we rely a great deal on that for commercial reasons that contribute to the economy. I want to mention that reputation further because preserving it requires a tight-knit team, not just an arm of something more nebulous.

Reputation is a precious but fragile thing. BAS’s reputation is based not only on the number and quality of the peer-reviewed papers that issue from it but on the operational and management efficiency that has been demonstrated, at least in the past. These would be compromised by the merger proposal. For example, despite BAS’s enviable reputation for safety, there were two tragic accidents some years ago. One was the death of a young scientist, Kirsty Brown, killed by a leopard seal when diving, and the other was the loss of the old Bonner Laboratory from fire. Both these events could have resulted in serious loss of reputation, but they did not. Why? It was because a professional team with a strong leader took control of both situations and managed the human, material, transport and reputational issues of both of them in a way that that was praised by family and in the media at the time. Could that tight control have been exercised under the proposed regime? I think not.

NERC has not made its case and the quality of the consultation document is poor. I beg the Government not to allow any decision to be made until the Science and Technology Committee has scrutinised the proposals.