Research: Science and Technology Committee Report

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I did not have the pleasure of serving on the committee under the noble Lord’s chairmanship. Interestingly, I was conducting a similar inquiry in another place at exactly the same time on the same subject and coming to the same conclusions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for analysing so admirably the Government’s response to the Select Committee report. The fact that the Government’s response bore precious little relevance to the actual recommendations of the report makes his contribution today even more noteworthy. That said, he is right to say that the Government’s actual record on research is far more positive. Ministers have chosen very wisely to build on the sound foundations laid by the previous Government, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Sainsbury and Lord Drayson, even agreeing to include in the Ministerial Code a requirement to take notice of independent scientific advice, which was a recommendation from both our committees. Despite draconian cuts in public expenditure, a flat cash settlement of £4.5 billion is to be welcomed; and the major capital investment at Harwell, at the new Institute for Animal Health at Pirbright, for molecular biology at Cambridge and, of course, the fact that the St Pancras development is going ahead, are clear indications of the Government’s commitment to science.

The Treasury is almost on message. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that this afternoon a scientific adviser to the Treasury, James Richardson, was appointed. However, we should not get too excited because his press officer in the Treasury quickly sent a message saying:

“I would like to stress that the post of Chief Scientific Advisor will be taken on alongside James’ current responsibilities as the Director of Public Spending and the chief Micro economist at the Treasury”.

How much time he will have for the job, I do not know.

However, lest we get carried away by the Government’s record, the reality is that despite a decade during which we have seen research funding double, the amount we have spent as a proportion of GDP has actually fallen from 0.69 per cent in 2004 to 0.6 per cent in 2009, and this at a time when the UK was enjoying the most prolonged period of economic prosperity that the nation had ever seen. More worrying is that, while we were spending arguably more in cash terms but less as a proportion of our GDP, all our competitors were outstripping us in terms of their investment. Even more important is that over the coming decade, they are all planning to increase their spend rather than simply hold it where it is.

The Science and Technology Committee report recommended urgent prioritisation of our research effort, a call that has been echoed by most scientific bodies. Since 2004, we have had a 10-year science and innovation framework which has served us well, and we should be honest enough to admit that. But we need another one, and it has to be in place before the next CSR, and we have to do the lobbying for it. A key priority of any plan must be the re-engineering of our research infrastructure, in particular in our universities and institutes, by asking what we expect them to deliver and giving them the resources to do so. By default this is happening, with 90 per cent of our research funding now being spent in around 30 of our universities. But if we are to remain globally competitive, further concentration, probably involving amalgamations of universities or departments, will be absolutely necessary if we are going to remain world class, which is where we have to be.

I shall say to noble Lords what I have said before. We cannot sustain 165 higher education institutions offering master’s and PhD courses. In the United States, only 28 per cent of universities offer PhD programmes, while in the UK the figure is 90 per cent, often with few faculty. Surely the time has come to look at US-style graduate schools in the UK. Further, many say that the new fee regime will make students more demanding customers. Quite frankly, that is no good for science. What we want is our universities to become more demanding providers. They should ask more from their students in order to raise the academic bar. We constantly forget that that is the best way to give value to our students.

Finally, and here I have to declare an interest as chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities, it is crucially important that we retain links with our charitable research funders. Some 15 per cent of the money going into our universities comes from charities, with the 126 member charities in AMRC spending roughly £1 billion last year. Without the Charity Research Support Fund introduced by the previous Government, it would not be possible to deliver the front-line support that charities provide. I want to ask the Minister about this because the replies I have had so far suggest that the Charity Research Support Fund will last only until 2011-12, with £198 million. I hope that my noble friend will be able to get a message from the Box saying that at least throughout the whole of this comprehensive spending review period, it will remain in place. Without it, we will seriously affect the amount of money going into research from our charities.