Sellafield

Debate between Lord Winston and Baroness Wilcox

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

First, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and her new interest in nuclear, and I hope that she will feed in her views to the Government and allow us to help her where we can. I hope that she will share her vision of the new approach, which I think she was hoping would be based on thorium. On her Question, if we can turn a liability into an asset, this Government will explore every possibility. The Government consulted earlier this year on their preferred policy option for dealing with the plutonium stockpile, and will confirm their position later this year.

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, does the Minister not regard it as a crying shame that this country, which after all pretty well started the invention of nuclear power for peaceful uses, is now annually investing less than £25 million a year in research into nuclear fission, which is way behind all our major competitors? That makes us the poorhouse for developing further in the way that my noble friend has just mentioned.

[Baroness Wilcox]

The noble Lord, Lord Winston, is right that we have not been investing as we should. We have been in government for only a year and we are trying our best to get ahead as fast as we can. I know that he is doing wonderful work with Imperial College, and it is to people like him that we look to show us the way ahead.

Stem Cell Research

Debate between Lord Winston and Baroness Wilcox

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

I support the noble Baroness in saying that we should support that wonderful report. Of course, every haste will be made, but only in the proper way. We know that in keeping with the Haldane principles the prioritisation of an individual research council’s spending—whether it does and what it does—is up to it and is not something that Ministers should interfere with.

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, there are approximately 400 people in this Chamber, of whom 150 will be likely to die of heart disease. Is the Minister aware that at Imperial College Michael Schneider and his laboratory have grown beating heart muscle, which has been possible only by using human embryonic tissue? Is she also aware that in the United Kingdom there are at least 200,000 infertile women who have approximately an 18 per cent chance of an embryo implanting? We need to understand why that implantation rate is so low. To do so, it is essential that we study the human embryo.

[Baroness Wilcox]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I was a governor of Imperial College for seven years, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, knows. I had to stand down to take this wonderful job. I know about the work that is going on and also about the work that the noble Lord is doing. Stem cell research offers enormous potential to develop and deliver new treatments for some of the most chronic and debilitating conditions that face people. I can only agree with everything he said.

Higher Education: Funding and Student Finance

Debate between Lord Winston and Baroness Wilcox

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

I am told that we are going to consult on this in the White Paper. Browne recommends allowing student numbers to grow. The current package should enable student numbers to be broadly maintained. However, we do not believe that we should set unsustainable targets for growing HE student numbers. This risks perpetuating the idea that the only positive option for an 18 year-old is a three-year academic course at university. We think that we should be concentrating more on breaking down barriers between academic and vocational education so that an apprenticeship and various other courses are considered as valid as a degree. As I say, we will consult on this in the White Paper.

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University. As I speak, thousands of students from both universities in Sheffield—Sheffield Hallam is Mr Nick Clegg’s constituency—are demonstrating against the Government’s plans. Will the noble Baroness be kind enough to tell us what plans she has as a Minister to engage students who would never have gone to university had they belonged to a previous generation as regards the fairness and acceptability of the Government’s plans for the funding of universities?

[Baroness Wilcox]

There is no doubt that there has been a big gap in recent times between universities and schools as regards careers advice and communication. We are committed to ensuring that students and their families know exactly what is available to them. As the noble Lord knows, I was for many years chairman of the National Consumer Council. Very often, the thing that constituted a barrier for people in this area was language. Often they did not understand exactly what was going on.

It is very important that we get universities to push back into schools—as they will—to ensure that schools well understand their requirements. We will get the business community to explain what qualifications it requires students to gain at university, or whatever other form of further education they are hoping to take part in. We are already starting to determine how we can best communicate what this change means and how empowering it will be for students. They will be able to ensure that they get the courses they want.

Universities will start to improve not just their academic performance but what they offer students to prepare them for life after higher education. After all, some students will be older, some will be younger and the way that all this is explained, and the way that we get it out there to the students, really requires a new look. We are excited about having the opportunity to do that.