Kew Gardens

Dan Rogerson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Alan. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on securing the debate and all hon. Members on their contributions made both today and at other times when the future of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has been discussed. I also congratulate Kew on its approach to refreshing how it delivers its science in the 21st century.

As lead Government sponsor for Kew, the funding that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs provides helps to support the institution as an international, collections-based, centre of expertise in plant and fungal identification, taxonomy, conservation, sustainable use and related research. It helps to support Kew in its role as a UNESCO world heritage site and supports Wakehurst Place, which is managed by Kew and is home to the millennium seed bank. The funding also supports Kew in its roles as the world’s most famous botanic garden, an important visitor attraction, which has been highlighted by hon. Members from London, and a provider of science-based education to the public.

Kew was founded over 255 years ago. The Government and Kew’s shared challenge is to ensure that its structure is resilient and fit for purpose to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Its new science strategy is vital. Kew is recognised throughout the world for its unrivalled assets and expertise, and we want further to enhance that reputation. Kew is not simply another academic institution; it maintains a world-renowned collection, which enables it to be unique in the science that it can provide. This debate and the Science and Technology Committee’s hearing tomorrow on the future of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew will help to inform the final details of a new science strategy for Kew.

We have been able to offer relative protection to Kew in terms of total Government funding. Average funding has been more than £27.4 million a year over the past five years. Between 2007 and 2010—the last comprehensive spending review period—the average was less than £27 million. Others have already mentioned it, but I am pleased to confirm an extra £2.3 million unrestricted resource funding for 2015-16, which the Government secured through the recent autumn statement and which was announced today by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank the Minister for giving way so early in his speech. I want to echo the point made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington about the need for a full, open stakeholder meeting. The grant that the Minister alludes to is a one-off, a reprieve, a delay and nothing more than that, so there is a need for such a discussion. I ask him to address that point directly. If he could facilitate that meeting, I am sure that we would all appreciate it.

[Dan Rogerson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will return to that point and some of the long-term issues later.

The funding announced by the Deputy Prime Minister today maintains Kew’s resource funding at 2013-14 levels right through to April 2016, which is in recognition of the need to embed the restructuring in order to deliver a sustainable future for Kew and the globally recognised science work that it provides. The funding is in addition to the announcement made by the Deputy Prime Minister in September that unrestricted resource funding for RBG Kew will be maintained until April 2015 at 2013-14 levels. Kew was provided with an additional £1.5 million to honour that.

We fully support Kew’s efforts not only to balance the budget, but to increase commercial and other sources of funding. That approach not only reduces reliance on Government funding, but potentially opens up additional and new opportunities. In support of that, I can confirm that we have extended to Kew more of the freedoms that are available to certain museums and galleries, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) referred. In particular, that will mean that Kew can bid for preferential Government loans to pursue projects that will enhance its ability to grow self-generated income. Kew has been asking for that and I am pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister confirmed that today.

Kew is already a valued partner in delivering DEFRA’s strategic evidence priorities. It has unique assets and globally respected expertise and is a top performing scientific institute that helps to deliver DEFRA’s science objectives. I welcome Kew’s approach to refresh how it delivers that science in the 21st century. In turn, that will help to deliver what people want of Kew and what the Government need. I support Kew’s restructuring as it will enable the right skills to be in place to secure long-term success, to maintain a world-class facility and to be able to respond to future challenges. Kew’s scientists directly support DEFRA’s work in several ways. For example, they contribute to international biodiversity, to tackling climate change globally and to a resilient, sustainable and growing food and farming industry. They help with the bio-security system and our ability to respond to plant, pest or disease outbreaks and contribute towards halting the loss of biodiversity in England by 2020.

Kew has a dedicated, committed and professional work force, but it needs the right skills to deliver a new scientific vision and to respond to future global challenges. It cannot afford not to change. It may be easy to think that it is all about reducing costs, but the restructuring is about securing long-term stability for the institution and creating and maintaining a world-class facility for future generations. That will enable it to make a unique contribution to meeting the 21st century’s great social and environmental challenges, to which the hon. Member for Richmond Park referred in his opening remarks.

Restructuring will also ensure succession planning by introducing new career and development opportunities for staff, so that future generations have the capability to continue its science legacy. Kew cannot afford not to change if it is to continue to be the world-class organisation that we all want it to be. The restructuring clearly impacts on individuals in different ways. It is too early to tell what that means for every person working at Kew, but Richard Deverell and his team are offering every support to the people affected by the transition.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I worry that the Minister is approaching the end of his speech, so I want to make a point before he finishes. Some of Kew’s key work, as the Minister and other Members have identified, clearly crosses over into the realms of the Department for International Development. Has the Minister’s Department approached DFID at any point to ask whether what would represent an almost immeasurably small pinprick in its budget could be diverted to support specific work at Kew that relates to poverty alleviation, building resilience into the global food economy and dealing with climate change?

[Dan Rogerson]

Part of Kew’s restructuring involves making it better able to look at other opportunities, some of which may come from other sources of public funding. We want to make it ready to take advantage of that.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dan Rogerson]

May I make a little progress? I want to refer to the points made by other hon. Members and, indeed, those made by the hon. Gentleman.

Turning to heritage, it is an important Government priority to meet our obligations as a state party to the world heritage convention. We are working with Kew to ensure that it is using resources effectively and looking for innovative ways to maintain and secure a long-term effective use of the assets that it manages. We will continue to involve our colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in those discussions. We have invested considerable capital funding in recent years to help Kew reduce operational costs and increase self-generating income, including support to the temperate house restoration project, where we underwrote £10 million, which is a UNESCO management priority.

On the issues raised by hon. and right hon. Members the debate, I have sought to set out that the coalition Government have had to deal with public spending challenges to reduce the deficit. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) was at pains to point out his ideological leanings. Mine might be slightly different, but we can agree that we need to tackle the problem facing the country in order to deliver growth and guarantee future investment in public services. Although DEFRA has faced a budget reduction, as have all Departments, Kew has done slightly better than DEFRA more generally. My right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury was concerned that non-departmental public bodies are at the end of the queue. That is a bad pun, but it is not the situation with Kew.

[John McDonnell]

The point that we were trying to make is that Kew has missed out on other opportunities. Even though it plays a role as a heritage centre, it comes under the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and so it did not gain additional money from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that others, museums in particular, received. Even though it plays a key education role, it did not gain the protection of the education budget. It was the same with regard to the Department for International Development. As Kew is funded directly by DEFRA, it has missed out on all those other funding opportunities over the past 15 to 17 years.

[Dan Rogerson]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, his commitment to the institution and his desire to look at every opportunity to secure its work and underpin it for the future. The triennial review offers an opportunity to look at the position of the institution and where it sits in the Government structure. He has referred to that chance, and that is the proper time, rather than asking the question separately today.

Hon. Members have raised issues to do with science and the crucial work that is done. The hon. Member for Richmond Park talked about the need for succession planning, to which I referred a little, and Kew is looking at the courses and other work it does as academic provision to ensure that it is bringing through the next generation of expertise for the future. That is an important part of its work.

Hon. Members from all parties have been campaigning to keep Kew at the forefront of debate in the House and outside it among people at large. I have been on the receiving end of that, too, not only from the hon. Member for Richmond Park, but from Opposition Members. I have heard from Liberal Democrats in Richmond and elsewhere. Today, we had the announcement of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. So there has been pressure from throughout the country to ensure that we are doing the absolute best to protect Kew and all that it does.

As for the prospect of a further meeting, I will take that to my noble Friend Lord de Mauley, who is the responsible Minister. Given the Science and Technology Committee inquiry that is to begin tomorrow and the opportunities of the triennial review and the next comprehensive spending review, we will have to decide when the right point for such a meeting will be, but I will certainly take the proposal back to my noble Friend for his consideration. He is always happy to hear from Members of this House, as well as Members of another place, on the subject.

I also want to refute some of the little barbs sent in my direction by the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who spoke for the Opposition. The Government have invested in science. As Forestry Minister, I know that the appointment of a chief plant health officer, the work on forestry research and so on are crucial, which is why we will continue to fund such things and take science forward.

The hon. Lady also made some points about funding generally. We heard from her party leader a few days ago about the fact that all parties will need to tackle issues such as how much Government will be able to invest in public services, how much expenditure will have to come from taxation and how much will have to be borrowed in the future. Those are difficult questions for all of us to answer.

[Angela Smith]

The Minister is being generous with his time, but I wish to remind him that I asked questions about today’s announcement. We would like the answers to the questions, rather than responses to the points made.

[Dan Rogerson]

I was merely responding to the hon. Lady’s assertion that, somehow, all would have been well and rosy for every area of public spending had a Labour Government been in office. I suspect that that would not have been the case.

The hon. Lady wanted to know whether the money announced today was new money. It is—it is not money coming from elsewhere in DEFRA’s budget. The funding is unrestricted and has no conditions attached to it, so Kew will be able to use it across the range of its responsibilities. All that money will be available in 2015-16. I hope that that reassures her and answers her questions.

I am grateful for the opportunity to place on the record the Government’s commitment to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I thank hon. Members of all parties for their commitment and support. I hope that the announcement today by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister demonstrates that the money is available to help the transition that the institution is having to make over the coming years towards the long-term future that we all wish to see.

[John McDonnell]

May I ask the Minister when we can look forward to the next instalment?

[Dan Rogerson]

The budgetary position has now been set out for the next 18 months, as the hon. Gentleman said, and the triennial review will then give us the opportunity to look at the future of Kew and where it sits in the Government apparatus. I thank him and all hon. Members for their contribution to the debate. I thank you, Sir Alan, for the opportunity to speak.

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

We have a short time remaining, Mr Goldsmith, if you would like to say something.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I appreciate the unexpected perk, having spoken when I initiated the debate.

I do not know whether it is appropriate to ask the Minister to intervene, but I would welcome a clearer answer to my question on DFID funding, which is crucial. A lot of work that Kew does falls within the remit of DFID. If his Department has not yet approached DFID, will it now commit to doing so? DFID does some wonderful things, but no one would argue against the fact that huge chunks of money presided over by DFID are not as well spent as they might be. Kew would present a great opportunity to spend that money well.

I acknowledge the answer given to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington about the stakeholder meeting. When are we likely to hear back from the Minister about that meeting? There is not a lot of time between now and the election, and the meeting should happen before it. Although I am grateful for today’s bung, my concern is that it is a political device to kick the issue beyond the general election. As Members and campaigners, we are aware that if we are to have long-term stability for Kew, it will need to be secured this side of the election, because negotiating afterwards will be much harder.

[Dan Rogerson]

On the hon. Gentleman’s specific points, I will have to confirm with my noble Friend Lord de Mauley whether any such approach to or discussions with other Departments such as DFID have happened. The institution is going through a process and has been exploring with our officials in DEFRA the best path for getting to its future, but if we can help it to have conversations with other Departments, I am sure that that is possible and very much part of the bottom-up process of Kew deciding what would be appropriate. We would facilitate a conversation, rather than seek to push another Department to make a budget available unless it fits its core priorities. I will take the suggestion of a meeting back to my noble Friend.

On the hon. Gentleman’s political points, all the political parties are setting out our stalls for future funding. There are challenges. He and other hon. Members will look at what all the parties are saying about future funding of public services and will make up their own mind. With regard to the funding for Kew, however, the money is in place for 2015-16.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, in particular, for campaigning so hard, which is appreciated by my constituents and by the staff and friends of Kew. It has not gone unnoticed. Personally, I am grateful to him for having pushed the issue so high up the agenda. We would not be having the debate or have seen the press release about the extra funding this morning had it not been for his leadership. I am also grateful for all the speeches.