UK Science Budget

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing this debate, on a subject that is vital to the country’s future. As has already been said, we are a global leader in research and development, and the city of Cambridge is at the heart of that leadership.

A few years ago, when AstraZeneca was deciding where to relocate, it chose Cambridge; but if it had not been Cambridge it would have been somewhere outside the UK. That is the risk that the Government run if the rumours that we hear are true, and if they put at risk the long-running consensus on science funding. Let us be clear that the ring fence during the previous Parliament was not great; it was actually a substantial cut in real terms over the lifetime of the Parliament. Stop-start policies on capital funding also caused problems. The sector just about managed to survive that, but it has a clear view of what future funding cuts would do.

Last Friday I visited the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge. It works with Alzheimer’s Research UK and is doing groundbreaking work that will help us to treat dementia. It is hugely important, but there is a strong message from the institute: any cut in public funding puts the associated private funding at risk. Just outside Cambridge, the Babraham Research Institute is another world-leading life sciences institute. It has 350 members working alongside 60 companies employing more than 600 people. The institute said in written evidence to the Select Committee on Science and Technology that

“the current level of funding will not sustain the UK’s existing science and research capability, whilst any reduction would be extremely damaging…it is likely that world leading scientists will leave the UK for other countries such as Germany where there is increased investment into science funding.”

I put those comments to Professor Rick Rylance, who chairs Research Councils UK, at a sitting of the Committee. He agreed that we are close to a tipping point and he warned that a time would come when the future would be “in jeopardy”. Those are serious warnings from senior people.

We all appreciate that spending decisions are difficult, but if we are truly to win the race to the top, we need a bigger knowledge economy, with high-skilled, well-paid jobs. I remind hon. Members that the Government’s own science and innovation strategy promised to inject £1.1 billion of capital into the sciences, at least in part to ensure that there would be what they called “adequate resource funding”. I never thought I would quote the current Chancellor with approval, but he delivered a major speech in April 2014 at the wondrous Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, and it is worth reminding colleagues of his promise that

“support for and application of science is right at the centre of our long term economic plan.”

That support must, in my view at least, mean maintaining the science budget. I strongly encourage the Minister and Conservative Members to remind the Chancellor of that promise as the Government consider these important decisions.