Public Health England: Porton Down

John Glen Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

The first debate I secured as a Member of Parliament was five years ago on Monday, and it was on the future of the Public Health England site at Porton Down in my constituency. I did not imagine then that the first debate I would secure in the 2015 Parliament would also be on the future of that critical site, but I can think of no issue of greater significance to my constituency.

Porton Down is known across the world for the work that Public Health England and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory do there. It would not be right to open this debate without first paying tribute to all the staff for the work they have done to tackle Ebola in Sierra Leone in recent months. It has been truly humbling to hear the stories of my constituents, who have travelled at great risk and put themselves on the front line in the fight against Ebola. Their expertise has been vital to the people of Sierra Leone, and it is testament to the UK’s reputation for excellence in infectious disease research. I welcome the recent decision to award a medal for their commitment and dedication, which I know a number of my constituents will be very pleased to receive.

It is almost seven years since the Department of Health authorised Public Health England, then the Health Protection Agency, to develop an outline business case for the refurbishment of the facilities at Porton Down. That was after the Science and Technology Committee found the category 4 containment laboratory facilities at Porton Down

“to be in need of significant investment given their age”.

It recommended in 2008 that

“the Department of Health consider the redevelopment of the HPA’s Porton Down site as a priority”.

Project Chrysalis, the proposal for that multi-million pound redevelopment, was put forward shortly after the Committee’s report was published. In January 2010, a former GlaxoSmithKline site where Public Health England could consolidate its assets in one place was proposed as the preferred option, and a business case was put to the Department of Health just six months later. That was rejected—rightly, in my opinion—after scrutiny and further work were commissioned, but not as part of Project Chrysalis. Instead, Public Health England began putting together the case for a single science hub programme, which some might argue was a clear signal of an intention at an early stage to centralise before the business case work had even concluded.

The new outline business case was finalised in July 2014, and recommended that the facilities at Porton, Whitechapel and Colindale should move to a single campus in Harlow. The PHE board asked for a decision to be made by September 2014. I would like to take the opportunity to ask the Minister why, if the outline business case is so rock solid, it has still not been signed off nine months after Public Health England wanted it to be and 11 months after it was submitted.

There are certainly doubts remaining among many of my constituents about the decision, for a number of reasons. First, co-location in Harlow was recommended as, according to Public Health England’s officials, it

“offers the best value to the taxpayer and delivers the lowest cost over the 60 year life of the programme”.

PHE also stated in its publicly disclosed annexe, however, that

“the differences in cost between the options are relatively small”.

Professor George Griffin estimated in his review of the single science hub work in 2012 that the difference amounted to 2.6% over 68 years, which I maintain is disputable given the complexities associated with modelling over such a long period. The resultant cost to the taxpayer might well be marginally smaller, but it is important to remember that the costs to my constituents will not be. The fact remains that they are being asked to uproot their lives and transplant to Harlow. For many of them, Salisbury has been their home for years. It is where their children go to school and where their family responsibilities lie.

Increasingly the trend in science is not to co-locate assets on single sites, but to harness the power of technology to work across larger areas. Centralisation remains an approach that the private sector left behind, in many cases a long time ago, in recognition that smaller specialist sites can be more effective. The direction of travel towards greater use of genomics and big data reinforces the argument for smaller entities such as Porton to continue to leverage global partnerships. I was previously told by Public Health England that it favoured the single hub model because of the approach taken at the Francis Crick Institute, but this is not a co-location of one entity’s assets; six distinctly different players all operate across multiple sites themselves and, in many ways, will continue to do so.

Secondly, the unwillingness to grasp the potential opportunities at Porton or fully to engage in a conversation about them is disappointing. Public Health England says that

“the Harlow campus has the potential to become a campus with an international reputation for public health science”.

Porton Down already has an international reputation. It has 250 external partnerships across the world and is supported by $55 million of investment from the US Government. It already partners more international universities than universities in the UK, eight US Government agencies, five international health bodies and nine global pharmaceutical companies.

Public Health England has not yet articulated publicly precisely how being in Harlow will improve on that. How many new commercial partnerships does it believe will be generated from the site? What will be the impact on Public Health England’s revenue streams? Have those factors even been modelled thoroughly as part of the business case? I have long been concerned that the outline business case focuses too narrowly on Public Health England’s objectives as an organisation and the benefits it allegedly accrues from centralisation, not the wider opportunities for UK life science industries.

Thirdly, centralising in Harlow flies in the face of the Government’s agenda to promote more prosperous regional economies. The Chancellor said:

“The south-west contains some of Britain’s greatest economic strengths. It should be as central to our nation’s future prosperity as any other part of these islands”.

He said that it

“already has a strong reputation for life sciences”,

and even asked the chief scientific adviser and the chief medical officer to

“explore the potential for new proposals for investment in life sciences in the south west”.

In the light of that ongoing work, will the Minister assure me that the chief scientific adviser has been consulted about the single science hub, given its implications for the entire south-west?

I appreciate that not all of Public Health England would move to Harlow, should the business case be approved, and that Porton would retain the manufacturing facilities. I also recognise that Public Health England management have given an assurance that they will not be abandoning those remaining facilities, and that they are meeting representatives of Wiltshire Council on Friday to examine how Public Health England can facilitate the optimal exploitation of opportunities that will derive from a new science park, which this Government have supported, right on its doorstep. However, it is unacceptable to assume that that would be appropriate consolation for the loss of the remaining facilities and capabilities, and I remain concerned that, if the Porton site were cannibalised in that manner, the temptation to examine commercial opportunities for those remaining facilities would be high.

Indeed, I understand from a letter that was recently sent by the Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), to an interested party on 10 June that Public Health England is

“continuing to investigate commercial opportunities for its activities at Porton”.

I have long been an advocate for greater capitalisation on the commercial potential at Porton, but I would like assurances that the vaccine manufacturing facilities will be treated with the respect they deserve and not simply sold off to provide a quick win to allow the Government to balance the equation. This is not just a vaccine factory, and any proposal to maximise its potential needs to recognise its value to the south Wiltshire and regional life science economy.

More importantly, how do these concurrent agendas best serve the interests of my constituents? Can the Minister reassure me that individual Government Departments are not operating on different agendas? It seems to me that any discussions about commercialisation in advance of a decision on the outline business case would be premature and potentially misaligned.

Fourthly, the opportunity to consider the more effective use of existing public sector assets has still not been fully considered. The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, located on the same site, has existing synergies with Public Health England and the two organisations work together closely. DSTL also has category 4 containment facilities which were refurbished relatively recently and are considered to be of the highest standard. Indeed, it has spare capacity in its facilities, and when the size of refurbished labs at the Public Health England site was being discussed, the decision was taken to request a smaller facility on the basis that DSTL would be expected to provide back-up capacity in an emergency. Professor George Griffin also told the Science and Technology Committee in 2008 that

“the Ministry of Defence has a facility at Porton…there is spare capacity there, we know, and we would be able to use that if necessary”.

However, I have been told that there are conceivable emergency scenarios in which DSTL and PHE would need to occupy the entire space at the same time, resulting in a conflict of interest with severe implications for national security. Those scenarios have never been articulated—they may well be considered above my pay grade—but I would ask the Minister to put on record that the DSTL collaboration option has been fully explored with DSTL management and examined independently, and that the security concerns about the laboratories proved irresolvable.

DSTL and PHE have an important collaboration that benefits from their physical proximity. They are treated as the “Porton campus” by the regulator, enabling pathogenic samples to be transferred between the two sites without the need for additional licensing. Both are licensed for animal work, and I understand that PHE manages some of the sensitive resources occasionally used by DSTL. They can currently be safely transported at minimal risk, but a move to Harlow would completely remove that capability.

Fifthly, I again take the opportunity to emphasise that Porton Down is embedded in the Salisbury community. We support its staff and recognise the sensitive nature of the vital work they carry out. Porton’s relatively isolated location makes it an ideal secure site. Harlow remains untested, and rebuilding the relationship and acceptance of the sensitive work that Public Health England does will take valuable time and effort. As many of my constituents tell me, it is simply common sense to keep that work where it is, not move it to a more densely populated suburban area.

Finally, I reiterate that this is not just a conversation about keeping jobs in my constituency; it is a debate about what is best for our life science industry and the partners that depend on Porton’s expertise. I said in my previous Adjournment debate that my primary concern is that the decision is motivated by a desire to tidy up different entities within the PHE organisation on to a single site, when the advantages of co-location are notional, uncosted and unproven. Until I am permitted to see the full business case, my concerns will remain about the logic that is being used.

I appreciate that this is a decision that will have significant implications for our national security and I have always stressed it is imperative that we get it right. However, the Department of Health was informed in 2008 that the category 4 labs at Porton were

“built over 50 years ago and refurbishment and upgrading work is becoming increasingly difficult.”

In my debate five years ago this week, the then Minister with responsibility for public health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), told the House:

“The site is 60 years old, the building structures are in a poor state of repair and the laboratories clearly do not meet modern safety standards, so something must be done.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 273.]

I believed her, yet five years later nothing has been done. The facilities are deteriorating and my constituents have lived in the shadow of this decision for five years, not knowing if they will be moving to Harlow, although we have had the positive news of a science park, which will, I hope, open in the next year or so. I will persist in my questioning on this matter, because, frankly, some of my questions have gone unanswered.

When I last met the PHE leadership team in November, I was told by the most senior official that he was the boss and he would decide how any re-examination of Porton’s potential would be evaluated, but I have heard nothing from him for six months. I have a responsibility to my constituents to seek assurance that the decisions that will have an impact on their lives are being made on the basis of rigorous analysis of the facts. I urge the Minister to finally clarify for my constituents, one way or the other, where their future lies. We owe the staff based at Porton Down that much.