Science Research

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under you, Mrs Brooke. Before I start, I should declare an interest as a member of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Chemistry, as well as a Research Councils UK academic fellow, although I am on long-term leave. [Laughter.] This feels like the Floor of the House during Prime Minister’s questions earlier. I was, therefore, an academic scientist before I fell in with a bad crowd and ended up here.

It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), who is the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), whom I congratulate on securing a debate on this important topic. As she commented, her predecessor, Dr Evan Harris, was a great champion of science in Parliament, and, in that respect, there is a lot of work to do to replace him.

It is great that the hon. Lady gave such a well-researched speech, which dealt with so many of the issues that are dear to the hearts of many scientists around the country. I would, however, take issue with her description of Oxford West and Abingdon as having the highest density of STEM researchers and science-based companies. We will have to measure that properly, because I suspect that Cambridge could do rather well, given that it is the best university in the world, according to one recent rating.

I have experience in a number of areas of science, which says a lot about how we can do interdisciplinary science. I am a chemist, and I used to work on biology in a physics department. It is becoming much easier to break through. If I have any issue with triple science, it is with the idea that there are three separate sciences. We need much more integration.

I should also tell hon. Members that I set up a spin-out company. If they are interested, I will tell them later exactly what it was trying to do.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Now.

[Dr Huppert]

We were aiming to make it easier to collect virgin female fruit flies, and I will explain later exactly why we wanted to do that.

Scientific research is extremely important. This country has a proud history of scientific research. We have Newton, who was, of course, also a Member of Parliament, Watson and Crick, a whole series of people based in Cambridge and the fantastic glut of Nobel prizes that we won this year, although, in some cases, the work involved was not based in Cambridge.

As well as our history, however, there is also the issue of our future. What is our economic future? What will this country be doing in 2050? If we actually mean it when we say that we want to rebalance our economy, science and high technology will surely be how we do that and where we go. I have been working on this issue with various people, and I draw hon. Members’ attention to an article that I have written with another new Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), about the appliance of science. We discuss some of the issues and some of the blocks, and the article is available in selected newspapers, possibly near you, depending on where in the country you are. We look at how we can advance in biotech, cleantech, agritech and digital technologies, in which we really have the capacity to be world leading and to change what happens over the next 40 years.

I do not, however, want to talk about all those issues. Instead, I want to pick up three key issues that feed into our scientific research, and I apologise in advance if I give them a slightly more academic than industrial slant. Those three issues are people, money and freedom.

We cannot do scientific research without good people or the right people. As we have heard, we have problems right at the beginning, at school. We have problems in teaching STEM subjects, and the shortage of physics teachers has been mentioned. Work is being done to alleviate that; in fact, there are possibly too many different initiatives. I am delighted to be shadowed today by James Glover, from Mott MacDonald, who is an ambassador for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network. It is sheer coincidence that he is here today, but STEMNET does a lot of work linking industry with schools to make sure that they are aware of what can be done, so that practicals become exciting, relevant and interesting, unlike some of the staid practicals that many of us had to experience.

We have problems at school with people falling out of STEM subjects. We possibly make people make decisions about A-levels too early, and we lose them that way. We then have problems at universities with the perceived ease of STEM subjects and their relative attractiveness. Increasingly, many courses are for four years, which automatically makes them less attractive than three-year courses, and Browne, if I can mention it—it has suddenly gone quiet outside—will make the problem worse. If fees go up to between £6,000 and £9,000, people will think about what they should do. Will they do that fourth year, which is so necessary to have a full grounding in a subject? I worry about that. For the record, I do not support increasing the fees, and I have campaigned against it for many years, since Labour first brought fees in.

[Mr Lammy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Huppert]

I was wondering whether I could tempt the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Lammy]

I want to add something on that specific point, although I think that the hon. Gentleman will welcome what I have to say. The House will continue to have a big debate about the level of fees, and we are aware of what is going on outside. However, we have not discussed what student debt at the end of the undergraduate experience will do to domestic students who want to go on to postgraduate study. Is the hon. Gentleman as concerned as I am that UK students will be put off going into postgraduate study and engaging in the innovation that we really need?

[Dr Huppert]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that comment. Indeed, that was my next point, so it was very helpful. We do have a problem. I used to teach students, and they were concerned about debt. We can discuss to what extent it is a debt and so forth, but they were concerned. The issue of whether to go on to relatively low-paid PhD positions is a real concern. Furthermore, I welcome the fact that PhDs are changing from being typically three years long—or at least paid for for three years, although they normally overrun—to four years long. Although that gives a more rounded experience by the end, however, it also means that people are delaying serious earning potential for a lot longer, and I worry about how that fits with the increase in debt.

There are issues about the quality of PhD programmes. I was recently told that one university has given out one PhD in the past seven years. Although I have not verified that figure, I would be concerned if we had institutions that gave so few PhDs, because there would be questions about the quality of such qualifications. There is also a problem with availability in some subjects, and some very good students struggle to get positions or funding. We therefore have problems attracting people to do science-based PhDs.

If those who go on through PhDs, having sacrificed many years of earning potential, want to stay in academia, they will look for a post-doctoral position, but we have a big bottleneck in terms of the availability of such positions. Even if someone gets one, such positions tend to involve very short contracts—two or three years are typical. That causes problems getting money for the next position. It takes such a long time to find money for the next job—I will come back to this later—that a lot of postdocs do not have the freedom to focus on their work. The fellowship schemes that exist are fantastic, partly just because they allow postdocs to focus on their work.

That uncertainty—that hopping from one short-term contract to another—has real issues for gender balance. We talked about the gender balance at earlier stages, but there is an issue at the post-doc level as well. Women in general do not like this process, and it is a real disincentive for them.

Once people finally make it through the post-doctoral position, they may be fortunate enough to get one of the few academic positions available. That will finally complete the process, but the steps at every stage make it harder to attract and keep people.

So far I have talked only about domestic students. Of course we do not get all our scientists from Britain. We get a huge number from overseas, and that is essential. Science is a global activity. It does not make sense to say that Britain should supply all the skills it needs for science. We cannot draw up barriers. I have been very concerned about the Government’s proposed immigration cap, and many hon. Members will know about concerns that have been expressed. The cap causes problems; it makes it hard to get good quality people from outside. There are many stories of people not coming, and others of people who have made it clear that they would not have come under such a system. Venki Ramakrishnan is one example. We have heard some instances already, and I have heard of students not being given visas to come to Cambridge for a four-day conference, because the UK Border Agency was not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence that they would not require benefits while they were here. Given that they had already paid the fees for a four-day conference I think that it would be safe to assume that they would have come to the conference and then gone again. There is increasing concern from the university of Cambridge that we cannot get PhD viva examiners from outside the EU, because that is classified as work. We do not want to stop that activity. I find it bizarre that the cap includes exemptions for elite sports people and ministers of religion, but not for doctors, scientists or engineers, who contribute much more to our economy.

Another issue is people—just as people. When I talk to representatives of high-tech companies around Cambridge, I find that many of their concerns are not just about the things we have discussed already. The No. 1 concern that people talk about in Cambridge is housing—the cost of affordable housing there, by which I mean affordable for science researchers, and not in the sense that was used in the rather ill-informed debate that we had in the House yesterday. People also talk about transport problems and how to get where they want to go. They talk about the problems of finding good education for their children, and the issues of the environment that they live in. Those issues affect scientists and their choice to continue working in this country rather than moving elsewhere.

Money, of course, is another factor, and scientists, like all people, are motivated by money. We had a freeze on the total science budget, as has already been discussed—the £4.6 billion. That is good news. It is not as good as it could be. Other countries, such as Germany, invest more in their science funding. However, it is helpful, and I thank the Deputy Prime Minister in particular for getting the last £200 million that came into the science budget on the Sunday night just before the comprehensive spending review. I share hon. Members’ concerns about lack of knowledge about the capital budget. A comment was also made about long-term security, and I have in the past asked the Minister for Universities and Science whether we can have at least a 10-year funding horizon, because science projects often take that long.

There are also problems with the cycle of allocation of money by research councils. I am well aware of the Haldane principle and would not dream of telling research councils how they should operate. They did not give me the grants I deserved and I am sure that they will continue not to give people the grants that they deserve in future, but the real problem is the slow pace. An application goes in, and it takes six to nine months, typically, to get a response. If people are on contracts of one to two years, that is a huge amount of time for them not to know the result. Success rates are phenomenally low. Academics apply for grant after grant, driving up the number of applications that must be studied, and filling up the system. There must be a way to run the system faster and more efficiently.

We need financial support from industry, and good relations with it. Cambridge is fortunate because we have an excellent cluster. One of the features of that is to do, again, with people. People can work in industry or academia and can move between them. Scientists are often married to other scientists, so both partners can have jobs in the same area, with the same level of security. We have a number of successful spin-outs. Research and development tax credits were also mentioned. They play a critical role in supporting industry systems. Companies have highlighted that time and again as essential.

I support the moves for greater procurement by small and medium-sized enterprises. A detailed analysis by entrepreneurs in Cambridge shows that if there is a client when someone sets up a company, it works. It is much better to have a client. The success of silicon valley has been largely due to Government procurement with small start-up companies, really giving them the initiative to go. However, the issue is not only public. I think that Max Perutz was responsible for the excellent comment:

“We’ve got no money, so we’ve got to think.”

[Hon. Members: “It was Rutherford.”] I am grateful that so many hon. Members can correct me on that: my thanks to them. The sentiment stands, none the less. It is the freedom to think that makes a difference. We cannot predict which research will be world-shattering. We cannot say that lasers or the internet will be the thing that matters. DNA was first discovered in pus, and was a curiosity. It was believed to be the way in which phosphate was stored by the body. It was completely uninteresting; and now it leads to all the advances in genetics, health and biotechnology. We cannot predict such things, so we must allow academics the freedom to explore. There is a false split between pure and applied research, which I am very concerned about. Pure research often leaps into applications and I am very concerned about the increasing drive to impact. It does not make sense to ask people to estimate the economic impact of a piece of research.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting speech. Does he agree with Professor Cox who said when he came to the previous Select Committee on Science and Technology that he found it impossible to know what to put when assessing impact? It is not do-able.

[Annette Brooke (in the Chair)]

Order. If I may intervene; there are 25 minutes left, and at least three speakers before the winding-up speeches.

[Dr Huppert]

I am about to finish, Mrs Brooke. I think that Professor Cox is to some extent right, and to some extent wrong, because universities have begun to provide the text to put in those boxes. I think that a form-filling exercise is developing.

I join in the support for the technology and innovation centres, whether they are Fraunhofer or Hauser models. That will make a big difference in enabling us to do true translation that works.

We know what we need. We must make sure that we provide it, whether it is money, freedom or support for the people involved. I take the point that we should look more broadly than just to the sciences. Humanities, classics and other subjects have a lot to provide. I have one last request to the Minister. I have asked before whether the Treasury could have a chief scientific adviser so that its staff could understand science. They say they cannot see why they need one: that is exactly why they do.