WEDNESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 1999

RT HON STEPHEN BYERS, MP and MR JOHN BATTLE, MP

  1240. We heard from both British Aerospace and Hewlett Packard that they were having difficulty in recruiting qualified engineers in Britain. My question is, what is being done to ensure the supply of engineers and what is being done to predict the future demands?
  (Rt Hon Stephen Byers) Well there is work going on, as you may be aware, in the Engineering Councils to promote engineering as a profession for people to go into. I have to say—and this goes back to my days when I was Minister for School Standards—I think it does go right back to what goes on in the classroom and it is promoting engineering as something that is exciting, which is new, which is modern and that is the way in. It is as simple as that and it will need to be started actually in the school if we are going to be successful. There is no doubt if we do not tackle it and I know there are steps being taken by my colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment, particularly in terms of encouraging people to think about engineering in a positive way. We need to do that because there is no doubt that if one looks in the years ahead then there will be a problem which will arise and which we will need to address.

  1241. You mentioned in fact that you thought there was a shift amongst academics. I have my doubts about that. I think there is still an ideology amongst academics that four papers in Nature to help float the research exercise is more important than setting up a spin-out company. And the other thing is that there is an agonizing exercise going on in looking at cost accountancy within universities, value for money stuff, and there is a suspicion that that is being linked to more selectivity in some subtle way and that will mean that the research exercise is important in getting selective units and they will get more money and so on and that is what is important, not spin-out companies, in these extremely bright people's heads. They are getting different messages. Spin out, but also get four papers and make sure your Department keeps its basic money. How are you going to handle that paradox in their heads?
  (Rt Hon Stephen Byers) I think it probably varies from university department to university department. I think there are some areas where the need to apply your research is well regarded and has happened over the years and people can see that as being a very positive spin off from the work they do. There are no doubt other areas where people see that the research they are doing is linked into the academic world and that is it. I think Members will know that there is a review going on at the moment which is looking at the whole area of how we can target money that we are providing in a way which will be supportive of the application of ideas and we are doing it, as I said earlier, through the various sums of money that we have targeted. I think it is the Government needing to encourage and saying: "This is something that we want to happen". We can encourage it through additional funds being made available. What we cannot do and what we should not do is to at all times compel people in higher education, say it is a requirement that you have to apply the work that you are doing into the commercial sector. I would not approve of that, but I think what we should be saying is that actually there is worthwhile work here, that you should be engaged in. If you are exposed to it and you think "Yes, this is something which appeals which is attractive" I think that is the way to do it. Certainly in the discussions I have had with people from higher education who actually have got engaged in the sort of wider application of the work they have been involved in, they get a great deal of personal pleasure from it. Certainly from my days of being an academic I must say that writing a 5,000 word academic article was not always that motivating an experience.

  1242. You think there is going to be more selectivity though, do you?
  (Rt Hon Stephen Byers) Well there is already quite a lot of selectivity because I think the figures that I remember show that I think 70 per cent of the dual funding goes into just 30 universities.

  1243. And is that going to change?
  (Rt Hon Stephen Byers) There are no plans at the moment to change it.

  Chairman: Secretary of State, I have tried to keep it to half past five and we have overrun by three minutes. I hope you will forgive us. Mr Battle, may I thank you for coming along this afternoon. Secretary of State we are most grateful to you. I have a feeling that we have failed a little bit this afternoon. You said at the beginning that all the hard questions would be passed to Mr Battle. Since you took 70 per cent of the questions yourself I feel we have been asking too easy ones! This was not our intention. Thank you very much indeed for the time you spent with us and the help you have given us with our inquiry. We are most grateful.