UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 490-v

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE

OSI Scrutiny 2006

Wednesday 18 October 2006

LORD SAINSBURY OF TURVILLE

Evidence heard in Public Questions 209 - 251

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Science and Technology Committee

on Wednesday 18 October 2006

Members present

Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair

Adam Afriyie

Dr Evan Harris

Dr Brian Iddon

Margaret Moran

Bob Spink

Dr Desmond Turner

________________

Witness: Lord Sainsbury of Turville, a Member of the House of Lords, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Science and Innovation, Department of Trade and Industry, gave evidence.

Q209 Chairman: Perhaps I could welcome you once again to Science Question Time and the Science and Technology Committee, Minister, and thank you very much for giving us your time. Perhaps I could also welcome a packed gallery this morning. Perhaps you are expecting something that we are not! However, we are delighted to see you this morning. It is always an interesting session. Minister, the first report which the Committee did in terms of one of its thematic approaches to looking at the Research Councils was the issue of knowledge transfer. We are grateful to you for the Government's response, which we received last week. Could I start by asking you what discussions has the OSI had with the Research Councils about improving their performance in terms of knowledge transfer?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The OSI regularly discusses with the Research Councils performance in relation to knowledge transfer, not least through the performance management system. This includes delivery plans for each of the Research Councils in knowledge transfer, along with quarterly and annual progress reports and six-monthly bilaterals. Earlier this year, we commissioned Peter Warry to examine how Research Councils can demonstrate that they are delivering a major increase in the economic impact of their investments. This report, published in July has been helpful and well received by the Research Councils. RCUK's Knowledge Transfer and Economic Impact Group are finalising their action plan to address the recommendations raised by both the Select Committee and the Warry reports, and this work will be led by Philip Esler, the Chief Executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Q210 Chairman: Thank you for that. Can we also thank you very much for the positive response to the report? We thought that it actually took the argument on. One of the things that concerned us somewhat during this inquiry was that the Government clearly have a plethora of different mechanisms and funding mechanisms to support and promote knowledge transfer, and some of them were more effective than others; but there seems to be a lack of co-ordination between the various groups which the Government were funding as far as knowledge transfer was concerned. I wonder what ideas you have for bringing that together as a more concerted approach to this whole issue, which is obviously crucially important to the British economy.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: You are right that there are a number of different mechanisms, but I think that there should be. I think that the way to deal with that is to be clear which bodies are required to do what, and then also to make certain there is a mechanism, largely through the Director General of the Research Councils, to make certain that everyone is clear as to what their responsibilities are and that any lack of clarity of that is sorted out and dealt with.

Q211 Chairman: If we take one area, Minister - the RDAs - we heard over and over again that there was a major disconnect between the work of the Research Councils and the RDAs and the delivery by the RDAs, if you like, of science and innovation on the ground. Is that something you are aware of? What could be done to make sure that, for instance, the RDAs have the right capacity to be able to deliver the science and innovation strategy on the ground? Because they are interfacing with the small/medium-sized companies.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think that is exactly the issue. The role of the Research Councils is one thing; the role of the RDAs is quite a different role. There are issues about the extent to which RDAs have the capacity to deliver science and innovation strategies in their region. I think the way to tackle that is with them directly, to make certain they do have the capacity to do that. Perhaps a more important interface is between the Technology Strategy Board and the Regional Development Agency. I think that is a rather more important relationship. There, I think we need to task the Technology Strategy Board with more of a leadership role, in terms of where the technology opportunities and involvements are.

Q212 Chairman: But in terms of the capacity in the RDAs, that clearly seems to be missing in some of the RDAs. Is that your responsibility? Is that OSI's responsibility? Is it DTI's responsibility? Who actually makes sure that is done?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It is a DTI responsibility in the sense that RDAs report to the DTI. I think that would be the route for having discussions with them and taking that forward. It is clearly an area that I, as Minister for Science and Innovation, am very interested in and have taken an interest in.

Q213 Margaret Moran: As our Chairman has just said, I was very keen that we did this report because I think that there is a need for urgency in tackling some of the problems of co-ordination across the various areas which supposedly have a responsibility for knowledge transfer. Could you be specific about what advantages you see the new RCUK Knowledge Transfer and Economic Impact Group having over its predecessor? There is no point in moving things round the deck of the ship unless there are some very specific and rather rapid advantages.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I actually think that the problem is to be clear about what the knowledge transfer responsibilities of the Research Councils are and to get greater clarity on that. That was what would make a difference. I think it is useful to have a co-ordinating body, but the real issue is to be clear what they are supposed to do and for us then to task them very clearly, through our management performance system, to achieve those objectives.

Q214 Margaret Moran: As has been said, the concern is that the number of stakeholders involved in knowledge transfer, peripherally or otherwise, is huge. Some did not see their role as particularly central in knowledge transfer. How do you think we can all assure that Research Councils really engage with their stakeholders? Because that was one of the major issues that emerged from the report. We are very grateful for the positive response from the report, but I think that the evidence of that increasing engagement is still not there.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think that you should be clear. One of the issues about which there is a lack of clarity is who is responsible for what. One of the fundamental ways that we have organised this, which is extremely important, is that universities - on the basis of the funding they get from Research Councils - are responsible for the knowledge transfer of that. That is a fundamental principle. It is copying what was the biggest change in American organisation of research which led, many people think, to the big change in America: which is that the knowledge transfer is the responsibility of the body which does the research, not of the funding body. That is absolutely fundamental. That is why I do not personally want the Research Councils to spend a lot of time worrying about the knowledge transfer from universities. That is the universities' responsibility. What we have seen as a result of the incentives we have given to the universities is a complete transformation of university knowledge transfer; so that, on any measure of knowledge transfer - whether it is spin-off companies, licence, patents, work for industry - there has been a dramatic change. That, frankly, should be allowed to get on and continue on that path. There is perhaps a case for them doing more, but the fact is that they have transformed their performance and it is working very well. That is why, in our answer to you, we have been very clear about what the particular tasks are that we expect Research Councils to do, and those were set out on page 14 of our response.

Q215 Margaret Moran: Slightly off the report but, I think, very important - this is all about capturing innovation and using that innovation. Have you, or have you in collaboration with DTI, considered the US model of procurement, which requires innovation as part of that? Has there been any discussion about it? It has been very impressive, very influential, in the technology sector, has it not?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: As you probably know, there have been a whole series of government reports which cover this subject - in fact rather too many reports - and the issue is not the question of how you should do procurement. There are a lot of good ideas; it is well known how you use procurement to get innovation. The question is making this happen in practice. We are having discussions at the moment - in fact I am having discussions today - about how you make certain that government departments deliver on procurement and innovation. But the issue is not how to do it. We all know how to do it. You will see in the 2003 Innovation Report a long section about procurement.

Q216 Dr Turner: The Knowledge Transfer Network is intended to raise business awareness. How is it going to do this?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I am sorry - the knowledge transfer...?

Q217 Dr Turner: The Knowledge Transfer Network - to raise business awareness of what university research centres have got to offer?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We have the knowledge transfer networks. We have a whole series of those which, as you know, are run through the Technology Strategy Board, which cover things like bio-processing, chemistry innovation, cyber-security, food processing. These are essentially intermediate organisations that bring industries and companies in those particular areas together with a university or group of universities. That has now been going for five or six years and is proving very successful.

Q218 Dr Turner: We have been worried about knowledge transfer and effective innovation ever since I have been a member of this Committee, which is about ten years. One of the biggest problems has always been the great funding gap. As I am sure you are aware, funding for start-up technology-driven SMEs is practically missing here, in terms of reasonable cost venture capital to see them through before companies reach revenue point, whereas it is totally different in the States and in Germany. One had hoped that the introduction of RDAs would have helped to plug this gap. It has not. Do you have any thoughts on how we can tackle what is really the biggest problem in innovation in Britain? We were in Australia last week and we found it was exactly the same there. That is where the real problem is. An awful lot of companies, an awful lot of technology, just do not get over the "Valley of Death".

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think the answer to that is that it is very rapidly changing in this country. As you probably know, in the last two years there have been about 20 university spin-offs which have gone to market - IPOs. The value of those companies today is about £1.3 billion, which is excellent news. Of course, this fact has not escaped the attention of the venture capital industry. There are a whole series of particular venture capital companies who have in fact done deals now with universities to help fund any spin-offs they have. In fact there was a company which was called IPO, now called IPO Group, which has a whole list of universities it works with; there is a whole list of companies it has funded and is bringing to market. So I think that this situation has been transformed. It has been transformed by the success of the 'A' market. That was spurred on, not totally but slightly, by government tax changes. The 'A' market is doing extremely well now. If you can take a company to the 'A' market within five years as a venture capitalist, that of course changes the whole arithmetic of it and makes it much more attractive. The fact that we are now getting spin-offs, exciting spin-offs, from universities is the other side of that. So the market in this case, with a little help from government, is really beginning to work. If you go round the country, you can see examples of this happening all over the place.

Q219 Dr Turner: But there are still examples of companies having major difficulties. Sorting out the technologies is the easy bit; getting through funding to revenue is still very, very difficult.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It is still very difficult, but it is always a question of what is the quality of the company. Now, increasingly, if you have good companies they can begin to get the funding.

Q220 Chairman: Strategic science provision, Minister. What recent discussions has the OSI had on the impact of the current funding mechanisms on science in universities?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: In preparation for next year's Comprehensive Spending Review, OSI has had a number of bilateral discussions with DfES, Research Councils and Funding Councils regarding science funding in universities. Discussions have focused around the issues of long-term research sustainability, full economic costs, science research infrastructure funding, and continued knowledge transfer, including under the Higher Education Innovation Fund. Monitoring by both the Funding and Research Councils has highlighted the smooth implementation and success of the first year, of 80 per cent full economic cost. The recent independent study by GM Consulting has also shown the success of the shift in tackling the backlog investment in research infrastructure.

Q221 Dr Iddon: That is good news and I hope that those discussions lead to some fruitful money for the universities. We make no excuse, Lord Sainsbury, for banging on about this because, as you know, the Committee has been worried about the funding of science in universities for some time. Both the Royal Society of Chemistry - of which I am a Fellow, and that is a declared interest of mine, incidentally - and the Institute of Physics have in the last few months produced these reports which are based on TRAC-based costing data which has been supplied by the Government - in one case eight chemistry departments and, in the other, ten physics departments. It is clearly shown by these two reports that there is a lack of funding for supporting universities for hard science subjects. Therefore, my question is this. Is the use of TRAC-based costing data likely to lead to increases in science funding in universities and to an alteration of the ratio, which is now 1.7 sciences to arts and humanities, instead of 2, as it was formerly?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: There are two different parts to this. There is the research funding and the teaching funding. Because we now have TRAC data on the research funding, we have a very good position on that and it is pretty much fully funded. I think that there is a real issue about the teaching of science subjects and how well that is covered by the funding from HEFCE. It is essential that we get that sorted out, because what it shows is that if you do not have good research money to help you run a chemistry department, the chemistry department, on the basis of the teaching alone, will not survive. That is why we have seen various closures.

Q222 Dr Turner: We have just been through the near-miss of the chemistry department at Sussex; there is a proposal for closing physics at Reading. Are you aware of any other universities offering STEM subjects at present which are considering closing departments?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Not that I know of. However, I think this goes back to the previous question. You have not asked the question why they are doing that. It is a combination of the number of students coming through but also, I suspect even more importantly, this issue that the teaching money will not cover a teaching department. So there are two things we have to get right. We have to get the costing of the teaching side right and we have to do work - on which, as you know, we are doing a lot of work - on how you increase the number of young people doing, in particular, A-levels in science, who will then go on and do it at university.

Q223 Dr Turner: It is very good that the Government have identified STEM subjects and recognised the importance of maintaining basic sciences, but they have to do more than that and make sure that, when there is a problem arising in any given university, there is some active support mechanism. One of the things which was notable from the Sussex incident was the fact that HEFCE was virtually unable to do anything. It was other pressures which prevented that closure. If it had been dependent on HEFCE to intervene and offer support to avoid it, it would have been a lost cause. What are your feelings about what the government should be doing to put, if you like, some muscle behind their recognition of the need for STEM subjects?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think the answer is to get the basic funding right. I think that we should try to avoid, if possible, one-off deals with particular universities. That will get us in a huge mess. There is always the question of is the funding right, but also is it efficiently run? If you start doing one-off deals, it would get into a real mess. The thing is to get the basic funding right and then let the universities get on with it.

Q224 Dr Harris: What is the earliest time at which departments in universities can expect to see some fruit of your view that the funding should be got right, with the implication that it is not right at the moment? Next year? The year after?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: HEFCE are talking in terms of having better information in 2007 on this. It is then a question of what that information shows and how fast they can move on it. However, I totally agree with you: we need to get on as fast as possible with this.

Q225 Dr Harris: Reading is proposing to close its physics department and the Government have told us that they think that the supply of these subjects should - and I quote from the Government's response to our last report on this - "...be ultimately driven by student and employer demand". It cannot mean surely that there is employer demand for fewer physics graduates coming out of Reading and the rest of the South East? It does not seem to make sense.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: You must be clear between a situation where long-term you can have real problems and the current situation. There is in this context no problem about finding enough places for people who want to do physics. The one issue there is here if you cut down the number of physics departments, then there is no doubt in my mind that - if you have good physics or chemistry departments - by working with schools, local schools, they can encourage the number of people to come through. But in the strict sense of, "Are there enough places in universities to cover for all the students who want to do physics or chemistry?", that is not a problem. Where we have had closures, HEFCE has been able to increase the numbers at nearby universities. So that is not a problem at this stage.

Q226 Dr Harris: But that is student demand. One could argue that if we are to increase the number of STEM graduates needed just to fill the teaching places, where we need qualified teachers, then closing departments leads to a capacity problem. You just do not have the capacity left to increase if some other government policy suddenly produces more graduates. I would like you to deal with that and, secondly, the question of employer demand. The inference is that there is employer demand for media studies graduates, graduates in forensics and music as a combined course, and not an employer demand for physics and chemistry graduates; when in fact, from everything we have heard, there is a demand - from teaching if nothing else - for those areas. So I do not understand why the Government are not being proactive - more proactive, quicker - in response to employer demand for STEM graduates.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: First, it is a capacity question. As I think I have said, there is not a capacity problem if the students come forward. Secondly, we live in a free society and in a free society, unlike the good old days in China, we cannot tell students to do particular subjects. We have to rely on the students to be motivated to do it. So the way that you act on this is by dealing with things particularly at schools. There are some real problems which we have identified and we are taking action on, which are issues to do with the qualification of the teachers; allowing the best pupils to do triple science rather than double science, and so on. This is how you can intervene in the system, but we cannot tell people to do physics or chemistry at universities.

Q227 Chairman: You can incentivise them, Minister, surely? If you have a market - which the Government clearly want in higher education and they unashamedly say that there is a market - you, of all people, know that how you activate the market is to incentivise things that people perhaps do not want, but you want them, for the good of the company or the good of the country, to take.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: When you say "incentivise", if that means we give particular bonuses to people who do physics and chemistry, I think that this is always a rather double-edged sword. It says, "Do this and we will give you more money" but it also says, "There are problems about people doing this subject".

Chairman: But government policy says, "We will give you more money if you want to teach science". That is the government policy.

Q228 Dr Harris: And it is still less money than other subjects.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think it works rather well, because in those subjects you do have to respond to the market. In those subjects - for example if you are very good at physics - you can get other jobs in the market. I think that having policies which ignore the markets in that context is nonsense. So I am very keen that have - and we do have - more incentives for people to do physics teaching, and we also now, as you can see, are developing courses to train people who come in and are biology specialists to be physics teachers. That is rather different from trying to get people to do physics at university by giving them more money - which, as I said, I think is a rather double-edged sword.

Q229 Adam Afriyie: I have two brief questions. From the evidence we have received here and from my understanding of it, HEFCE does not have much power. It seems to monitor what goes on in the market and cajoles a bit, encourages a bit, and makes a few observations, but it does not really do very much. Are you happy with that situation?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We have a very fundamental principle which HEFCE operates, which is that it does not dictate to a university which subjects it teaches. I would be very reluctant to change that principle, which I think is a good one.

Q230 Adam Afriyie: So it is basically left to market forces, with a bit of advice from HEFCE?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No, it is left to the decisions of individual universities to run their affairs independently, which I think is a principle we all keep repeating. When it comes to the crunch, that is the issue. Do you dictate to universities what they should teach or do you allow that to be their own decision?

Q231 Adam Afriyie: The second question is this. Do you agree with the Institute of Physics that the use of the TRAC-based costing data will lead to more funding for physics? If that is the case, then who will be losing funding?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My own guess is, as I said, that science-based subjects as a whole, the teaching of them, is under-funded. I think that there has been some quite good evidence of that.

Q232 Adam Afriyie: There will be more money overall, so it does not matter that a bit more goes to physics?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: One would like to think that, as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review, this issue will be taken on board and that, where there is further funding, it will be directed at where the greatest need is - which I think is this particular area.

Q233 Adam Afriyie: To be absolutely clear, therefore, if there is no additional funding and physics gets more, then some would have to be taken away from elsewhere? Just logically?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes, that is mathematics.

Q234 Chairman: But "Minister promises more funding for science teaching in universities" is an excellent comment to come out of this morning. Moving on ----

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I would not dream of saying what the Treasury will do...!

Q235 Chairman: We will stop at that point! Framework 7, Minister. What progress has been made in negotiations on the EU Framework 7 Programme?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Progress continues to be made in the Framework 7 negotiations, and a final deal is expected in November, allowing for the timely launch of this important Community instrument. Despite some concern expressed that a delay in concluding the Financial Perspective negotiations could lead to a delay in the launch of Framework 7, successive presidencies have maintained the momentum in the negotiations, enabling the Council to agree a common position text on both the nuclear and non-nuclear parts of the Framework 7 Programme at the Composant Council on 25 September. This was a good achievement, requiring the resolution of longstanding and sensitive issues on human embryonic stem cell and nuclear research. It is hoped that a presidency text based on these discussions will be circulated for approval within the European Council later this month, allowing for a second reading deal with the European Parliament at the end of November.

Q236 Bob Spink: Does it matter if there is a delay in the launch, since Framework 7 seems to be not fundamentally different from Framework 6?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes, there always is, because you have teams of people who are working on particular project areas and are hoping that they will be able to get continuing funding under a new framework programme. If that is delayed, as it has been in the past, then you will find that you have teams of people who do not have the funding they were expecting.

Q237 Bob Spink: Just looking at the finances of the Framework 7 Programme, €50,000 million is the total. Of that, €3,500 million will be going to nano-sciences; €4,180 million will be going to transport, including aeronautics; information and communication technology gets €9,110 million; and the whole environment, including climate change, gets €1,900 million only - which is, by my calculation, just a bit less than four per cent of the total budget dedicated to what is the greatest problem facing mankind at the moment. Do you think this balance is right?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I would have to say that I am very surprised at the figures you give. My own impression is that environmental issues have quite a significant part in this, but I would have to check those figures because I do not have them in mind.

Q238 Bob Spink: Let me add that there is also €2,300 million dedicated to energy and, I think, €2,750 million dedicated to nuclear, both of which are greater than environmental and climate change together. I would be delighted if you could write back to the Committee on that, Lord Sainsbury, and let us know what your views are. Finally, embryonic stem cell research. Perhaps I could start by saying that integration of international co-operation is a key part - in fact, it is Part 1 of the four basic premises of Framework 7 - and we need to co-operate with major institutions around the world on embryonic stem cell research because of the potential benefit this offers mankind generally, making sure that we push this technology forward as quickly as possible. What steps will be taken to make sure there is co-operation and collusion between the Weissmann Institute, Harvard, MIT, and other key institutions around the world that are doing stem cell research?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I do not think that they are a particularly significant part of the Framework Programme; but of course we do give a lot of efforts to international collaboration - there would be a lot of collaboration taking place through the Medical Research Council and BBSRC in these fields.

Q239 Bob Spink: Do you think that the programme actually gets it right? I know that you supported the agreement. Do you think that it gets the balance right, in discouraging cloning and changes or modifications to the human genetic heritage, whilst at the same time promoting therapeutic stem cell research, which offers so much benefit to mankind?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I agree with you on the cloning part of this but clearly, on the therapeutic part, it is a compromise. It is a compromise because this is a very difficult subject for EU negotiation; because you have some countries which are totally opposed to it and some countries which, like ourselves, are enthusiastic about it. The result is that it is a compromise. It is a rather curious compromise but it sort of works, in the sense that it says the actual production of the stem cells will not be funded by EU money but their use for research will be. That was a rather good piece of negotiation to move this subject forward, and enables us to get on with it.

Bob Spink: I congratulate you on your pragmatic approach to this.

Q240 Margaret Moran: Framework 7 recognises, as we all do, that the involvement of SMEs in European research programmes is lamentable. Obviously, 15 per cent of the budget and measures towards simplification are welcome, but do you really think that will make a substantial difference? What do you want to see out of that element in the programme?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think we have a slightly different view on this issue from other people. I do not think that it makes a lot of sense to try and push SMEs into huge European partnerships. If you have a huge European partnership which has 15 big companies in them - like, say, Siemens - doing an international project, it is not at all clear to me that we want to encourage small companies with 100 people to participate in it. They simply do not have the people or the resources to do that.

Q241 Margaret Moran: They might have the innovation and the ideas.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: They might, but it is probably not going to be the most successful thing. If they want to, they can. I am much keener to have programmes which actually do what SMEs want to do and are more aimed at helping SMEs. I think that we can set all sorts of targets for participation of SMEs in big projects, but (a) it probably will not work and (b) I am not even certain that it is the right thing to do. However, there are programmes like Eureka and so on, which small companies find enormously attractive, and we should do much more to support those programmes and push them forward.

Q242 Chairman: Our final section, Lord Sainsbury, is the funding of science centres. We want to know what arrangements have the DTI and the DfES made for the future funding of science centres?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Officials from the DTI and the DfES have been having discussions about the future funding and the role of the science centres with ECSITE-UK, the umbrella body that represents the Science and Discovery Centre network. We are close to agreeing three-quarters of a million pounds funding over the period 2006-08 for a proposal from ECSITE-UK which will lead to the science centres pursuing innovative ways of becoming financially viable without continuing government support, and working together more collaboratively.

Q243 Dr Harris: The Scottish Parliament has just given £3.8 million to support five science centres, to make them sustainable over the next two years. What you have just talked about is welcome, but is only three-quarters of a million to be spread over 30 science centres in the non-Scottish parts of the UK. Many of us are used to Scots getting a good deal, but that seems to be a disproportionately poor treatment by the UK Government of English and Welsh science centres compared to the Scots, does it not?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think that you have to understand the history of this. Quite a few of these, the main ones, came out of the Millennium Commission. They were funded simply with capital by the Millennium Commission, without any revenue streams being provided and on some projections for future revenues which were extremely optimistic, bordering on fantasy, I think, in many cases. As a result of that, there have been a number which simply could not survive. There are others which are on the borderline. Because we think that it would be a huge waste of public money if these centres were allowed to disappear, we have taken action to try and provide them with funding on a transitional basis to get them to a properly funded basis; but it is hard work, while they find other sources of finance.

Q244 Dr Harris: Let us talk about medium to long-term public funding. Museums - those arty things - do get public funding, because they could never be felt to be self-sustaining by charging fees. It would go against government policy for museums to be charging entry fees and hope to cope that way. Why is it that science centres which, if anything, have for the UK economy arguably an even greater virtue in terms of what they deliver to the public in terms of engagement, educational activities, exciting young people in particular - why are they less deserving, much less deserving, infinitely less deserving of long-term public funding in the Government's view so far than arty things?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I do not think that it is a question of arty versus science subjects.

Q245 Dr Harris: It is.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It is a question of, given limited resources for work on promoting science and engineering, which are the best ways to do it? We have a whole series of programmes which I think are extremely important in this area. We have science and engineering ambassadors; we have 13,000 young people now going round to schools; we have the nine Regional Science Learning Centres, which are extremely important in this whole field of CPD for teachers - which is another key part of this. As you know, we announced in March Next Steps that we would have 250 science clubs. My own judgment is that these ways of spending government money are a better way and more targeted on what we want to achieve than the Science Learning Centres; and I say that as someone who for 20 years has supported Science Learning Centres. However, you have to make choices.

Q246 Dr Harris: When they were set up, did the Government say to the Millennium Commission, "These are fantasy projections of viability you are doing. Don't do it" or "Don't rely on us. This is not sustainable"? Or are you being - you are wise - but are you being wise after the event? It is rather depressing news for the science centres, who feel they have done a good job, and in the absence of any independent evaluation of whether they are doing as good a job as all the things you have just listed.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Part of the money we are giving them will be used for an independent assessment of what job they are doing. As far as what the Government said at the time they were set up, I cannot be certain about this. I think that the Government did not say anything, because they regarded this as being the responsibility of the Millennium Commission and the people it was setting up. I am sure that they did not say, "This is a good thing. We should go ahead with it". It was simply left to the Millennium Commission, on this and other, arty subjects as well.

Q247 Dr Harris: Finally, would you consider discussing with your Scottish colleagues what virtues they saw in the support they are giving, to see if they have some insights that might be applicable south of the border?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Can I suggest that, from my having looked at this, there are two issues here? One is the effectiveness of them; the other is the extent to which the basis on which they were set up was more or less optimistic than the English ones.

Q248 Chairman: We will take that as a "No".

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Probably that is right!

Q249 Dr Iddon: I am a patron of the Catalyst Museum, which you kindly visited the other day. I am also chairman of the Bolton Technical Innovation Centre. So this question is pertinent to one of my areas of operation. I can tell you, Lord Sainsbury, the money is there but the people who run these centres have to go scurrying all over the place to get it. It is all short-term money and it makes running the centres extremely difficult. The money comes from the DCMS, the DfES, the DTI, the Regional Development Agency, the Millennium Commission, and so on. My question to you this morning is this. Would you consider in future - because you have mentioned some transitional arrangements, which are very welcome, particularly to me - doing a whole review of this area of activity, measuring the effectiveness of these centres and bringing all this money together to fund them in a proper manner, if we feel that they are worth running into the future?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think that it probably is an area that at some point we should have a look at and see whether it can all be brought together in one place; but I think you should realise how difficult it is, with our system of government, to get money out of all the individual departments and put them into one place. This is not the only place where we have the situation where you can only fund things by getting money from different pockets. You may find that difficult, but I have to say to you that I find it equally difficult as a minister: that when I want to do something I often have to go to three or four different places to get the money.

Q250 Dr Iddon: Can I leave you with this thought? That it would be an excellent example of joined-up government if that were possible.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I will take that point on board.

Q251 Chairman: And we have your assurance that you will do it. You say yes to this question?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We will certainly look at whether there is a case for doing this, as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Chairman: On that very optimistic note, may we thank you again, Minister, for giving us your time? Thank you very much indeed.