LORD SAINSBURY OF TURVILLE

19 OCTOBER 2005

  Q20  Dr Turner: The other big point is that there is a question mark over the world's capacity to produce vaccines in sufficient quantity and we are dependent entirely on the drug companies at the moment to do this work. Do you think there is a case for a government-funded reserve or extra capacity in vaccine production to meet future pandemic crises?

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Again, I think this is another question. That question is really about contingency planning and work that must take place between not only our government but governments worldwide on the question of vaccine capacity. I think that straightforwardly is a Department of Health question which you need to direct to them really.

  Q21  Chairman: Question four, Lord Sainsbury, is on industrial research and development. What new measures are being introduced to encourage industry to invest in R&D and support knowledge transfer, in addition to those in the Science and Innovation Framework?

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes, of course we have had a very significant number of important initiatives which are about increasing the amount of R&D investment because we think that this is absolutely fundamental to economic performance. Indeed, we have had the R&D tax credits which are worth about £600 million per annum to businesses, and we have had the Higher Education Innovation Fund which is running at £110 million for knowledge transfer from universities into industry. I should point out in the light of this morning's letter in the Financial Times that we have had a version of the SBIR in America, we call it the SBRI. That has been in place for a number of years and, in fact, we have not had as good a performance as we want, which is why the Chancellor made it a mandatory system by the Treasury in the last Budget. On that basis that is why we do not think it is necessary to have a Private Member's bill on this because we already have it in place and it is mandatory. We have of course business support programmes such as the grant for R&D, the grant for investigating innovative ideas. We have set up the Technology Strategy with the Independent Technology Strategy Board where we will be putting £370 million into the technology programme and we of course have the 19 highly successful Faraday Partnerships which we have now migrated into the new Knowledge Transfer Network. Of course, I should point out that while industrial research was in a continuing decline as a proportion of GDP it has now bottomed out and is beginning to grow, although rather modestly against what I would like to see happening.

  Q22  Chairman: You speak with more enthusiasm on this than nuclear power. I do not want you to answer that.

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It turned round in 1998 which is when I became Science Minister.

  Q23  Dr Harris: Minister, in that long answer you did not make the point, although I think you hinted at it at the end, that the Government is failing to reach its target of the 2.5% share of GDP invest in R&D. In fact, the latest figures show a growth rate in your own annual report against the 10-year Science and Innovation Framework of just 2%, which is below the GDP trend growth. So is it now time for the Government to recognise it is failing in order to try something else?

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We were aiming for the 2.5% target in 2014 so we do have some time to go yet.

  Q24  Dr Harris: It is going backwards at the moment because you say you are bottoming out at best, so is it not important to try something that you are not doing because what you are doing at the moment is not having the effect that we would all want it to have.

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The point is if you look at the period over which we have introduced these measures it has, in fact, gone up as a proportion of GDP so it has been going up faster than GDP growth and inflation. So the percentage of GDP has gone up.

  Q25  Dr Harris: It says UK business investment in R&D rose by 2% in real terms for 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available, but needs to rise faster than trend GDP growth if the Government's long-term ambition is to be achieved. Hear, hear!

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: That is one year. If you look at the trend over the period since 1997-98 the trend has been upwards. It has stopped going down, it has bottomed out, and it is marginally going up again.

  Q26  Chairman: Question five is on strategic science provision, Minister.

  Are the current numbers of science, engineering and technology students sufficient to maintain the UK's competitiveness?

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: In terms of the number of students taking science engineering technology degrees in fact the numbers of people taking science at first degree level has increased by 34% over the period since 1997-98. That compares with an overall increase of 22%. So the proportion of science and engineering graduates is marginally going up as a percentage of the total. Of course, in total numbers terms it is going up very significantly because the number of graduates is going up. However, of course there are issues around certain key subjects in engineering and physical sciences and we are working with bodies like the Royal Academy of Engineering, the ETB[1] and the ABPI[2] to get a closer look at where the specific areas are and then we can take action to focus on those particular areas.

  Q27 Dr Iddon: And the growth is in subjects like astronomy and forensic science where perhaps the demand, particularly for forensic scientists, is not as great as the demand for chemists or physicists trained in the hard sciences. Whilst there has been an increase this year, we appear to be relying more and more on foreign students coming to Britain and there is some controversy about whether the strategic science provision will be maintained by the number of foreign students. Some say the numbers have declined from, for example, China and some say we have plateaued in terms of the numbers of foreign students coming to British universities. My question is how can we increase the attractiveness of the British universities compared with the attractiveness of universities, for example, in Germany for foreign students?

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I think that is a different question. Can I just answer the first point which is everyone keeps saying it is all about forensic scientists: it is not totally about forensic scientists. You have got the biological sciences doing very well, you have got computer sciences doing very well.

  Q28  Chairman: Not physics, chemistry and engineering?

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Even physics and chemistry. The physical sciences have remained rather constant at about 50,000. It dipped down to 47,000 and has then come back to 50,000 and interestingly the mathematical sciences have gone from 15,000 to 22,000, a very substantial increase. These are the figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. I think it is extremely important we do understand these figures and there are questions about rather minor classification changes and also the question of foreign students. I have got the statisticians in the DTI doing a study and we will produce a paper in which we set out exactly what is happening in this field, how much is due to foreign students, whether there are any classification changes. A first look shows that it is not due to foreign students and classification changes do not affect this. We will have a look at that and produce a paper and then look at whether what we are producing really meets the needs of the economy, as far as we can judge.

  Q29  Chairman: I will have to stop you there, Brian, I am sorry. The last question is on public engagement.

  Is public engagement with scientific issues now fully embedded in the policy making process?

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The Science and Innovation Investment Framework made a very clear commitment to early and on-going dialogue on issues arising from new and emerging science and technology. As part of that we have instituted the Sciencewise Programme which is funding projects in particular areas where we do want to increase public dialogue and we will have Sciencewise funding of about £1.2 million over the two years 2004-05 and 2005-06. We also are doing two very interesting exercises in public engagement. One of the requests which we made was to the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering on nanotechnologies. I asked them to produce a report on whether there were ethical, health, safety and environmental issues involved in nanotechnology and whether there were any regulatory changes we should make. I think that was a very successful exercise and we are now working across government to look at areas where we might need to do more research or change specific regulations coming out of that report. Of course, following on the Brain Science, Addiction and Drugs Foresight exercise we have asked the Academy of Medical Sciences to do a similar project in that area. I think overall we are pushing forward the agenda on public engagement pretty strongly.

  Q30  Mr Flello: Whilst welcoming the Sciencewise and also the nanoscience nanotechnology/opportunities and the certainties report, I would say with public concern in the past year over things like crops, mobile phone masts, overhead power lines and similar issues, can you tell me please, Lord Sainsbury, how the Government now monitors the effectiveness of policies for enhancing public engagement?

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Where we have particular projects we look at the evaluation of them. I think the most valuable index we have is the MORI surveys we have had carried out into opinion on science and what people think about it, which is interesting because, by and large, they are very positive about it. Their concerns tend to be focused on these new areas of technology and whether the science is moving too quickly and whether the Government has control of it, which is why we have now the Sciencewise programme. The latest figures suggest that people are growing in confidence in these areas but feel even more strongly that people should be consulted. So I think we are making progress on that from the low point which we had with BSE.

  Q31  Mr Flello: Just turning that point perhaps on its head, is it possible that excessive concerns for broader social and ethical issues can actually stifle scientific investigation and perhaps compromise independence?

  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No because I think it is very important the way that we structure these consultations. They are not consultations about whether a technology is a good technology or a bad technology. They are consultations about whether there are ethical, environmental, health and safety issues which are raised by them. I think that is a perfectly proper area where Government should be involved. I feel very strongly that scientists should take the lead in those public discussions so it does not turn into scientists versus the public. I think it is important those kind of dialogues happen early up-stream so that people can have confidence that those issues will be considered.

  Chairman: Lord Sainsbury, thank you very much indeed for the time you have given us this morning. We hope to see you again in three months if not before.

2   Note by the witness: Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry. Back