WEDNESDAY 18 APRIL 2007

MALCOLM WICKS MP, AND DR DAVID WILLIAMS

  Q620  Graham Stringer: I am sorry if I was not clear.

  Malcolm Wicks: I tried to answer this earlier. If you look at the sources of funding then it backs up your argument that there is a lot of user-driven application here. I do not think I apologise for that—the MoD, Transport, Defra—but if you look at the contribution from the research councils, and obviously one would then need to look at that expenditure to see how much of it is about innovation as opposed to basic research, nevertheless PPARC, as it was then in 2005-06, was spending £75 million on research. The Natural Environmental Research Council was spending £53 million and some of that would be in what I guess one might call basic or pure research. It is very difficult. It raises a question of course about what you mean by basic and applied. The work I heard about in Antarctica in terms of how satellites are helping them to understand what is happening to Antarctica complementing the much more hands-on work there with ice cores and is that basic or is that applied? Actually it is a bit of both but I think I would contend, Mr Stringer, that there is quite a lot of, as it were, non-user driven work going on, and rightly so in my judgment.

  Q621  Graham Stringer: Where it is user-driven do the departments have the skills and expertise really to engage sensibly in the discussions to set up these projects?

  Malcolm Wicks: I only hesitate there because I think one of the strengths of having the BNSC—David's organisation—is that at somewhat arm's length we can develop that expertise. I do not think it would be appropriate if a traditional pattern existed whereby civil servants, however good, in the DTI would try to second guess on these things. I think that is why the BNSC has been established and also it is why in these areas the research council makes the judgments and not the minister or the officials.

  Q622  Chairman: The BNSC has no powers, it is just a collection of individuals who put money into the pot. Who drives the policy? You obviously do not, Minister, and the individual departments are actually leading on individual programmes, so who actually pulls it together, because you have no power, David.

  Malcolm Wicks: I think David should be able to respond to that.

  Dr Williams: I think we have more power than you think. To answer your question, take the specific example of Galileo, Transport have decided that this is the way to go for reasons they wish to and we act as the technical interface to the European Space Programme, bringing technical expertise to help them to do that on the budget we have for national activity. At the same time of course ESA is our organisation. We own ESA and when ESA have a future programme of activities that is approved by the Member States it is the UK programme to a great extent. The difficulty we have had in one or two programmes is making sure that ESA do what we ask them to do, and that is where the technical expertise in the UK is important. In terms of user departments defining what they want, I have no problem with that. In terms of translating that to a specific space programme where it is needed I think we have the right mechanisms, through the programme in the UK, although we have talked about strengthening the national programme, and through the European Space Agency, which is our major technical agency to do that.

  Q623  Graham Stringer: This is beginning to sound like an abstract discussion. The European Space Agency have been quite critical of Defra's role with GMES and they do not believe they have got the expertise and they think that that project has been transferred from the DTI too soon, so it is not just an abstract conceptual issue, there is real criticism.

  Dr Williams: On that one there are two issues here, who leads in defining what is required and how it should be seen as an operational service and who then engages to do the debate. On GMES it is BNSC headquarters staff working for me who have engaged with ESA on the debate. Some of them are Defra staff on secondment and some are NERC staff on secondment and some are a mix of people. Where we have made big strides in the last few months with Defra we now have agreement with them on the importance of operational observations for climate change (which go beyond space but space is involved) and we are now in the second phase of debate with them on how that could be established in the context of the Office of Climate Change, which is the inter-ministerial led body in Defra that is supposed to look across at climate issues. If you translate that to the GMES programme where ESA are critical, as I have said before, the reason they are critical is because we are not putting money into it.

  Q624  Graham Stringer: So it is definitely not about expertise, it is about cash?

  Dr Williams: It is about cash. I think we have a difference of opinion with the majority of Member States on what the role of GMES should be and we have two major issues. One is it is not focused on climate change, it is focused on other issues. The second is it is not going to be in operational service, it is a series of one-off satellites. I said this last time. It does not give this horizon that allows them to switch over their operational service but we are working on that and we are working with Defra.

  Q625  Dr Spink: In this area on GMES in particular who has the executive responsibility, who pulls the whole thing together, is it Defra, NERC, DTI or BNSC? Who actually makes the policy and makes the decisions?

  Malcolm Wicks: It is a Defra lead.

  Q626  Dr Spink: But do they actually lead?

  Dr Williams: As I say, in the last three months we have got to this stage of having a specific document which shows that they have accepted there is an issue surrounding operational observations for climate and some of the issues are in the light of the Stern Report which says we must improve our ability to forecast climate, and to do that we need observations, and it goes beyond space, so I think we have moved on quite a long way and that has been negotiated between DG Environment, Bill Stow, and Sir Keith O'Nions using BNSC staff and Defra staff to create the document.

  Q627  Dr Spink: But where there is conflict on policy, as there is on GMES, between our country and other countries you need great clarity and certainty on where we are going and why we are going there and it seems to me that this is very much shared and fuzzy rather than focused?

  Dr Williams: I would honestly disagree. At the practical level there is no disagreement. We have had a clear policy line that we have been following and going to cross Whitehall meetings as appropriate at a working level and we have been putting this message across for quite a long time.

  Malcolm Wicks: Since Dr Williams appeared before this Committee there has been a great deal of work between our Department, BNSC and Defra on this, as Dr Williams has outlined.

  Q628  Dr Turner: We are getting the strong impression that there is something of a disconnect in the earth observation field. For astronomers and physicists it is great because they are actually the end users of the data, they are the interpreters, they know the shortcomings of their instrumentation, they have the expertise to design their next instrument to counter that, whereas people doing earth observation do not have the space expertise and they may have a discontinuity in the availability of appropriate instruments, appropriate satellites, so they are not getting the constant data streams in the form necessarily that they want. Is there a mechanism for joining those up to ensure that the instrumentation that is really needed to fulfil their needs is provided and provided on a continuous basis?

  Malcolm Wicks: I hope that is the kind of issue I will discuss with my ministerial colleagues. As I say, I have seen the need to bring together informally at first (I am not announcing some brand new ministerial committee) ministers and when I say across Whitehall I mean across the relevant departments to discuss this kind of issue. In other words, have we got the balance right between departments perfectly properly having their own objectives and using space technology as a tool, just as they use other tools for analysis, and making sure that we can be more holistic, are there some issues that are falling down the cracks a bit?

  Dr Turner: Would you agree that this is possibly a job which if BNSC were to devolve into an agency and recruit that expertise within it it could provide that service?

  Q629  Chairman: And then drive the policy?

  Malcolm Wicks: When you say drive the policy, Chairman—

  Q630  Chairman: It seems like serendipity listening to this discussion.

  Malcolm Wicks: I had better not ask you a question because I am not allowed to do that but when you say drive the policy, this is what I am trying—

  Q631  Chairman: Can I just give you a very simple analogy to say I love cars but I know nothing about them. I am an end user in that I go out and buy one and I depend on somebody driving those technologies. If I was driving the technology we would still be in Model T Fords, and that is the sort of impression which the Committee are getting, correct me if I am wrong, about what is happening in terms of space policy. It has not got that dynamism about driving it forward because nobody seems to be in charge of it.

  Malcolm Wicks: That is your judgment, Chairman.

  Q632  Chairman: Of course it is.

  Malcolm Wicks: At this preliminary stage.

  Q633  Chairman: No, it is a comment at this stage.

  Malcolm Wicks: We have just got to make sure that we have got it right what we mean by driving the policy. You are obviously right, it would be absurd if four or five different departments felt they had to become expert in robotics.

  Q634  Chairman: Absolutely.

  Malcolm Wicks: Or satellites. Of course that would be absurd, there has to be a central pool of expertise and I think that is where BNSC do important work. It is why as my colleague has explained, there are now significant discussions going on between ourselves and Defra about GMES. That is the reason. What we cannot drive of course, and we should not try to drive is the actual application of those technologies across a range of departments. It will be for departments to make their own judgment having taken advice on whether certain space technologies are appropriate or not.

  Q635  Chairman: So BNSC is really a service department? It services other users?

  Malcolm Wicks: It is a centre of expertise and it co-ordinates. Yes, it provides, in part—it is not its whole application—advice to services users, perfectly properly.

  Q636  Chris Mole: I wanted to ask Dr Williams if he recognised the argument within ESA that, actually, a user-driven approach was something they welcomed the UK bringing to their development of space technologies, because some of their development in the past has, perhaps, been supplier-driven rather than user-driven.

  Dr Williams: I think that is where the UK has always been very strong and, to some extent, out on a limb within ESA. We have said that things need to be done for a purpose, and when we say "user" we mean the science—it does not have to be the man in the street. Yes, we have always said that the established facilities, the established technical programmes and the established technical programmes to develop centres of technologies, instrument technologies and system technologies, they should be focused on what they are trying to achieve as an output in a particular area. We try and drive that into them, and it is always a conflict that there are people there who like doing technology and like doing technology. I have a lot of time and respect for the whole of ESA's system, and I think it is very important for us, but there is no doubt that there are facilities and activities going on there that will never lead to anything—other than more work.

  Q637  Graham Stringer: In your discussion with departments, do you have difficulty in—or do you try to persuade them to look for space based solutions? Is that the nature of your discussion with them? Do you say: "You can do this in a different way and you need to look to space?"

  Dr Williams: In the areas where I have discussions with other departments since I arrived, we have had a discussion, first of all, about where their policy is going and what issues they are trying to address. Then we follow that up, in the same discussion and debate, about where we feel that space systems can help them solve it. For example, when we talk with the Home Office people from St Albans they are interested in one area, which is prisoner tagging. Can satellites help in that? We think it can in the future with Galileo because it has the ability to look inside buildings. They had an issue about marine surveillance and security where you can spot a ship or a boat but do you know what it is doing, and you have to integrate knowing that there is a boat there with the telecoms traffic from the boat to land, which is very often going through a satellite—this is back to the applications on security. So you are integrating information flows to try and help them solve their problem, and you are not going there and saying: "We have got all this technology, what can you do with it?" We have not done that at all. With DFID we had a meeting about their ambition of developing country support, and then, as they were looking at disaster management, we explained how the disaster constellations that exist in the UK and how space in general, can help them. The debate then warmed up and they take to it. So it is not throwing things at them; it is a real debate about services.

  Q638  Graham Stringer: Is there any resistance to space based solutions?

  Dr Williams: Only when you talk about money.

  Malcolm Wicks: Can I say, just to interject here, my colleague has explained how we are helping other departments already, or BNSC is. I think we can do more on that because as we develop this expertise, as we have a network of satellites, I think—and I gave the example through social policy maybe, maybe not, the monitoring of people with dementia or Alzheimer's—we can be more proactive in approaching other departments and other agencies to at least introduce them more to the possibilities as opposed to other tools and mechanisms in terms of fulfilling policy objectives.

  Q639  Graham Stringer: When you go for the user-driven approach, are there any conflicts between security—Ministry of Defence—issues and the other more benign issues?

  Malcolm Wicks: Well, clearly, the MoD, perfectly properly, will have its own agenda, it has got its own objectives, but I think in terms of development and technology there is, clearly, a lot we can do together, but, for reasons you will understand, we have to be a bit careful.