PROFESSOR COLIN BLAKEMORE, SIR JOHN CHISHOLM AND MR NICK WINTERTON

13 DECEMBER 2006

  Q345 Chairman: I welcome the second panel in front of us this morning. Mr Nick Winterton, the Executive Director oft the Medical Research Council; Sir John Chisholm, the Chairman of MRC, and Professor Colin Blakemore, the Chief Executive of MRC. Welcome to all three of you. I would ask that your answers be as brief as possible because we want to try and get through as much business as we can. I would like to begin with you, Sir John, and ask you what is the rationale still, having heard what we have heard this morning, behind moving NIMR from its site at Mill Hill? What is the basic rationale?

  Sir John Chisholm: My answers are going to be brief because I am relatively new to the situation. The policy, as I understand it, has been clear for a while in that what is required is a new institute for the 21st century with a different orientation towards translational research building on the brilliant science that we believe exists within Mill Hill. We fully endorse the statement you made at the end of the previous session that we thoroughly appreciate the quality of the science that we have in Mill Hill and the dedication and effort of the staff within them.

  Q346  Chairman: Professor Blakemore, would you answer that question. What is the rationale between NIMR's move from its site at Mill Hill?

  Professor Blakemore: There were several drivers for this decision. One, the very long-standing commitment of the MRC to use its investment in its intramural programme to provide maximum benefit for the science that it supports. Part of that policy involves attempts to embed, wherever possible, within the university sector investments in units and institutes. That process has been going on over several decades. In fact, NIMR is the last of the MRC's institutes and units which is not co-located with a university. This is not a new issue, it is a very long-standing one. The second driver—and in some senses surely the primary one—is the scientific driver. The MRC has a responsibility under its charter to pursue high-quality research with the ultimate objective of improving human health. The opportunities to do that effectively change with the changing characteristics of science. There is a prevailing view, first of all that the biomedical sciences have new opportunities to move in a translational direction and to deliver benefits for healthcare more quickly and secondly that to achieve that requires close association between basic research, clinical research and other aspects of the translational process. We feel that is—that this is a view that is shared around the world—is best achieved by co-location between basic researchers and the broader scientific environment.

  Q347  Chairman: I would like to pursue this with you because this comes to what seems to be the basic issue in that there was an initial understanding that the move would in fact replicate the facilities but 21st century facilities on a new site on Euston Road and what you were saying in the first part of your answer was that you want a change of direction for NIMR which is going to move into translational research which implies to me that something else is going to go because you are changing direction and I want to know what evidence you have that a move to co-locate the institute next to a teaching hospital is so essential. Where is the evidence that this will happen in other parts of the world? There are examples of institutes that stand alone with nothing more than an airport as one of my colleagues described.

  Professor Blakemore: I am sure that you are referring to Janelia Farm, the new development by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

  Q348  Chairman: Yes.

  Professor Blakemore: I have to say that Janelia Farm viewed with some scepticism by some of my colleagues because of its location. But the mission of Janelia Farm is very, very different from that envisaged for the new NIMR. Janelia Farm is unashamedly a purely basic research institute; it claims to be nothing else; it knows that it cannot be translational and that has been specifically stated. Indeed, what has also specifically stated is that to have been translational, it would have required contact with the clinical world. Janelia Farm is an experiment; it is an experiment in developing new talent in the biomedical sciences for the United States by providing a kind of hothouse environment for training with exceptional facilities, with staff maintained on short contracts who will provide the expertise to train the next generation of researchers passing through. The mission is quite different. Elsewhere, the trend is exactly the opposite and that is to try to move basic researchers ever closer into contact with clinicians and those who are expert in the translational process in other ways. There are examples all around the world—Toronto, Singapore and Duke University, and on the west coast of the States. It is undeniably a general trend. We do not now whether it will necessarily deliver; the process has not been going on long enough to be able to point to examples that are, as it were, the beacon of an exemplar in this process. But it is a conclusion that has been reached independently all around the world.

  Q349  Chairman: I would like to follow this line of thought about the change and you have explained the sort of change in terms of the rationale of the move to embed the institute next to a teaching hospital for that element of translational research but your comments to the Times Higher, which basically said that, unless this move goes ahead, the Institute as a whole will close, indicate that a lot of it is redundant at the moment and I find that very, very difficult to understand given the quality of research that is going on currently at Mill Hill. Would you like to explain why you said that.

  Professor Blakemore: I do not have the words in front of me but I hope that I did not say that. What I would have said was that the Mill Hill site will close. The great hope of the MRC and indeed the expectation of the MRC is that the Institute and its science will be preserved and we see that the best way of achieving that would be through co-location of as much of the Institute as can be accommodated and supported with UC. If that should prove impossible, the MRC is committed to doing all that it can to maintain the excellent science but not on the Mill Hill site.

  Q350  Chairman: I would like to move to you, Mr Winterton. How would you answer the charge—and I think this is the impression the Committee has—that the move to Euston Road has now become ideological rather than purely research and science led? How would you answer that charge?

  Mr Winterton: I am very actively involved in the development of the business case at the moment and there are two areas of work on which we are focusing: one is the argument around why have an institute and what is the nature of an institute and what makes an institute and what does that tell you about size and, integral to that argument, is an argument around the importance of a group of people working in very close geographical proximity. We are also engaged in presenting the arguments about the importance of developing the translational agenda, of broadening the range of interactions which UCL offers in relation to the physical sciences, mathematics, social sciences and a much wider range of potential interactions, and some of those arguments are rather similar. They also come back to what geographical proximity can offer you that working at a distance does not, not just in terms of collaboration but actually in terms of the culture and the mindset of the people who are working there and the potential for interactions, particularly with clinicians but not just with clinicians, on a more regular basis. We are developing those two arguments because they are integral to the case for first of all retaining the Institute and then for its move. I would say that neither of those are ideological in their basis and certainly, throughout this, I am not conscious that that has played any part in it at all.

  Adam Afriyie: It seems bizarre to me, as someone with a business background, to be in the process of developing a business case that would risk a fantastic institution on the basis of an emerging trend towards something which has been observed in one or two places around the world. By developing a business case now it seems to me that somewhere some of these enormous decisions have already been made. For example, option zero, staying where you are, is not even going to be worked up. How can you justify such a major change when you do not currently have a business case and where the numbers are changing probably as we speak in terms of rising cost for the option that you have explored? As a businessman, I am a little bemused as to how this all works together in some sort of logical rationale.

  Chairman: Who would you like to answer that?

  Q351  Adam Afriyie: I think probably Professor Blakemore and then a word from Mr Winterton because he has mentioned that he has been developing a case which is obviously current.

  Professor Blakemore: Sir John is the businessman and, if it is a question about business, I think that he ought to answer it.

  Sir John Chisholm: I will come back to that later, if I may.

  Professor Blakemore: I think that this rests on the fundamental vision. The business case is very important: we must demonstrate value for money, it has to be practicable and we have to be able to afford it. I would say that retaining something which we do not believe in the long run—and the long run means 40 or 50 years—is an appropriate investment for MRC science is the right thing to do.

  Q352  Adam Afriyie: So, it is based on faith.

  Professor Blakemore: Yes, based on faith but based on an enormous range of consultation. This is not an idea that has been conceived out of thin air by one or two people. The process has involved the Forward Investment Strategy committee, the Task Force and the whole of the Council of the MRC working over three or four years maintaining a consistent and unanimous view—the most unanimous feature being that the Mill Hill site is simply inappropriate in the long run to deliver the vision of the science. It is not exactly an inexpert group which has been giving advice. I was just doing the sums. All those various bodies which have advised, even without considering members of the Council, included nine fellows of the Royal Society and nine fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences. The MRC certainly cannot be accused of simply making decisions on the hoof.

  Mr Winterton: In the context of the business case, clearly the business case needs to present a range of options so that an assessment can be made of value for money and what you gain from, as I say, a spectrum of options and that is what we are working on, and one of those options which has to be presented is the option of doing nothing and then making a comparison between the nature of the investments that we are proposing—as I say, a range of investments—and comparing those in terms of what they offer in value for money. That is inherent in the nature of the business case that is currently being worked on.

  Q353  Adam Afriyie: So, you are working on the option of doing nothing?

  Mr Winterton: We have to present an option which allows a comparison to be made so that a judgment can be made about the value of the capital investment compared to the MRC's proposal.

  Q354  Chairman: Mr Winterton, we now have a situation where you are having to make a zero option because the Treasury says so; it has asked you to do that in terms of the case which you have been looking at. You have also been asked to present a case of 40% less investment and then to go up to the ideal options.

  Mr Winterton: Yes.

  Q355  Chairman: That indicates that there is a huge amount of confusion as the Treasury sees it in the business case that you are presenting. If there was a clear business case, it would be argued coherently.

  Sir John Chisholm: I think it is worth making the point that this process is not complete at this stage. We have not presented a final outcome of the process which we are working on and, in a sense, we are a little ahead of time.

  Q356  Chairman: With respect, it was presented and it was thrown back at you.

  Sir John Chisholm: No, we have not presented an outcome to the process which we are currently engaged in.

  Q357  Chairman: I am sorry, I am confused now. Please explain. What went to the Treasury that was sent back?

  Mr Winterton: We consulted OSI and Treasury on a draft and the draft included reference to the 40%, the 20% and the do nothing. Part of the comment that came back—and this was from OSI—was that they were not persuaded that we had done rigorous enough work in looking at the 40% and 20% reduction options, in looking at what was actually the best possible option at that level of investment. The material that we presented spoke about the damage that would be done but did not actually present, in value for money terms, the most credible case.

  Sir John Chisholm: The Council has not received or taken a view on any case up to this time.

  Q358  Chairman: Sir John, in terms of the Mill Hill site itself, could you tell me whether its value is included in the overall proposals.

  Sir John Chisholm: Yes.

  Q359  Dr Turner: Professor Blakemore, you invoke the Task Force in the history of this proposal. Could I quote from a member of the Task Force and I know that this view is shared by other distinguished members of the Task Force, "From what I understand, the MRC policy now is to build a substantially smaller institute with poorer facilities than at present. This policy makes no sense and I urge the Committee to ask the MRC to think carefully about proceeding down this path. An inferior solution that ignores the potential of the Mill Hill site to deliver the Task Force vision would go against reason". How do you react to that, Professor?

  Professor Blakemore: The implication that serious thought has not been given to this issue I think is, frankly, an insult to the MRC discharging its responsibilities. I am the accounting officer for the MRC: I am responsible for the financial decisions that it makes, the value for money for what it delivers. The MRC has a very clear mission to pursue high quality biomedical science and it does a really good job of that. Britain has just moved ahead of the United States in the G8 league table for the productivity of its biomedical science and the MRC makes a very substantial contribution to that. And the way in which it does that is by using the very highest quality advice and the best thinking to develop its strategies. This is one of its strategies.