PROFESSOR COLIN BLAKEMORE, SIR JOHN CHISHOLM AND MR NICK WINTERTON

13 DECEMBER 2006

  Q360  Dr Turner: In that case, why is it that you have not pursued the requests both the OSI, who gave your original proposal seven red lights and one amber, and the clear direction from the Treasury that the do nothing option or the de minimis option should be based on Mill Hill? You have not so far, as I understand it, presented any such option but you have said that Mill Hill is not an option.

  Professor Blakemore: I think that the red and amber lights you are referring to were from the OGC gateway report and Nick would be better qualified than I am to respond specifically to what was said, but the requirement from the Treasury to include a no change option was simply part of the formal process of options appraisal. It was not a statement by the Treasury that they wished us to develop a case for maintaining the Institute at Mill Hill. Is entirely the decision of the MRC what it wishes to do to realise the scientific objectives. It is simply a part of the options appraisal process that a no change option should be included and of course no change implies Mill Hill because that is where the Institute is at the moment.

  Q361  Dr Turner: Yes, but you must understand why simpleminded people like ourselves are going to get a little confused because you keep insisting that Mill Hill is not an option for the future.

  Professor Blakemore: I think what this Committee has to ask is whether it trusts the process that has served the MRC clearly extremely well given the record of history, in making decisions about how to invest public money in science, or not, or whether you think that an environment like this or even a consultative meeting with the staff of NIMR is a better way of deciding how, on balance, to invest public funds in science.

  Q362  Dr Turner: But you are proposing to invest a minimum of £320 million of public money to end up with something which is considerably less than the sum of the parts of what we already have. I think you will admit that this does require some justification.

  Professor Blakemore: Dr Turner, that is your assessment of the value of what would be achieved. I can assure you that that is not the view of the Council of the MRC as to what would be achieved, nor University College's view of what would be achieved. We are aiming towards the most exciting Institute for the future of the biomedical sciences in Europe, a place that people want to flock from the world to work in, a place that will set the standard for the combination of basic research and translational research to develop healthcare benefit. That is our vision for the future.

  Sir John Chisholm: I would also like to make the point that we have yet to propose anything at this time. The process is ongoing. If I may come back to the question of being a businessmen which Mr Afriyie raised earlier on, it is unusual in business, while you are conducting a very complicated and difficult assessment, to find yourself having to answer questions in the interim as you begin to develop a sound case. Of course, the issues you raise are being addressed. It would be terribly easy to make a decision which is, we will muddle through, spend the minimum and let the future take care of itself. As Professor Blakemore has said, the responsibility of the MRC is to take a long-term view as to what is the best investment of exactly the taxpayers' money that we are talking about. We have not reached a decision upon that yet. We are in the process of trying to produce a balanced argument weighing up all the issues and the do nothing case to which you refer is obviously in the mix.

  Q363  Dr Turner: So, you are preparing a business case for reinvestment in Mill Hill?

  Sir John Chisholm: No, the do nothing case, which is Mill Hill, is in the mix. It has to be.

  Q364  Dr Turner: You are telling us two different things. You are telling us that you are not going to invest anything in Mill Hill, nonetheless it is your do nothing option. However, the public has been told that Mill Hill will close. You cannot have it three ways.

  Sir John Chisholm: Perhaps Mr Winterton can be more specific.

  Mr Winterton: What we are going to have to do in the light of that is consider what does do nothing mean in the context of this. Clearly, we need a do nothing option which is essentially the status quo because that is needed in order to assess value for money in the context of any additional capital investment. What does it offer over and above what you have? So, there is that do nothing and there is also a do nothing in terms of what alternatives there might be in terms of relocation which would be some other form of relocation which would mean the closure of the Mill Hill site and the relocation of staff and what that might look like, so that too can be made as a comparator. That is the sole purpose of doing this. We have to present comparators with what ultimately Council will decide is its preferred option. So, the value for money of the investment can be made clear to OSI, Treasury and indeed to our own Council who have to obviously form that view for themselves and they have not reached that point yet.

  Q365  Dr Turner: What would relocation achieve? Are you suggesting that you must have relocation for its own sake? You have not mentioned any specific alternative to the UCL site. It is clear that the UCL site has significant disadvantages which cannot be overcome certainly within the current financial constraints. It would not surprise me if the Treasury simply said, "No. Go away. You have not made a sensible case for anything. We are not going to give you a penny". What would you do then?

  Professor Blakemore: We have always said that we would look at the other possibilities and options that were achievable within the funds that we have available, but against the background of the Council having stated very clearly that its desires to pursue science could not be fulfilled in the long run on the Mill Hill site. To respond to your criticism, there is an obvious difference between relocation for its own sake, which is what you are implying, and co-location. The driving motive would still be to co-locate the basic science of NIMR with appropriate university environments that would reinforce it, that would increase its critical mass, that would provide opportunities of collaboration into the future.

  Q366  Dr Turner: The critical mass of an institute such as Mill Hill currently is would dwarf any university department in which it was embedded, would it not? It already has a critical mass of science, it already has multi-disciplinarity within it, it already has transitional activities far beyond anything limited simply to UCL. The co-location which you suggest is not exactly a comfortable or close co-location because, frankly, it is a very awkward site. It is almost as quick to go from Mill Hill to UCH as it is to walk from the National Temperance Hospital.

  Professor Blakemore: I was interested in Dr Holder's estimates of how long it would take. Twenty minutes is, by my calculation, a third of a mile per hour, which is pretty slow walking even for an academic. Proximity is important, and the ease of access to colleagues is essential. That is, indeed, one of the advantages that would flow from the discussions and considerations we are having at the moment about having some parts of the institute literally embedded into other parts of the UC campus and, also, the mix that would be achieved within the main building by having University College scientists working alongside MRC scientists. You paint a picture of the institute as it is now, and I think one of the problems we have got into is that there is a conception that the institute as it is now, or really as it was in 2003, which is what is defended, is inevitably the way it must be for ever in the future: yet, if you look at the past history of this institute, it has evolved very significantly through new appointments and new directions of science extremely well. We are offering to the institute a step-change in the opportunity for that evolution by placing it in the environment in which the range of opportunities for interaction within 300 or 400 yards is enormous, not just with clinicians but with the physical sciences, with the social sciences, with mathematics and with computing—people who can meet each other at the seminars they will be going to day by day. There has been a lot of reference to the value of electronic communication, and of course that is essential, but I would posit that the internet helps you to pursue science; it does not help you to start science. You do not develop that spark of an idea by logging onto a website and suddenly saying, "There's someone doing something there. That's generating an idea for collaboration in my mind." You do it by face-to-face confrontation. I am afraid human nature still dominates those kinds of interactions. Being with people side-by-side is crucial. I went to a talk by Harold Varmus, Nobel Prize winner, former Director of NIH, at University College the other day. He made the point that, at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York where he works, 20 years ago there were basic scientists and clinicians in different parts of the building who never spoke to each other. He said that, over the years, they have become closer and closer together, so that now they are literally indistinguishable, with many clinician scientists working at the bench, and that has produced a dramatic acceleration in the translational output of that institute. I think that is a very good model for what we want to achieve.

  Q367  Dr Turner: That implies a very close co-location and you are not going to get that on the UCL site.

  Professor Blakemore: I would contradict that. First of all, a significant fraction of the researchers in the main building will be University College researchers. Secondly, the plans that we are working out now in the business case will involve accommodating part of the institute itself within the main university campus. The University College campus is itself evolving and expanding, and there are plans to move into that triangular area south of the new institute. Looking 20 or 30 years ahead in the future, it will be a very different environment, so there will be huge opportunities for direct interaction and they will be built into the way that the institute works.

  Q368  Dr Turner: Where are the plans and where are the costs?

  Professor Blakemore: That is what we are working on now and we hope to have definitive answers to that very soon.

  Q369  Dr Turner: Will you be able to do anything if the Treasury refuses to contribute?

  Professor Blakemore: That is a hypothetical question. We want to create an argument which is so strong that we will convince the Treasury. Of course, if they turn that down, we will have to think again but it will be very clear what our preferred option is.

  Q370  Dr Iddon: I think it would be an understatement if I said that you have adopted an extremely high-risk strategy here and I want to examine that for a moment. First of all, Dr Turner was right that if the Treasury find your costs unacceptable, that is the first part of a very high-risk strategy. You have already locked yourself into this decision in a way because you have paid £28 million, as I understand it, for the Euston Road site, which is almost twice the previous business case estimate. If the Treasury do turn it down, what will you do with that site?

  Professor Blakemore: We would have to dispose of it. Of course, we took full advice before making the purchase. I would remind you again, I am the accounting officer of the MRC: I was very concerned that we took good advice that we are likely to be able to realise that sum by selling on if we have to. But that is not the intention. By the way, it was on the basis of those arguments that the Treasury gave us permission to use that money.

  Q371  Dr Iddon: The second part of the high-risk strategy really is your relationship with Camden Council in the planning committee. I have been in local government for 21 years and if you came to me suggesting that you were wanting to move into central Bolton a category 4 containment facility, two animal houses coming into central Bolton from an area conveniently outside the town, I would just look at you in amazement as a member of the planning committee. My question to the three of you is: What preliminary discussions have you held with the planning department of Camden Council?

  Mr Winterton: There have been three sets of discussions so far with Camden Council of what would be acceptable on the site and that has helped shape the discussion in the context of the business case, the outline feasibility study which we presented in May last year which gave us the security, as it were, that we could develop on the National Temperance Hospital site a building that would meet the Council's needs. We have had two subsequent discussions with Camden. I would point out that there are already many facilities in central London, there are many animal facilities in central London, and there are also containment 3 category containment facilities in central London. That, in itself, is not different from what is already in existence. UCL alone have a number of animal facilities.

  Professor Blakemore: Could I tackle this question of containment. The requirement and the only requirement—and I am assured of that by the former director of NIMR and by Jonathan Stoye, who is a divisional head, and who is a user of the present category 4 facility at NIMR—for category 4 at Mill Hill is for work on highly pathogenic avian flu. That was the basis of the requirement that the institute presented us with for producing full HSE CL4 containment facilities in the new building, something that clearly would be an issue since there are not such facilities in cities around the world. It turns out after very extensive inquiry that CL4 facilities are not required for work on highly pathogenic avian flu. If I could quote from a definitive letter from Paul Manser who is the Chief Veterinary Advisor at Defra and who issues licences for work on avian flu: "I can confirm that a laboratory does not have to comply with HSE ACDP CL4 requirements in order to be licensed under the Specific Animal Pathogens Order 1998 (SAPO) to carry out research work on avian influenza viruses that are specified animal pathogens such as highly pathogenic H5N1". There is no work at NIMR or work in the Quinquennial Review proposals that requires full category 4 facilities."

  Q372  Chairman: Professor Blakemore, that contradicts the point you made earlier, that you are not providing facilities for the next five years, you are looking ahead for the next 50 years. The idea that you will not need those sorts of facilities to carry out research in the future should not be ruled out, should it?

  Professor Blakemore: Surely not, but the institute of course could claim that the MRC could expect that the institute would want access to any range of other facilities. It would be ridiculous to suggest that we have to pack into a single building everything that a multidisciplinary institute could conceivably require into the future. We must try to guarantee that access to those facilities would be available if the need arose into the future. But how could we defend spending public money on providing facilities—at enormous cost, by the way—even if it were permissible—that are not required for the work that is proposed? That would be indefensible.

  Q373  Dr Iddon: There are problems with a nuclear magnetic resonance machine as well being put over a tube line.

  Professor Blakemore: It will not be.

  Q374  Dr Iddon: We have already had an alternative explanation that you can move that into another building away from the tube line but that is a minor problem as far as I am concerned compared with the two animal houses and the category 4 containment—or category 3 as you are now telling us. Assuming the worst scenario, that you lose one or both of these at the planning stage—because it is not the planning officers giving you advice now who are going to make the decisions; it is the members of the council who will make the decision in the end—would you still go ahead with the Temperance Hospital site?

  Sir John Chisholm: I think we have to return to what we have been saying all along, that we are not complete on this process yet. We have to take proper advice in order to make a balanced judgment and we are not finished on that process yet. The points you make are pretty good points. All the points that have been made today—and, believe me, we are very cognisant of those issues—have to be properly balanced and weighted in the judgment that the MRC eventually come to, but the council has not yet received the case and the people are working hard in trying to balance these various issues. We are coming back to the point about how a businessman would look at it. Occasionally in business you come across a situation where you have an excellent business, it is just in the wrong market, and then you have to take a long-term view as to what you are going to do about that. Sometimes it is uncomfortable. We are very sympathetic, for instance, to the staff, who have worked incredibly hard and very well to have achieved the results of the institute thus far.

  Q375  Dr Turner: Are you saying that they are in the wrong market?

  Sir John Chisholm: We are saying that for the 21st century there was a translational vision which is now very important to us.

  Q376  Dr Iddon: As a scientist myself, my biggest worry is that, with all these limitations that you have locked yourself into by choosing this particular site in central London, you are willing, it seems to me, to sacrifice a hell of a lot of good science by first of all moving on to a 0.9 acre site from a huge site in the northern part of London and, then, if you lose one or both of these facilities you are also excluding more sites. It is the damage to science that this Committee is most concerned about. How would you answer us when we suggest to you that locking yourself into all these constrains you are going to have to lose a lot of good science?

  Sir John Chisholm: Obviously, the main role of the MRC is to further science, so damaging science is the last thing which we believe we should be doing.

  Professor Blakemore: It is the opportunities for the future of science that are the main driver.

  Chairman: Could I just say that I think Brian is absolutely right, this Committee is not trying to best-guess the business case. We are trying to best-case what is the science mission in terms of this movement. It has become clear today that there is a very significant change of direction. Perhaps that needs to be better explained, not only to ourselves in the Committee but also to the staff at Mill Hill, because that is a major issue.

  Bob Spink: As this Committee knows from its previous inquiries, we are living in an increasingly dangerous and changing world and the sort of activities in which this centre has to be involved have to change along with that world and provide for protection for society at large. I am going to ask the team a series of sensitive question, Mr Chairman. I would suggest that perhaps yes and no answers would be appropriate and we can follow up with some private correspondence between ministers and perhaps the MRC.

  Chairman: I always worry what you are going to say next!

  Q377  Bob Spink: Because these matters may be best kept private. I wonder if you are aware and if Camden Council is aware that the National Counter-terrorism Security Office has expressed serious concerns that the security of the current work being undertaken by the CL4 at NIMR may be put at risk by the move. Are you aware of that?

  Professor Blakemore: You are referring to advice that we had from MI5 as part of our consultation when we were considering building a CL4 facility at the renewed institute. We found out subsequently that a CL4 facility is not required for the work of the institute, so that is no longer relevant.

  Q378  Bob Spink: As I explained in my opening remarks, Chairman, that is a matter of conjecture. All we know is that this is a dangerous world, changing very fast, and NIMR will have to respond to that. Secondly, are you aware that there is concern from the National Counter-terrorism Security Office that the move could attract the type of extremism action on animal rights that has been seen recently at Oxford and Cambridge? Are you aware of that?

  Professor Blakemore: Of course we are, but, as Dr Harris said, it would be a very sad development for science if the research councils were constrained in their plans for doing the best for science by the action of a small group of extremists.

  Q379  Bob Spink: On containment, are you aware that it is the case that both the consequences and the possibility of a failure of containment, accidental or deliberate, of highly pathogenic avian flu, H5N1, or some other pathogen such as that, in central London would be a much more serious and difficult matter to handle than such a failure of containment at the Mill Hill site? That is the consequences and the possibility.

  Professor Blakemore: H5N1 is an ACDP category 3 pathogen. There are dozens of category 3 facilities in the London area and I think a lot of the misconceptions about the nature of work of NIMR have grown around this claim that CL4 is needed. CL4 is associated with the image of horrendous pathogens like Marburg and Ebola. Those pathogens are not being studied at NIMR and there is no plan in their proposals for research to do so.

  Chairman: I think you have made that point, so I do not really want to continue on that.