UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 470-ii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE

INVESTIGATING THE OCEANS

Wednesday 16 May 2007

DR JOE HORWOOD, DR ROBIN HENSLEY and DR MIKE BELL

PROFESSOR ANDREW J WILLMOTT, PROFESSOR ED HILL and PROFESSOR PETER LISS

Evidence heard in Public Questions 130 - 253

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Science and Technology Committee

on Wednesday 16 May 2007

Members present

Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair

Linda Gilroy

Dr Evan Harris

Dr Brian Iddon

Chris Mole

Mr Brooks Newmark

Dr Bob Spink

Graham Stringer

Dr Desmond Turner

________________

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Dr Joe Horwood, Deputy Chief Executive, Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Dr Robin Hensley, International Partnering Programme Team Leader, UK Hydrographic Office, and Dr Mike Bell, Head, National Centre for Ocean Forecasting, Met Office, gave evidence.

Q130 Chairman: Good morning to our special witnesses this morning: Dr Joe Horwood from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Cefas; Dr Robin Hensley, from the International Partnering Programme, the Team Leader for the UK Hydrographic Office; and Dr Mike Bell, Head from the National Centre for Ocean Forecasting, the Met Office. Gentlemen, you are very welcome to this evidence session of our inquiry investigating the oceans. Could I ask you, Dr Hensley, to be the chair of your panel and please bring in your colleagues. How do you see the roles of organisations like Cefas, the UKHO and the Met Office in marine science and technology research? What is their principal role at the moment?

Dr Hensley: I will speak about the Hydrographic Office and then I will defer to my colleagues. The UKHO itself does not conduct research. However, we collate data that are gathered and we turn those into products and services, either for the military or for the civilian user. We are not a research organisation but we are a user, a consumer of data. We could have a role in requesting or requiring research to be done where there are gaps within the research, but primarily we are not a research organisation. We just have a database that we manage and use to service our community.

Dr Horwood: We have a fairly clear role. It is very much as a supporter of government and other departments, particularly Defra from which we receive over 70 per cent of our funding, in the Marine and Fisheries Divisions of Defra with its national and international responsibilities. We are engaged in support of obligations, monitoring, research and advice. We have emergency response capabilities which fit in with that. Our research does tend to be very applied to support the needs of the government policy divisions; it tends to be more short term than and programmes managed by, for instance, NERC.

Q131 Chairman: It is basically the Government that sets your work programme?

Dr Horwood: All our work, apart from a very small amount which we ourselves do, is done through particular contractual committees, mainly through Defra; then about 25 per cent of that funding is won in competition but it is work that is aligned to the core. We do significant work for the two standard agencies in monitoring radio activity, including the environment, in looking at the toxins in marine foods for the food Standards Agency, and we have a significant portfolio of EU research programmes, which again support the core Defra marine and fisheries programme.

Q132 Chairman: It is virtually all public sector funded?

Dr Horwood: It is but it need not necessarily be. About 5 to 10 per cent of our work is overseas and for other governments.

Q133 Chairman: What is the overall budget?

Dr Horwood: It is presently £43 million.

Q134 Chairman: You say that roughly 5 to 10 per cent comes from the private sector?

Dr Horwood: Having looked at my notes, the figure is at present 4 per cent, 4 per cent from the EU, and about 25 per cent is won in competition with other organisations nationally and internationally.

Dr Bell: The primary role of the Met Office with respect to marine science is to use up-to-date marine and science and technology to make predictions. There are three timescales for which we make predictions. There are climate predictions, predicting how the climate is going to vary and change over the next 50 to 100 years. There are seasonal forecasts that we make; for example, the cold winter forecast that we made not for last winter but the preceding winter. We also make forecasts of the surface waves, coastal flooding, storm surges and surface temperature around currents in the ocean on a short timescale, so just a few days ahead. Obviously to do all of those things, monitoring of the oceans is very important to us. We ourselves play a small role in that.

Q135 Graham Stringer: What is the balance of resources into those three areas of forecasting, as a percentage?

Dr Bell: As percentages, the kind of prediction with seasonal forecasting together is just over 50 per cent of those and we spend of the order of £1.8 million per annum on those activities; that is, the marine aspects of those. For short-range forecasting, we spend, as we stated in our evidence, £1.3 million; I think it is slightly more than that at £1.5 million per year on short-range forecasting, which is primarily funded by the Ministry of Defence.

Q136 Chairman: Obviously the whole marine space is used significantly. When I was growing up, it was seen as a major source of food and that was it. It is now used in all sorts of different ways. How is your work changing? How is your workload changing? How would you say the emphasis of your budget changes to meet the changes in the marine environment and the uses of it for things like energy? I would like a comment from each of you.

Dr Bell: Obviously the climate change agenda has increased in importance dramatically over the last ten years. That work is jointly funded by Defra and MoD. It is of course up to Defra and MoD to decide how much money to spend in that area. The seasonal forecasting area has also gone up the agenda recently because it has become more plausible; we can make seasonal forecasts with a useful level of skill. I think that has become clearer over the last five years than it was ten years ago, particularly for forecasting in north-west Europe and for seasonal forecasting in the tropical regions, it has been understood that that has been possible for some time. Operational forecasting has gone up the agenda a lot in the last ten years as well because it is only in the last ten years that it has been seen to be feasible. Surface wave forecasting has been going on for quite a long time. That is well established, and so is storm surge prediction, so the coastal predictions on the basis of which the Environment Agency issues warnings of coastal flooding. That is well established but in some of the other areas, in particular forecasting of currents in the ocean, the technology has only just got to the point in the last ten years where that is coming through as a viable and reasonable thing to do.

Dr Hensley: From the UKHO perspective, it is not as direct as the forecasting function from the Met Office. We support the Maritime and Coastguard Agency discharging the Government's Safety of Lives at Sea regulations, and we do that through the provision of navigational products and services. In order to achieve that, the bathometric survey programme needs to be geared to respond to environmental changes in shipping areas, for example, and areas that have not been particularly well surveyed. One could argue that our role follows environmental change in that respect. It is responding really to the requirements of the needs for safe navigation. In our defence area, again we are responding to the requirements for environmental information and data. There is not as clear a driver as for the Met Office looking at forecasting of, say, storm surges. We respond in that respect. It is not as direct.

Q137 Chairman: Have the technologies changed dramatically?

Dr Hensley: Yes.

Q138 Chairman: Give me an example of where five years ago something you are doing now is totally different from the way in which you were operating five years ago using technology.

Dr Bell: There is one rather good example of that, I think, which is the ARGO system, which is a system of floats which are about the size of a man. They spend most of their time at about 1000 metres depth within the deep ocean and once every ten days or so they come up to the surface. They go down to 2000 metres and come up measuring temperature and salinity, then they signal that via satellite to shore. There are nearly 3000 of these of those floats distributed globally in the water now. This programme was first considered in 1997. I remember very vividly thinking how marvellous it would be if we could really have such a system monitoring the oceans with 3000 floats with a very good geographical distribution. That data is freely available over the worldwide web. We use it to keep our forecasts on track and close to reality. I think that is one of several examples.

Q139 Dr Spink: Could I ask how that actually works with predictions of temperatures and salinity? What does that enable you to predict?

Dr Bell: Knowing the temperature and salinity of the oceans is important because the temperature and salinity structure drives the currents, together with the surface winds. It is that thermal and density structure which drives the currents. If you want to do things like monitor the thermohaline circulations, this is the circulation that does a lot of the transport of heat from the Equator to the Poles and it is very important in the earth's climate.

Q140 Dr Spink: Had we had that in 1953, would it have enabled us to know sooner about the massive surge in tide and flood that hit the south-east of England, for instance?

Dr Bell: It would not have been relevant to that particular application. Tide gauges are more valuable for that particular application. So, yes, there is an important point there that, in monitoring, you have to be very clear about the purposes of the monitoring.

Q141 Linda Gilroy: To Dr Hensley, you have described how you are focused around providing navigational products and the basic hydrographic activity is to map the bed of the ocean. What proportion of the oceans has actually been mapped?

Dr Hensley: That is a fine question.

Q142 Linda Gilroy: They are not mapped in their entirety, as I understand it, by a long chalk.

Dr Hensley: They are not. I cannot give you an answer in terms of percentage, I am afraid. There is also a question of to what standard they are mapped and whether they are charted and surveyed to International Hydrographic Office standards for navigational requirements or whether it is for environmental purposes. Going back slightly, if I may digress, when I was still but a lowly student, and it is not that long ago, I understand that in the deep sea area that I used to work in there was approximately a football pitch worth of ground, if you like, that had been thoroughly surveyed but that is at least 15 years ago. I do not have the figures for the UK. I am sure we get give you those.

Q143 Chairman: It would be useful if we had those. I turn to you, Dr Horwood, and ask you in terms of Cefas about how your agency has changed and its work has changed to meet the changing use of the marine environment, briefly.

Dr Horwood: May I pick up on one of the technologies for instance which again we share with the Met Office, we have developed over the last few years some offshore wave censors, which have been very helpful in predicting local flooding in the last 12 months. We now have this system of offshore real time data coming in which complements the shore-based gauges. We are looking more and more to remote data collection but the key area for us is really the increasing international interest and international obligations to monitor and keep an eye on the coastal seas. Rather than the wonderful technologies that are coming on board, it is the increasing interest in getting proper baseline information.

Q144 Chairman: Why do you think that we have had evidence given to the committee that Cefas is becoming much more aggressive, much more remote and much less co-operative in terms of the other marine science organisations of late? Why do you think that should have been reported to us? Is it true? You do not look like a very predatory man from here!

Dr Horwood: There are some good things about that. We have been extremely fortunate, and I think the country is quite fortunate, in having agreed a ten-year deal with Defra on our future. We have a ten-year funding programme. This is in the context of the Public Sector Research Establishment report, which said that all the government's research establishments are really at risk from the sustainability point of view. They have attempted to address that but the agreement is for ten years of flat funding. Of course, as you can imagine, at the end of that period, there will be a gap to fill. At present, they are filling 77 per cent; in ten years' time, they will be filling than 60 per cent. We will be looking to wider markets to fill the gap. This is not just to keep people in business. It is actually to keep teams and facilities alive in order to underpin the government. There is an induced financial driver to do this but also it has been enormously beneficial to us. There has been, since the Sixties and Seventies, a contraction in funding for marine research. Our area of interest has contracted and this ability to go out into the wider market has enabled us to do a much richer range of research. A lot of our scientists are much more fulfilled. If you refer to the submission from Oxford University, they have pointed out that some of our institutes might be as good if they too were subjected to more competition. There are lots of good things and drivers for competition. These people who we are competing with one day of course are our partners in other complex research projects the next day.

Q145 Chairman: I do not have a clear picture yet as to whether you will drive policy and therefore say to Government, "This is what we need to be doing", or whether you are just simply recipients of government policy and carry it out. Can you tell us briefly where you sit on that continuum between being the driver and being purely the recipient?

Dr Bell: The Met Office's role is to provide impartial, objective, scientific advice on which policy can be based but it is not to enter into the discussion of the policy itself.

Dr Hensley: The policy for data collection for defence is set within MoD. FLEET is the organisation that controls vessels to collect the data that we get. We do have some role at the IHO alongside the MCA but the MCA is responsible for discharging our SOLAS obligations. We are advisory in that respect.

Dr Horwood: We have no exclusive policy role or responsibility. We are essentially a delivery agent but our Defra colleagues see us as partners so that they have an informed customer role. In addition, we sit on quite a lot of high level expert panels at the European level where we are influencing the European policy agenda. We ourselves are not responsible for agreeing any particular set of policies.

Q146 Dr Spink: Dr Hemsley mentioned the MoD. I wondered if he could expand a little on what the MoD's role is in marine science research and technology development.

Dr Hensley: I do not sit in a research organisation, so I cannot comment directly on the way MoD directs its research funds. We are recipients of the data from various programmes that they undertake so that we can turn them into products and services for them. It would be speculation for me if I was to throw that back.

Q147 Dr Spink: Mike Bell, do you have a view on where the MoD sits and how they advise on scientific information?

Dr Bell: There is a research acquisition organisation within MoD which plays that sort of role. They acquire research from us, for example. There is also the DSTL of course, which undertakes a lot of research for the Ministry of Defence.

Q148 Dr Spink: What sort of research is it looking for?

Dr Bell: It is a very broad range of research. I think there are seven pillars under which the research is organised. I perhaps need to check that and send you a written answer.

Q149 Dr Spink: For instance, do they come up with specific projects or do they just come up with problems and ask you to look at how you might design research and technology to solve those problems?

Dr Bell: In our specific case, which might be a good example, the programme of work that we do, which involves some research, is agreed with the MoD customers, with the policy customer within MoD. There is a discussion as to what their priorities are, what our capabilities are and what we could develop that would be valuable to them. The projects that they drive are worked out in quite a collaborative and constructive way.

Dr Hensley: There is a body called the Co-operative Arrangements for Research in Ocean Science. That is attended by the directors of the NERC institutes and it is co-chaired by one of the NERC directors and an MoD representative. At that level, there is mutual discussion on requirements.

Q150 Dr Spink: Could I turn to the relationship between Cefas and the OSI, Dr Horwood? What is your relationship with the OSI?

Dr Horwood: I have to admit that I do not know whether IACMST is still part of OSI.

Q151 Chairman: You do not know whether it is?

Dr Horwood: I personally do not know; maybe I should. I do not know what the parent of IACMST is but we have a seat on the IACMST. As you have already heard, it is a form of co-ordinating body and it sends information up through the system. We do contribute to the open consultation on framework programmes. Also, via Defra, the OSI have an overall responsibility for the quality of science across government. We see that effect through our science audits and through the review of science in Defra. I would be straining to find any closer content.

Q152 Dr Spink: It seems to me then that there is not really that much collaboration or contact between you as someone who delivers science in a specific area, the issue of agriculture, and the OSI. That is quite surprising. I would have thought there was very close collaboration to make sure that there are no gaps and overlaps.

Dr Horwood: One area that I missed in that is that of course they would probably be leading on our response to the framework programmes in Europe, and again either independently or through Defra we would be feeding in our thoughts to that. Our key association is with the parent department to commission specific work. There are lots of areas where we are very much joined up at the European and North Atlantic level.

Q153 Dr Spink: Do the OSI get involved in any quality issues in terms of your research and quality advice delivery?

Dr Horwood: That is only in terms of their remit to overlook the quality of science conducted by government departments as a whole.

Q154 Dr Iddon: It sounds to me as if the bulk of the money for your three agencies comes as a result of programmes rather than as core funding, which you could direct as you wish. Is that correct?

Dr Hensley: UKHO is a trading fund, so we do receive some funding from the MoD in order to turn around the data that they provide to us to provide defence-specific products and services. We use the bathometric data from the civilian hydrographic programme as administered by they MCA and we quality assure those data and turn those into navigational products and services. It is the sale of those navigational products and services that supports the agency.

Q155 Dr Iddon: What about the other two agencies?

Dr Horwood: To my understanding, yes, that is right; we are funded through programmes.

Q156 Dr Iddon: Do you think that is right or would you prefer to have more core funding to develop research ideas, for example? What would you like to do that you cannot do at the moment? Are there any pressing problems?

Dr Bell: I think that the existing arrangements are quite good. I do think having programmes is quite a good arrangement. There are areas where the co-ordination across government is quite difficult to bring marine science through into practical applications. I am thinking in particular, for example, of counter pollution responses to, for example, oil spills, to the co-ordination across government of the requirements for that to bring new marine research through into those operations. I think that the co-ordination there could be improved. It is those sorts of areas where I think there is a gap.

Q157 Dr Iddon: Dr Harwood, what could your organisation be doing if you were not so restricted by programmes?

Dr Horwood: It would depend upon the scale. There is a very significant list of things that needs to be done at sea. We really do not understand how the sea works at all. You might be interested to have a look at the IC submission to the Maritime Marine paper where they have a fairly thick set of recommendations for activities. One of the key things is to understand how the sea is going to change in response to anthropogenic stresses and annual climate change. We really need to be monitoring it more intensively to understand the natural variation from which we then see signals of change. The first is monitoring; the second is understanding how the sea as a system works. In terms of our internal programmes, likewise, I think our marine environment, the fisheries divisions in Defra, are very supportive of work in thus area. I am sure if they had more from the Treasury, they would be more than willing to invest more in this area. Within our own programmes, we really are a bit constrained to delivering fairly targeted programmes. It would be nice to have a little bit of space within each programme for a bit more innovation and sitting back and thinking.

Dr Hensley: As a trading fund, we are very focused on our objectives. I will not quote those. We are there to provide navigation products and services. One of our objectives is organisational excellence and maximising the benefit of those uses. I do not have any comments to add to those of my colleagues.

Q158 Dr Iddon: Are all government agencies able to bid for their funding and indeed other research council funding or are there some difficulties in that area?

Dr Horwood: There are some difficulties. There has been a recent change in the character of research council eligibility such that my organisation, and I guess the Met Office, are no longer in a position to be given any of the research council funding at all. This is a problem. We can still receive it as subcontractors but the key thing is that as a leader in a programme, you very much can drive a particular idea forward, in competition with everybody else who is competing. We did see that as a bit of a blow. I understand there were representations from the Defra Chief Scientist back to the research council, although I cannot say what the outcome of that is.

Dr Bell: The Met Office under the new rules is not able to apply for money from research councils but I believe that it can take part in projects as subcontractors. In the past, it has been a bit less clear whether the Met Office could take part in, say, NERC-funded projects. There have been projects where collaboration between the Met Office and NERC was obviously very desirable and we collaborated in the projects, but there was difficulty getting funding for the Met Office for that, so we tried to get funding from the Ministry of Defence and that did make it difficult to get the projects started. We were successful in the end, I should say.

Q159 Dr Iddon: Could you each tell the committee, and you have hinted at some of this already but perhaps we could clarify it, how much involvement each of your agencies has with the private sector? Is it important that you bring in a lot of private sector money or not? We will start with the Met Office. You must service a lot of the private sector.

Dr Bell: We do service the private sector. The marine research part of the Met Office has much more contact with the NERC laboratories, which is very strong at the moment. To come back to your question, the Met Office in the marine sector has the Aberdeen Weather Centre, which services the oil and gas industry, particularly in the North Sea. There is a programme within the Met Office to develop commercial products to serve the marine sector in various aspects, like energy, marine renewables and the leisure industry. There is a list of things. It is in fact a fairly small group.

Q160 Dr Iddon: Professor Hensley, how important is the private sector to you?

Dr Hensley: Our remit is to meet the safe navigation requirements of international mariners, so the private sector as a customer of our products is very important. In the paper charting the world, I think the figure is approximately 85 per cent of world vessels in the SOLAS market would carry British Admiralty charts.  It is very important that we do meet their requirements precisely in terms of up-to-date information delivered on time of reliable products and so on, so they are very important to us.

Dr Horwood: We obviously serve the private sector as an agent of Defra, for instance to help in licensing the stakeholders and fisheries, but as direct customers for our services, provided there are no conflicts of interest or they can be managed, we can take on private sector clients. As it has turned out, that really has not to date been a very significant part of our business. The area we seem to be most suited to is support is other government departments or even overseas governments or the European Union.

Q161 Dr Turner: The IACMST takes the view that marine science could be better co-ordinated. What is your view on that from the point of view of your agencies?

Dr Hensley: We have a representative on IACMST, so we are party to that. We are involved in that. We are also involved in the Marine Data Information Partnership (MDIP) along with our colleagues within the MoD. As I said earlier, we are not responsible for doing research but we are part of that community. We play our part in that respect.

Q162 Dr Turner: Do you think it could be better co-ordinated? Do you agree with the committee in that view?

Dr Hensley: I do not really have view. I am not sure whether it can or cannot be, to be honest.

Dr Bell: The co-ordination certainly between the Met Office and NERC has improved enormously over the past ten years. The National Centre for Ocean Forecasting is a very good example of that. That is a consortium that has been set up to enable the marine research that is done within the quorum within NERC to pull through more effectively into our short-range forecasting operations. I think there things have improved a lot at working level. That is very important. There is co-ordination with the Met Office down to the use, particularly by government departments, of the information and the forecast predictions that we produce. I have indicated already that there are some areas where that could be strengthened. We set up a stakeholders' group to try to encourage that. That is certainly an area where things could be better.

Q163 Dr Turner: That is within the Ministry of Defence and yourselves, is it not?

Dr Bell: The stakeholder group includes people from Cefas, from HR Wallingford, from BP and MCA, so from quite a wide rage of organisations. The other area I would mention is marine monitoring. Better co-ordination there is really crucial. Some good steps have been taken with the UK marine monitoring and assessment strategy and the setting up of the policy committee and the sub-committees under that. It needs co-ordination of funding as well as just co-ordination in meeting up to get some common ideas.

Q164 Dr Turner: Some of that long-term monitoring has nearly been lost because of gaps in funding?

Dr Bell: Yes.

Q165 Dr Turner: Dr Horwood, what is your view?

Dr Horwood: There is a great deal of co-ordination that goes on that I guess you need to be able to see to identify the particular weaknesses. The question was put to us as: you see your work as coming from programmes. Where there are some programmes, and these are often aligned to European programmes, there is a great deal of co-ordination, particularly at the European level because we are essentially an international business. When things happen at sea, we have been used to joining together with other countries for many years. There are key European committees. The International Council for Exploration of the Sea has a key remit to co-ordinate work. The European Science Foundation has a marine board that brings together research councils across Europe. Under the new Maritime Bill, ICs and the European Science Foundation hope to get together to have even greater co-ordination. Nationally, the devolved administrations and Defra join together to ensure there is a coherent UK programme in fisheries and the marine environment. They are taking the lead on UKMMAS, the marine environmental monitoring programme, which for the first time has been brought together and includes a review of what resources are needed to deliver that. There is a huge amount of co-ordination that goes on. To me, the weak bit is then the bit from our type of organisation to NERC, the research councils and the universities. There is less coherence there than in some of the other areas where there is very strong co-ordination.

Q166 Dr Turner: You are all basically agreeing with the inter-agency committee's view then that co-ordination is not as good as it might be. There seem to be far too many organisations doing their thing that may or may not be talking to each other and collaborating. It strikes us as somewhat analogous to the situation we found in space science where there is a relatively weak national committee charged with co-ordinating space science, but it lacks clout and it lacks funding. The question there is: should there be a national agency with its own funding and given far more authority? We are wondering whether this applies to marine science as well. We have the example in the US of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association as just such a body. What would your view be on the establishment of a comparable body in the UK? Do you think it could improve for instance the overall funding of marine science, which clearly is not enough to do everything that is desirable?

Dr Bell: I think one of the points that you do need to bear in mind is that different organisations have different roles. You have the NERC institutes which are focused very much on marine research.

Q167 Chairman: We are very anxious to get an answer directly to Dr Turner's question. Is an agency a good idea or not?

Dr Bell: I will come on to that. One of the questions is what the scope of that agency would be, what it would actually cover, and whether it would cover the whole of marine research, whether it would cover research through to operations and applications?

Q168 Dr Turner: Assume the answer is yes to that question, then continue please.

Dr Bell: Across the whole thing, I do not think that would be the right thing to do. For the operational work, the Met Office is very good place to do that because of the gearing that you get from the web forecasting. If you did that work anywhere other than the Met Office, it would cost an awful lot more money. The Met Office has a rather small group of people involved in marine research. That would not be an appropriate place to bring all the marine research institutes. Those need to be closer to the universities.

Dr Horwood: It is not entirely clear that we have a UK strategy for marine research to underpin what we need from the marine side. It would seem sensible that somewhere there is a very high level overview on whether we have the strategy right for UK plc, and whether all the key players are contributing. I do not believe IACMST has worked but I do not know why. Lots of the key players are sitting around that table. Maybe that is the organisation you are talking about. I have to say that there does seem to me to be a fair amount of bureaucracy in co-ordination already. I do not think I would relish a further layer of bureaucracy.

Q169 Dr Turner: Perhaps we might be able to take some layers out. What is Cefas doing to help in promoting collaboration with the marine science community, both nationally and internationally?

Dr Horwood: Internationally, we are involved in major bodies such as ICES, the International Council for Exploration of the Sea; this is an intergovernmental body. I happen to be their President. We have seats on the council. As a body, it tends to be on the more applied side of co-ordinating research rather than blue skies, although clearly there is not a bar to that. Through that, we are seeking to join up at the European level through OSPAR, the Oslo/Paris Convention, which has responsibility for the marine environment. There are various key groups there where scientists around Europe get together to comment on the quality of the marine environment and its biodiversity. Nationally, through consultations such as that through 20-25, we do join and have partners, although they clearly own that process, and at present Defra and the devolved administrations are funding a specific programme to help join 20-25 type activities with our fisheries laboratory type activities.

Q170 Dr Turner: Dr Bell, no one would suggest I think that we meddle around with the Met Office because it does an extremely good job. I think you can rest assured on that. Do you think that NERC is doing enough to enable researchers to get the benefit of the Met Office's facilities?

Dr Bell: I think that there is quite a good and an increasingly good working relationship between the Met Office and quite a number of NERC research institutes. We had a NCOV workshop a couple of weeks ago with 50 people present, half of them from the NERC research institutes. I think that there is good support from the directors of the marine institutes to encourage their staff to work with us. There is good grass roots support. We have a list of 50 small collaborative projects between ourselves and the other members of NCOV, which is really helping to pull their work through into our operations.

Q171 Dr Turner: You are conscious of this issue?

Dr Bell: Yes, we are. I should say that in the climate area as well, and I have been talking about the short-range forecasting of NKOVK, there is a committee for UK strategy for climate modelling. There is good collaboration between the Met Office and a number of groups in the development of the components of system modelling; for example, atmospheric chemistry, land surface modelling and carbon cycle modelling.

Q172 Dr Turner: Finally, while I am on this theme, there seems to be a player missing in this country. In the United States, the US Navy actually plays a role in marine science now. Do you think we should get the MoD to get the Navy involved here? They still have a few ships, almost as many ships as they have admirals. They could be asked to tow a few plankton monitors while they are at it and so on. Why is the Navy not involved?

Dr Hensley: May I first pick up on the NERC point? The UKHO provides data for example to the British Oceanographic Data Centre. We do provide our data into the NERC communities through that route. We also exchange data with our NATO partners. We have some work, I hesitate to call it research, for which we will contract some research establishments, such as Southampton, to help us in answering relatively short-term key questions on defence. We do have some links there. With regard to the use of naval vessels, the MoD will set the policy for defence's data collection and FLEET will be responsible for tasking vessels to collect. So if there is a wider question on whether naval vessel could and should be used, I am not the person to answer the question.

Chairman: Are you ever going to have an opinion on anything?

Q173 Dr Turner: These are the opportunities that are not being taken advantage of at present. For instance, we have Royal Navy vessels patrolling in all sorts of parts of the world for other reasons but, while they are doing that, they are not fighting most of the time and they could have a scientist on board making observations.

Dr Hensley: We receive data from the Navy in support of the requirements they have, but I cannot answer on behalf of the Royal Navy, I am afraid.

Q174 Dr Turner: Nobody listens to this. You can be as honest as you like and disagree.

Dr Hensley: I have read the transcripts.

Dr Bell: The Navy does try hard to be supportive of marine research and over the years they have provided a lot of funding for marine research. Some of that funding has dried up a bit in recent years. Robin has mentioned CAROS, the co-operative arrangements for research in ocean science. That is quite a high level group that co-ordinates this and there have been some major programmes which the MoD has supported at the National Oceanographic Centre.

Q175 Chris Mole: We have seen some evidence so far about long-term monitoring in areas such as the continuous plankton recorder and the UK tidal gauge network. What sort of long-term monitoring do your agencies support and how do you share that data more widely in other issues to do with securing the funding for that on a long-term basis?

Dr Hensley: From an environmental perspective, we have a database on oceanographic observations; that would be sea water temperature, salinity and so forth. As I have alluded to earlier, those data are released into the academic environment periodically. That would be where we could contribute on that.

Dr Bell: The Met Office maintains a network of moored buoys around the UK continental shelf. It is also the leader of the UK contribution to the ARGO system, so it co-ordinates that.

Q176 Chris Mole: Is the ARGO funding secure?

Dr Hensley: No.

Q177 Chris Mole: Do you think it should it be?

Dr Hensley: Yes.

Q178 Chris Mole: Is it the Met Office's responsibility to ensure that is secured?

Dr Hensley: No.

Q179 Chris Mole: Whose responsibility do you think it is?

Dr Hensley: It is across government, so it is the government departments which have been involved in that discussion: Defra, MoD and NERC.

Dr Horwood: On the UKMMAS, they have tried to find out exactly where the UK is in terms of its compensated evidence. In the report we did for them very recently, we reported 34 ongoing monitoring surveys covering radiological work, contaminant work and disease - a raft of fish stock assessment monitoring. Again, we made that available through the MDIP website. That is accessible to third parties. We also feed in to the national data storage programme through the National Data Centre and also a range of our data goes to ICs where it is amalgamated at an international level, so you have international fishery surveys and contaminant data being stored there.

Q180 Chris Mole: That is 34 ongoing. I think you hinted earlier there might be some missing. What else should you be monitoring on a long-term basis?

Dr Horwood: If you look at the review that UKMMAS did, they reckon to fulfil the aspirations of that UK monitoring strategy. They would be looking for an extra £22 million a year and they have identified those areas where they would seek to do more, possibly adding to that number.

Q181 Chris Mole: Briefly, could you?

Dr Horwood: I do feel that we do not know enough about the basic state of marine biodiversity and, more importantly, how that is responding to natural variation. The sea is used to seeing very large changes, both cyclic shifts and variability, and until we have that baseline in it will be very difficult to detect changes that we want to put back to climate change.

Q182 Chris Mole: Dr Bell?

Dr Bell: One aspect of monitoring, which I agree fully with what Joe has just said, one other aspect which has not been mentioned so far is satellite monitoring and the UK contribution to that, which could be significantly stronger than it is.

Q183 Chris Mole: Who should be leading the demand for that?

Dr Bell: Defra have taken on the responsibility for global monitoring for environments and security.

Q184 Chris Mole: GMES.

Dr Bell: GMES, and so that is certainly one of the departments that has taken on responsibility. But there are other departments involved across British National Space Centre that would have some responsibility.

Q185 Chris Mole: We have talked about some of the sharing issues. Some of the data your produce is commercially consumed but beyond that how can the Met Office and UKHO share your scientific data with the wider research community and are there any barriers to preventing people having access to that information?

Dr Hensley: I think from our perspective, other than the barriers which would be where we hold third party data, which we are not at liberty to release from international partners, or if there are defence constraints, for reasons which will be self-evident, there are not the barriers for us releasing data as long as it is consistent with our trading fund status.

Q186 Chris Mole: Have you had a dialogue with the research community about whether there is anything that they think they might take from you that they are not currently doing?

Dr Hensley: We have spoken over some time about some issues, such as observations of the marine mammals and so on and so forth, and we have some work in progress - and I will have to clarify that - with St. Andrew's University on that, where we have put in risk mitigation work for marine mammals, for example; and on the physical side, as I say, we release data out through BODC.

Q187 Chris Mole: Dr Bell?

Dr Bell: It is quite a complex issue that you have raised about access to data and it is a very important one because we rely on data being openly exchanged in real time to do our monitoring and forecasting, so it is actually something that we do want to see progress. For research and development and for making our data available for research and development purposes we would seek to make that data available at cost basis. For other government departments' use our policy is that the data that is produced for our public task should be available to other government departments for their public task, again at an at cost basis. I think those are the principles but you have to bear in mind that there are also issues of funding in making data available; there is also a certain amount of history that things are organised in certain ways and it takes them time to move towards more modern methods for data exchange. As Rob has mentioned, there are security issues as well. One of the security issues, for example, from the Met Office's point of view, is that we have to be very careful not to open up our system to hackers because if our system goes down it has very serious repercussions for the country. And that does constrain the way in which we can make data available to others. So there are constraints, apart from the principles which have become clearer recently.

Q188 Chris Mole: Dr Bell, how does the Met Office work with academic institutions in developing forecasting models? I am very much aware that those models have become increasingly complex and need bigger and bigger super computers to cope with each model.

Dr Bell: Yes.

Q189 Chris Mole: As the understanding about the interface between the sea and the sky to those models becomes increasingly important do we have the funding in place to ensure that we have the computing power to crunch those models for the next generation of modelling and forecasting?

Dr Bell: You have asked two questions.

Q190 Chris Mole: I am sorry; yes, I have.

Dr Bell: It is very important to us to take the research that is done in institutions like Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory and Plymouth Marine Laboratory and to pull those through into our system. So, for example, there is an ecosystem model which was developed by Plymouth, which we brought into our operational systems this year and there are other examples of that, and this is why this national centre for ocean forecasting was set up, to really recognise that there has been this collaboration going on over the last ten years, and to formalise it and to help to strengthen it. To come on to your other question about whether the computing resources are available, the computing resources to which we have access, to which the Met Office has access are not as large as the resources that are available in some other countries, for example the USA, Japan and, in our case, also France. So that is an issue; that is really quite an important issue.

Q191 Chris Mole: Who is addressing that issue?

Dr Bell: That issue is certainly being addressed by the Hadley Centre in discussions with Defra and MOD. There are also discussions with NERC as to whether we can share computer resources in the future and get better computer resources.

Q192 Chairman: That should be an issue for us really.

Dr Bell: Yes, I think that is an important issue.

Q193 Graham Stringer: Do you ever worry that as your computers get bigger and your models get more sophisticated that you are drawing more and more resources into modelling that actually does reflect as accurately as it could do what is going to happen in ten years' time, but everybody is very happy with the model because the model is self-consistent? Is that question clear?

Dr Bell: Yes, I think I see what you are driving at. It would be very serious if that were the case but a lot of the science that is done at the Met Office is on the validation of the models and particularly for climate change because it is like a one-shot problem, that you make predictions, say, for 50 years ahead and you do not know until 50 years' time whether they are going to be right. So this issue of validation of the models and ensuring that the science is adequately captured is really at the heart of what we do. One of the ways in which we try to tackle that is that we do forecasting on an every day basis which does test the models, at least in short range, every day. Actually a lot of the errors in the climate models do show up on these sorts of short timescales so that testing of the models is very relevant and the Met Office does seek to work together with the NERC partners because we recognise that we do not have the funding on our own to do all of the necessary validation, and validation and understanding of the models is very expensive.

Chairman: Linda Gilroy.

Q194 Linda Gilroy: These are the concluding questions of the session on marine policy and a few questions to Dr Horwood before turning to the other two. What discussions has Cefas had with Defra regarding the Marine Bill White Paper and how do you expect Cefas to be affected by the proposed Marine Management Organisation?

Dr Horwood: I have a few words on this. We would not comment on our Minister's policy but from our involvement in the activities we are pleased with the Bill. We do see that it seeks to make more coherent the current fragmented management of marine activities at a time when coastal pressures are high and increasing and there is real competition for space. We think the key roles of marine planning, licensing, nature conservation and inshore fisheries are suitably and well aligned; the marine conservation zones will be a very useful new tool. The conclusion was that Cefas should not be a part of the MMO because we would be too big a tail wagging the dog but we do see in whatever form it takes that we would expect to have a very strong relationship with the MMO. At the same time it is very healthy that science is separated from policy and is transparent, so if we were in the MMO or out of the MMO I think people would clearly want to see a separation between a report, advice and subsequent action by the MMO. We are still in discussions about whether particular licensing teams should move from Cefas to an MMO.

Q195 Linda Gilroy: So licensing in relation to fisheries, in relation to ...

Dr Horwood: No licensing very much in relation to construction and dumping and dredging activities under FEPA, the Food and Environmental Protection Act, and the Coastal Protection Act.

Q196 Linda Gilroy: Presumably that is the response you would be making to the Marine Bill consultation, which closes in early June?

Dr Horwood: As part of Defra we have not gone through the consultation, we are speaking to them directly.

Q197 Linda Gilroy: I think you have given us some indication towards how you would see Cefas' statutory functions changing in response to changing pressures on the UK marine environment, but do you want to say a few more words about that?

Dr Horwood: I think the key thing is that the massive changes that are happening at the European level, previously OSPA on the marine environment was the big organisation that we, the UK, was serving and looking after. Now we see DG Environment becoming much more interested. We have had the Water Framework Directive come in; the Marine Strategy Directive is now at a pretty advanced stage; we have the Marine Green Paper from the Commission. There will be a much greater European involvement in marine activities, so I guess we will still be serving this core activity but there will be a much greater European dimension to it.

Q198 Linda Gilroy: And the Cefas research in support of policy proposals in the Marine Bill White Paper, such as the Marine Protected Areas, do you see Cefas research and experience thus far feeding into that; and, if so, how does that fit with the position you stated just now, that it should remain outside of the Marine Management Organisation? Would that be an activity that would transfer in?

Dr Horwood: I am not sure how some of these things will pan out but at some point somebody has to decide that area X should go ahead - probably Ministers - and it may be that the MMO then has the job of implementing it. But there will be a body of advice going in to the people who make the decision in the first stage, which I guess would probably not only come from us but a larger range of views would go into any evaluation of a protected area - some scientific, some economic. We have had a strong engagement with advising on Marine Protected Areas over the last several decades, both for fisheries purposes and, for instance, in the marine natura sites and in protecting specific sensitive habitats.

Q199 Linda Gilroy: Dr Hensley, how does UKHO support evidence-based policy making? For example, what assistance are you giving to Defra to support their marine policy making?

Dr Hensley: We have had input to Defra; we consult; they consulted with us on the Marine Bill. We are a centre of expertise for hydrographic/bathymetric data, so therefore our role would be to provide the definitive picture and what the definitive of the UK shelf would be. We are currently piloting what a data assessment centre underpinning this would be. It was a model that was proposed some time ago and we are now working through the implementation to see how it stands up. We have input into the Data Standards, for example, so we have been providing underpinning information on the quality of seabed and its structure.

Q200 Linda Gilroy: Might that make the data that you collect and the potential for collecting data more widely known to the marine science community?

Dr Hensley: We do not collect data, but we database, analyse and so on and so forth. The data that we have is either available through our website, and for non-commercial academic use it is free; or goes in a GIS framework way through sea zone hyperspacial, so the data is available to the academic community certainly.

Chairman: I am going to have to finish there. I am sorry, we have run over as well, but Dr Horwood, Dr Hensley and Dr Bell thank you very much indeed for giving your evidence before us this morning.

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Professor Andrew J Willmott, Director, Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Professor Ed Hill, Director, National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton, and Professor Peter Liss, President, Challenger Society for Marine Science and University of East Anglia, gave evidence.

Q201 Chairman: I do apologise to our second panel that we have run over. We welcome Professor Ed Hill, the Director of the National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton; Professor Peter Liss, President of the Challenger Society for Marine Science and from the School of Environmental Science at the University of East Anglia; and Professor Andrew Willmott, the Director of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool. You are very, very welcome indeed. If we can be fairly brief and fairly rapid in terms of responding to us. What we are trying to get at is what is your assessment of UK marine science, both in the universities and in the NERC research centres? What are the strengths and weaknesses? Where are we?

Professor Liss: It is a big question and of course the answer is that it is very good in some parts and not so good in other parts, and we could spend the next hour detailing those three categories, and I do not think you want that. We are very good at certain things in the UK marine sciences community and not so good at others. That strength lies in various places; it lies in the universities, it lies in the NERC research institutes, it relies in other research institutes and agency laboratories, and I think that is one of the questions you have been tackling as to, okay, it is all over the place, is it well-integrated, do people talk to each other, do they use the resources effectively?

Q202 Chairman: And the answer is?

Professor Liss: Again, in part yes, but we could do better. I guess what you want to do is to investigate how we could do better.

Q203 Chairman: Give me an example of where it is really good and where it is not very good?

Professor Liss: I will give you an example that is very good. From personal experience I had very good links with my own research group to NERC laboratories, particularly in Plymouth - we have joint graduate students, we do joint work, we go on cruises together - and that is an example of where it works extremely well between the NERC laboratory and a university laboratory. Where it does not work so well is, for instance, on marine data. I am presently chairing this MDIP group, which has been referred to by one of the previous people and what MDIP is attempting to do is to set a framework for the use of marine data collected in UK coastal waters and marine areas and it is a very difficult job to do because this data is collected by lots of different organisations, and the attempt is to try to get this into a common framework, common standards, recognise data centres which obey those standards and make that data, as far as is possible, available to the whole marine community in the UK and further afield. That difficult job is run by MDIP, which is a professional organisation, which I chair, but is run on an amateur funding basis because we have 0.8 of an individual who is paid to lead that work. All the other people have day jobs, which they have to do because they are patient to do them and they put time in whenever they can to contribute to that process. I do not think that is a satisfactory way of doing business because data is extremely important, particularly when we come to the MMO and marine protected areas and licensing and all those policy issues - you have to have the data to start otherwise you make wrong decisions even if you have a perfect system.

Q204 Chairman: So it is a curate's egg really.

Professor Liss: Yes.

Q205 Chairman: Professor Willmott, would you agree with that assessment to start with, and where do you see the strengths and weaknesses?

Professor Willmott: I agree with Peter's assessment. The thing I would like to point is that in making the UK science base fit to address issues like climate change, what NERC is trying to do in its new strategy is to remove the barriers which might exist for collaboration between research centres and also between research centres and the university sector. We believe that the most effective way for dealing with issues like climate change is to ensure that we can bring the interdisciplinary teams together so that we do not have any fiscal problems with the fact that one centre has to work in a different five-year cycle to another. So NERC has been developing a new strategy and a new funding model called FAB with the purpose of producing a more integrated community that is fit to tackle climate change issues.

Q206 Chairman: You did not even involve the universities in the design of that programme, they were not even consultees in terms of Oceans 2025, for instance.

Professor Willmott: With respect there ---

Q207 Chairman: That means you do not agree!

Professor Willmott: There was a misunderstanding pedalled by others. Firstly, Oceans 2025 is about a programme which is renewing the funding for a group of laboratories, it is not a UK-wide national marine strategy. If it was that then we would have very wide consultation. It was a science review proposal, so before the proposal there was no review document that was consulted on widely. The actual development of the research proposals, of course that is a confidential stage because those proposals are going to go out to peer review, and it is understood that the peer reviewers are receiving those in confidence. Now we have gone through that process we are again widely engaging with a variety of stakeholders, both in the university and indeed in the departments like Defra.

Q208 Chairman: All right. I have got you excited anyhow! Professor Hill, do not repeat what we have had, but basically a curate's egg in terms of marine science. Can I pull you in on this issue of coordination between our institution, our universities; is that good enough?

Professor Hill: It is never going to be good enough but it is getting better and we are, I think, on a journey towards better coordination. Despite some of the things that you have heard actually the relationship between the NERC centres and the university community are much better in that particular sector than in some other areas of environmental science, as it has to be said, not least because marine science is heavily dependent on massive infrastructure in order to get to the parts of the world that we need to get - ships, but access to data centres and very complex observing systems and technologies - and this can only really be done by a combination of facilities where you have a congregation of that kind of capability combined with a rather dynamic flexible environment that is typically finding universities generating new ideas, but which would be not possible to sustain them long-term without that kind of infrastructure. Where we are really heading is to try to ensure that that clarity of mission between the centres is right, so that we get the best added value as opposed to unnecessary protection.

Chairman: Okay, you have redressed the balance. Bob Spink.

Q209 Dr Spink: Could I ask each of you what the priorities are for marine research, very briefly?

Professor Hill: I can start on that. There is an interesting degree of convergence on this. If you look at the NERC emerging strategy for environmental science, if you look at the EU Framework Programmes, if you look at the strategy produced by the European Science Foundations Marine Board, if you look at the Oceans 2025 Strategic Programme you will see the same things cropping up time and time again.

Q210 Dr Spink: Which are?

Professor Hill: Climate, biodiversity, natural resources including bio resources and energy, the issue of environment and health and technologies.

Q211 Dr Spink: Coastal erosion would not feature in that?

Professor Hill: Yes, the other area is about hazards and adverse human impact.

Q212 Dr Spink: Would the biodiversity include fishing, over fishing, fishing policy? Would it include the impact on spawning grounds or the extraction of minerals, dredging for channels, which is happening in the Thames Estuary?

Professor Hill: That is certainly a key area for research. It is not one where the NERC centres and a lot of the university community have necessarily been particularly active, but there is strength in fishery research in Cefas and in the Scottish equivalent agency. The key issue that has been recognised, though, is that there needs to be a much stronger linkage between fishery science and fundamental environmental science and to get the right relationship there, and that has been the recommendation of a number of bodies. So that is somewhere we are heading.

Q213 Dr Spink: Professor Hill you have answered that very comprehensively, I suspect for all of you, so I will not go through it again unless there is anything that either of you would like to add?

Professor Willmott: If I might add that there is a recently announced bio resources programme which will link laboratories like Cefas, CRAD and the NERC centres and the university sector, so I think that is a very exciting and promising development in the area of bio resources.

Professor Liss: I think what Ed Hill said is absolutely right, that in this day and age we are not just doing marine sciences, we are doing climate sciences, biodiversity and earth system science, and if you look at the new NERC strategy, which is for consultation at the present time - just finished, I think - those are the sort of things. I am chairing the panel on earth system science physicists and obviously marine sciences come within that and virtually all the other panel have marine sciences. The corollary of that is that there is no centre in NERC Swindon which is called marine sciences - or at least it is hard to define; it is going much more to what are the projects we need to be doing rather than the disciplines we need to support.

Q214 Dr Spink: Professor Liss, since you have the floor, you heard us ask questions that were quite probing on IACMST; what is your view of IACMST? Do you think it is working?

Professor Liss: I am one of the three independent members of it, so in a sense, although I am a member, I take a somewhat more distant view. I think that it works probably as well as it can in its present configuration. It has the departmental representatives on it; it has three independent members and it has a secretariat which is again very small. It has done some useful tasks; it has two data groups, it has a remote sensing group which tried to look at UK coordination in these matters - and I have already described the MDIP process - and those are all under IACMST and I think it would be a big loss if they did not exist. We did a review on effect of sound on marine mammals. But we can only do a certain amount. If, for instance, there is a suggestion that the UK should develop a marine strategy which, to my view, we do not have, if we wanted to have such a document - and the US is developing such a document, and you are going to the United States and you may want to look into how the document is and what does it cover, et cetera - I think IACMST is the sort of body that could do that if it had the resources. It currently does not have the resources to do a job as large as that.

Q215 Dr Spink: That is extremely constructive and helpful and we will bear in mind next week your advice. Should the IACMST's role be changed to enable it to discharge its functions and to better coordinate the marine science opportunities more effectively?

Professor Liss: I am not sure you have to change the terms of reference but you do need to get more buy-in from the stakeholders, i.e. government departments and agencies there, and if it was doing more work and it had ability to do more work that buy-in would come, I think.

Q216 Chairman: It was set up in 1990 to do exactly the things you are now describing. Quite frankly, if I had had a reference from somebody, which you have just described, I would not appoint them.

Professor Liss: Fair comment.

Q217 Chairman: I think we are very serious about this issue of where is the policy coming from and where is the coordination policy, and we take the very strong comments you made about this coordination. We found that with our space science programme, that you cannot just simply look at the space without looking at the oceans and the atmosphere and the whole things put together. So we are really keen on this idea of where do we go with this organisation in order to make a really effective, dynamic, thrusting, policy-driven world class organisation?

Professor Liss: You need to do two things. You need to get greater buy-in from the stakeholders, and I am not sure how you do that.

Q218 Dr Spink: Can you name the stakeholders you think are not buying-in sufficiently?

Professor Liss: I think what we need to do is to look at the attendance. Some stakeholders are there all the time working for it and other stakeholders are not. I do not want to name names; I do not have the attendance record. Trevor Guymer, who is the Secretary, can give you this chapter and verse; I do not want to say things that might be proved slightly wrong from the data, but there clearly people who are working very hard for it and some who are not working particularly hard.

Q219 Dr Iddon: What is the second point?

Professor Liss: The second point is it would need to be resourced properly; at the moment it is resourced at a very low level and again the Secretariat at NOC can give you the actual numbers of how much resource goes in, but it is very small.

Q220 Mr Newmark: Do you think that you get adequate funding from government for marine science?

Professor Liss: Maybe one of the other directors might say that; they are spending a lot of money, so perhaps they should answer!

Professor Hill: Are we getting enough? Certainly the science budget has increased.

Q221 Mr Newmark: Is it adequate?

Professor Hill: If you want me to put my neck on the line I would say no. What I would like to see is a times two increase in marine science funding.

Q222 Mr Newmark: Any higher bids?

Professor Willmott: We will not go into the stratosphere with any higher factors. We cannot get heavily involved with things like observatories and perhaps it is appropriate that, say, cabled observatories should be coordinated and funded at a European level rather than the national level; but I do think it is important that we are aware of these large projects, like the observatories pay. I would like a European icebreaker and I would like to see that the UK has some buy-in on those sorts of projects.

Professor Liss: Can I just comment on that because the universities are always bidding it up even higher than the institutes, for whatever reasons? I think a factor of two is about right. Why do I use that as a marker? Because I think the present success rate for responsive mode funding in NERC is less than 20% - I do not know the exact figure but it is below 20% - so only a fifth or les of the proposal, which take a lot of time to write and prepare, is actually successfully funded through the NERC. I think that is too low a number, it should be more like 40%; so that is where I get my factor of times two.

Q223 Mr Newmark: What you are saying is that America is not doing enough to give support?

Professor Liss: There is not enough resource. I am not saying they are not doing enough; I am just saying that the amount of money they have had means that the funding is only going to a fifth of the proposal which is put forward. The other element of that is that it is very difficult to mount a directed programme through the NERC because they require a lot of money for the UK to contribute for international programmes and of course climate science and ocean science is done internationally these days. It is very difficult to put those large sums of money, £10m or £20m required for a UK reasonable contribution to one of these international programmes - that is very difficult to do with the present NERC budget.

Q224 Chairman: There is not much left after that?

Professor Liss: There is not; so I think a factor of two would be extremely helpful.

Q225 Mr Newmark: Are there barriers to obtaining funding for interdisciplinary research projects from the research councils? If so, how could these be overcome?

Professor Liss: I think that is always going to be an issue; it has been for years, things fall between the divisions between research councils. It has probably got somewhat better in the NERC because the subject specific committees have been abolished and there is now a college which picks review bodies from within a larger body of people and that should make it easier to fund interdisciplinary studies - I think there is some evidence for that, but it is not very strong.

Q226 Mr Newmark: So going in the right direction?

Professor Liss: Yes.

Q227 Chairman: If we had a single research council would it be easier?

Professor Liss: Possibly. No doubt there would be divisions within that single research council in view of the National Science Foundation. I do not know if you are going there ---

Q228 Chairman: We were there.

Professor Liss: They have two - they have one for medical research as well. For science and engineering they have one research council, but there are divisions within it and no doubt you can ask questions about how it works across the divisions. I suspect it would be not a lot different. There might be some economies of scale but I do not know.

Professor Hill: If I could comment on that? I think there are pros and cons for a single research council; there are probably some very significant benefits, I would have to say. The issue with marine sciences and marine affairs generally, though, is one word used about mis-fragmentation, but there is another work which you can use which puts a different interpretation on it, and that is that marine science is pervasive - you find marine affairs and marine science everywhere. So it is never going to be possible just to find a neat corral of it into one single entity. So the science themes of climate have marine in it. Many issues have marine themes in them. So that is the benefit of marine science, that it is everywhere but it is also its problem, in that it loses its visibility. Within the Framework Programmes in the European Union, for example, in the early days of the Framework Programmes there was a specific marine science programme. But probably rightly the Commission went away from that into much more thematic-based science, in which case marine is in everything and its visibility is lost. One of the benefits of the Natural Environment Research Council, because it is explicitly environment, marine does have a profile in it. Whenever you create a larger entity the risk for us, I think, would be that marine would be more lost in a more general science council than it is in NERC. On the other hand, technologies are very, very important in marine science and the ability for NERC to increase its funding in technology and for us to access EPSRC funding for marine technologies is a very important issue.

Q229 Mr Newmark: Are the UK national facilities, such as our research vessel fleet adequate?

Professor Hill: I can comment as to the person who is responsible for a slice of that research vessel fleet, managing two of the NERC ships. There has been very important investment in research vessels; the royal research ship, James Cook, has just completed her first cruise and embarked on her second cruise, and that was a £40m investment in a state of the art research vessel. There is funding now earmarked for the replacement of Discovery, a 40-year old vessel ---

Q230 Mr Newmark: But that is not due to happen until 2011.

Professor Hill: 2011, in fact early 2012 before she comes on stream. The fact that the ship is 40 years' old tells you something about the level of capital investment that has been going on to support these ships. Meanwhile, the research vessel fleet has decreased over the last 20 years from something like five ships down to two - multi-purpose vessels, I am excluding vessels with Antarctic capability from this - and that is the bare minimum. What is also significantly missing though is the research vessel capacity for working shelf seas and coastal seas, where you do not need quite such big teams and you operate on much shorter timescales. It is very difficult to provide evidence for this but I do think that a lot of marine science is partly platform driven. If there is a ship capable of doing it you will find proposals coming in in that area, and because of the lack of capacity of ships for coastal research I think we have seen proposals for coastal science tend to dry up.

Q231 Mr Newmark: You still have not given me a solution, so what other approaches could NERC take to actually increase fieldwork capacity?

Professor Hill: It is difficult in its existing budgets but one option certainly would be to see if one could secure additional funding.

Q232 Mr Newmark: It comes down to money not re-shifting existing funds?

Professor Hill: It is two things. Part of my times two would include increasing the research vessel capacity in shelf seas. We do operate our vessels, I believe at maximum capacity, through things like international ship bartering arrangements, which is very, very effective.

Q233 Chairman: We have heard about that.

Professor Hill: We do less ship bartering within the UK where there are coastal vessels, but there are reasons for that in that the coastal vessels that Cefas and FRS have are pretty much fulltime on statutory responsibilities, and so there is not the spare capacity. So I think there is ultimately an issue about capacity here, and I suspect what could be achieved by bartering in some internal flexibility is rather marginal.

Q234 Chairman: Andrew, did you want to comment on that?

Professor Willmott: Yes. As a research lab a great deal of our work is carried out in the Irish Sea and the UK continental shelf. We have access to a vessel called the Prince Madog, based at Menai Bridge. She is 33 metres long and she is okay as long as you do not operate off northwest Europe or the Scottish shelf or in the Celtic Sea where, quite frankly, she is not capable of operating in the inclement weather conditions there. I wondered whether there was capacity to perhaps get access to the Cefas ships, I think that would be a way forward. We are certainly missing a vessel of the size of the Challenger, which was retired in 2002 - a 60 metre vessel, which can operate anywhere on the European continental shelf. We have plans with our partners in Ireland to extend our coastal observatory to become an Irish Sea observatory and that will put even greater pressure on us to find a suitable vessel to operate in that larger domain.

Q235 Dr Turner: Do you think the Navy could make any contribution through its residual fleet towards providing platforms for observation?

Professor Hill: The Navy actually does some provide some ship capacity. For example, the first survey of the Sumatran Plate Boundary after the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake was conducted by researchers at the Southampton and British Geological Survey from HMS Scott and very successful it was too, so that has happened. HMS Endurance obviously works very closely with work in the southern ocean for the British Antarctic Survey. It is also the case that a lot of the ice thickness measurements made in the Arctic by the Scott Polar Research Institute and others has actually utilised Royal Navy submarines. So the scientists are accessing and using Navy vessels. They are also used as ships of opportunity; they deploy Argo floats, significantly the XBT programmes, so there is a lot of data flowing back into the operational agencies and into the scientific community that are sourced from naval vessels. Is there more that could be done? There probably is. One of the things that we have been doing, for example, is instrumenting ferries with under wave sampling systems; we have also gone to container vessel operators who are really quite enthusiastic about operating under wave systems like this and also probably the cruise liner business will get into this game as well. But the naval vessels are not particularly operating that. There are some security issues, of course, about giving away in near real time the position of Royal Naval vessels, but I have no doubt some of these could be overcome.

Q236 Chairman: What amazes me - and I think it was the point of Brooks' question here - we can always say, "If you give us more money we can provide more ships", but it is a matter of how do we work smarter, how do we work more coordinated. I am in and out of Killybegs in Ireland on the West Coast of Ireland very, very regularly, and all winter I have seen the fishing fleet just sat there doing nothing because they cannot fish. Yet there are all those ships available, and I am sure that applies in British waters as well. So I throw that into the pot as my idea to help you out! Do you agree?

Professor Hill: We do a lot of that also - already doing it.

Q237 Chris Mole: I wanted to start by asking about the university collaboration and data sharing with Cefas and other government research agencies and how you think that might be improved, and I know we got on to Oceans 2025 just now, but we will come back to that. Do any of you have a view on that?

Professor Liss: I think the situation is not bad for the universities. We tend to not be users of huge amounts of data; we are more engaged in shorter-term process studies, which may not use large amounts of data. I have not heard too many complaints about availability of data from the British Oceanographic Data Centre or Cefas Data Centre, et cetera. I think what the MDIP is thing to do will make it easier not just for universities, but everyone can get access to the data that presently exists and this phrase "measure once, use many times" is clearly an easy thing to say but rather hard to do but that is the objective.

Professor Willmott: As you know, BODC has the mission of taking raw data, calibrating it and making it freely available for a wide range of users - university based and wider than that - and I think that they have been particularly successful over the last few years in increasing the use of the data because that raw data is freely available. I think that has been critical to the success and the take-up of those data sets. I guess where we must be careful is about proliferation of data centres. I am not totally familiar with what types of data are held at Cefas; I would hope that there is not duplication of data between Cefas and BODC.

Professor Hill: I think data is an important issue. In the scientific community there is a fairly good free flow of data and the data is reasonably accessible for research and development purposes. I do think that there are some fundamental issues around data accessibility, and this is a much bigger picture internationally. Some countries operate a very different philosophy from the UK in terms of data access, which essentially all fundamental data sets generated by public funds are free. The US has this kind of model. It is not as great as it sounds because it actually does have quite serious implications for data quality. In the UK I do think that there are some serious barriers in the system about being able to fuse certain data sets, not least because some important data - and it is not actually the data as such but the added value information products that are created from those data - are commercially tradable items. Three important sources of those data are the Ordnance Survey, the Hydrographic Office and the Met Office are trading funds and so there is a trade in their added value data products. Other bodies, such as Cefas and the British Geological Survey, whilst not trading funds are operating under increasingly commercial models whereby revenue generation is important. I am not saying that this is a massive problem in terms of accessibility to data for science, but in terms of bodies such as the MMO, who will be critically reliant on key data sets in order, and not just separate data sets, synthesised, fused, overlaid, multi-layered sets, then they will need to be able to access these, and this probably means, under the varying models that we have, that there will be a cost implication of that and that the MMO will need to be suitably resources in order to purchase licences for access to this data.

Q238 Chris Mole: There are precursors for planning functions using ordnance survey, where I would imagine there are similar issues. I think we got into the Oceans 2025 important way in which the academic sector had engaged within that and it was whether any of the other two had not contributed to that and wanted to add anything.

Professor Liss: No, I think you have given a fair thrashing to the 2025 process.

Professor Hill: If I could briefly comment on that? I think it has been given a good airing and I think there have been full responses from NERC on the subject. I would say that the only reason we are having this discussion about Oceans 2025 in the Mother of Parliament is that for the first time a bunch of marine centres got their act together to produce a coordinated programme of research in marine science that somebody had actually heard of, and I think that is quite important. So there are a lot of benefits of Oceans 2025. Are we looking to engage the university community? Absolutely, it is actually built into the programme. Do we want more people on the bandwagon? Absolutely and I am sure that will be happening over the years.

Chairman: You are a great advert for NERC!

Q239 Dr Iddon: Which countries do you slightly envy, or who is ahead of us in the marine science game?

Professor Hill: We are always envious of the United States; they have larger amounts of resources, but they also have other things beyond resources. In Europe, though, the other places that we envy are Japan, who seem to be able to invest large amounts in marine technology. Their science is probably not as strong but certainly the investments in technology and some of the technological innovations that they are capable of doing are truly phenomenal and we certainly envy their access to technology. In Europe I am increasingly looking with envy at Germany. It is investing heavily in marine sciences at the moment. Their institutes seem to be recruiting very strongly and certainly looking to my institute, amongst others, to find talented people, and we find it very difficult to extract German professors from Germany to come to the UK, not least because they are well resourced, they find it easy to access ships and the funding regime does not appear to be as competitive. Also, it appears that their governments are coming to them almost trying to push money at them as opposed to the other way around, and the Germans are really taking it very seriously. I was at a meeting in Bremen just two weeks ago, talking about the European Maritime Green Paper and the President of the Commission turned up to speak about this, as did the German Chancellor, and made a speech talking about the importance of maritime affairs and marine science, so it is very, very high profile.

Q240 Dr Iddon: We are a bit short of time as Question Time begins at 11.30. I will just ask the other two guys, do you agree with that or do you want to add anything to it?

Professor Willmott: I agree.

Professor Liss: I agree with that; Germany is our competitor now.

Q241 Dr Iddon: I have a second question relating to international activity. It is amazing, is it not, that most leading European countries signed up to the EUROCORES process - that is the deep oceans investigation - yet NERC felt that it could not do that. Any clues as to why? Was it a resource issue or similar reason? Are we not interested in the deep oceans?

Professor Liss: To give a general answer, I think there is a reluctance to designate funds to a central pot, as it were. I know that the funds for the EUROCORES are allocated nation by nation but there is a considerable control on that otherwise the process does not work and it is not then coordinated, so I think that NERC was somewhat reluctant to commit to that, particularly without a strong push from the science community, and maybe for that particular programme to talk about the science community did not push hard enough for it. NERC is responsive to communities of scientists banging on their door.

Q242 Dr Iddon: I assume, Professor Liss, that the deep oceans are of interest to you guys?

Professor Liss: Absolutely. I am a surface ocean man myself but we are certainly interested in the deep ocean and I guess that community did not make a big enough push for it or did not want it, or did not see that as a way forward.

Q243 Dr Iddon: So one of our weaknesses.

Professor Liss: Maybe, maybe not; maybe that was not the way they wished the money to be spent and wanted to spend it some other way.

Professor Hill: The centre that I run is the main UK centre for deep sea oceanography and we are pushing very hard on a number of areas where it is very, very important to get major investments. The one that we are pushing very hard at the moment is under the European Science Research Infrastructure - ESFI Programme - and we are supporting very strongly something called EMSO, which is a cabled deep sea observatory system and we have managed to persuade NERC to sign up to the early stages of the discussions around that.

Q244 Dr Iddon: Andrew, do you have anything to add to what your colleagues have said?

Professor Willmott: No, I do not, thank you.

Q245 Graham Stringer: What incentives are there for young people to take up a career in marine science and technology? How attractive an area is it for young graduates, postgraduates?

Professor Liss: I think it is attractive on a comparative basis. I think young people see marine science as an exciting area and therefore they go into it, more so than they do the more pure science, if I can call it that. That does not mean that the situation is ideal because there are clearly many other careers that bright young people can go into with science degrees and which probably pay larger amounts of money or they see the prospect of larger amounts of money, so there is clearly a competition. I think marine science is probably not as badly off as some other areas of science in the UK in terms of recruitment. So the incentive is really that people get interested in it, and that is no doubt what brought us into the subject and brings young people into the subject.

Q246 Graham Stringer: Apart from the intrinsic interest of the seas, is there anything else that you can do to make it more attractive?

Professor Liss: I think a lot of people are attracted to the idea of going on research vessels and conducting measurements of the oceans, observing the oceans, going to Antarctica - these are all very big magnets for young people, as you might expect.

Professor Willmott: Things like the International Polar Year I think provide a good platform for advertising and marine science, for example, through Poles involvement in an IPY project we have the opportunity to send a student and a science teacher to go on board the Canadian icebreaker next winter, so that sort of thing helps. I think the other thing to comment on is that for many undergraduates studying mathematics, physics, they perhaps do not always realise that there are some really very attractive, exciting careers in marine science. I think there is a lack of information to those sorts of people that there is a very large demand for highly numerate graduates in our field.

Q247 Graham Stringer: Is there a skills gap within marine science and technology, in mathematics, taxtonomy and are there any other areas? And what can you do to address that?

Professor Willmott: I certainly feel that we struggle to get expert young people working in ocean modelling, finite element techniques and in certain areas of marine technology. The question then is how do we address that? The research councils do not have a strong remit to work in high schools, although we do have an understanding that we should communicate science to the public, so I guess we have to be, certainly in my centre, more effective at working with the community in raising the profile of what we do, and in doing so making it clear that there are exciting career opportunities for people with skills in engineering, physics and mathematics.

Q248 Graham Stringer: Do we have anything to learn from international comparators about attracting people into this area?

Professor Liss: I will answer a slightly different question: how do we compare with other subjects, for instance, in the UK? For instance, the meteorology community is rather more clever at this than the marine science community, in attracting people because there is a huge amateur field of people interested in meteorology and make measurements in their back gardens, et cetera, and I do not think we have quite exploited that in the marine sciences as much as meteorologists have. So perhaps there are some lessons there for us to learn.

Professor Hill: One of the key gaps is the flow of maths, physics students into our area in the more physical areas of our science. In my reading of it and talking to colleagues overseas, that is a pretty generic problem and certainly one that is faced in the US and in Europe as well. A lot of US universities are populated by students from outside the US, particularly from the Far East who are numerate in maths and physics. So that is a problem.

Q249 Graham Stringer: Professor Liss, what role does the Research Assessment Exercise play in influencing UK marine science? Does it enhance or impair it?

Professor Liss: I chaired the last Panel in Earth and Environmental Sciences and marine sciences was clearly within that, but again the subject matter is not divided in that way. Meteorology, oceanography, all the environmental sciences are within that panel - and the same will happen in geology as well this time round. So marine sciences have to take their chance, if you like, alongside all the other environmental sciences to try and increase their share of the pot, basically.

Q250 Dr Turner: How do you feel about the significance of the research in the Polar Regions as far as climate change and oceanographic research is concerned?

Professor Hill: As I often say, the Arctic is basically an ocean and it is a very, very important area of research, of direct relevance to Europe and the United Kingdom - increasingly important. The signs of climate change are most rapid and going to be most pronounced in the Arctic regions.

Q251 Chairman: Why do we spend all our time in the Antarctic then?

Professor Hill: Because the Antarctic is also a very important and significant regulator of the earth's climate - both Poles. But it is true that the relative balance of our investment in Arctic research is much lower, so there is an imbalance. That does not mean we can spend less in the Antarctic because it is a very expensive place to get to and to do research, so we have to see how we can maintain the presence. There are very many significant opportunities and threats relating to the arctic. By 2070 it may be that the Arctic is ice free in the summer months and when that happens - and of course it may well be significantly ice free much earlier than that, 2050, maybe even 2020 - all sorts of things will start happening in the Arctic, driven by market forces - hydrocarbon exploration, fishing and, most importantly, trade between the Far East and Europe with bulk carriers and container ships across the Arctic ocean. That will already be an area that is very, very stressed through the rapid climate change that has already happened - very stressed ecosystems with a lot of human intervention going on as well. It is really, really important that we understand what is going on there from the environmental point of view, but a huge part of our economy is going to be dictated by what goes on within the Arctic region.

Professor Willmott: Ed has nicely summarised the key reasons for the UK and Europe to invest more effort in understanding the climate change of the Arctic. I think within the UK we do have a considerable group of expertise, albeit spread around the country. I think we can harness the skills that we have for people who already work on the Arctic problems through responsive mode grants - we can harness those in a more effective way under a common umbrella to better address some of these really important questions relating to global change driven by the change in the Arctic. So I think there is a strong case for us over the next ten years to up our game in partnership probably with other European countries, such as Norway and countries like Canada, with bordering on the Arctic, to have a more concerted effort in understanding the big changes that are going to occur globally through the rapid warming of the Arctic.

Q252 Dr Turner: What in your view is needed to give the UK the capacity that you clearly feel is needed to ramp up the efforts in the Arctic? Is it simply ships, people? What are the factors?

Professor Willmott: I think we have the intellectual base; we have the people, but I think we do not have the infrastructure to go up there and carry out programmes either in marine environment or working looking at meteorological changes. I think it is a question of, it is expensive to get up there and carry out field programmes and we do not have the capacity, certainly within the UK, to do that at the moment.

Q253 Dr Turner: How many icebreakers should we build and how much?

Professor Hill: I do not think we should do this alone; we should be doing this in partnership, and in Europe particularly. But we must build the relationships and we must build the networks to be able to work in significant partnerships with major collaborators to do it. The UK cannot go alone.

Professor Liss: And there is a European proposal to build an icebreaker vessel - Aurora Borealis, I think it is called - and that proposal has been around for some time but it has not yet led to the vessel. But we must do it Europe-wide.

Chairman: On that positive note we will end this session. Professor Ed Hill, Professor Peter Liss and Professor Andrew Willmott, thank you enormously and my apologies to all of you for the very quick countdown and for you being so cooperative.