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

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE

INVESTIGATING THE OCEANS

Monday 16 July 2007

JONATHAN SHAW MP, PROFESSOR SIR HOWARD DALTON

and PROFESSOR SIR DAVID KING

Evidence heard in Public Questions 475 - 562

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Science and Technology Committee

on Monday 16 July 2007

Members present

Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair

Mrs Nadine Dorries

Linda Gilroy

Dr Brian Iddon

Chris Mole

Dr Desmond Turner

________________

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Jonathan Shaw MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Professor Sir Howard Dalton, Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Professor Sir David King, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, gave evidence.

Q475 Chairman: Could I offer a particularly warm welcome to our three witnesses this afternoon on this, the penultimate session of our inquiry investigating the oceans, one of the excellent cross-cutting inquiries which the Science and Technology Committee are involved with. Our three witnesses this afternoon are Jonathan Shaw, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Defra. Could we not only welcome you, Jonathan, but also congratulate you on your appointment. We are delighted for you.

Jonathan Shaw: Thank you, Chairman.

Q476 Chairman: Professor Sir David King, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, welcome again, Sir David. Last, but by no means least, Sir Howard Dalton, Defra's Departmental Chief Scientific Adviser, and you are always welcome to our Committee.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Thank you, Chairman.

Q477 Chairman: I wonder if we could move on quickly and perhaps ask you, Jonathan, who is the Minister for Marine Science?

Jonathan Shaw: I am the Minister for Marine Science. The IACMST reports to me, so I am the Minister for Marine Science in terms of Defra's responsibility.

Q478 Chairman: The division between DIUS and Defra, are you conscious of where the responsibility for one begins and the other one ends?

Jonathan Shaw: DIUS, I am not sure ---

Professor Sir David King: The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Jonathan Shaw: Chairman, in preparing for this inquiry I asked the officials to prepare me a list of acronyms for this particular area and there are 48, so I have got a crib sheet.

Q479 Chairman: We will not use another acronym for the whole afternoon. I expect all my colleagues to give the full titles.

Jonathan Shaw: You are a better man than I am, Chairman!

Q480 Chairman: The serious question is that we do now have a new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and I just wonder if you see a conflict or a division between Defra and, indeed, the new department in terms of marine science.

Jonathan Shaw: There should not be a conflict, Chairman. Sir Howard chairs the IACMST, which is independent, but nevertheless he is the Chief Scientist for Defra. The work that we have seen undertaken has been collaborative with many organisations coming together to provide science evidence on which a policy can be formulated. The starting point was Safeguarding our Seas, which I am sure the Committee are familiar with. There are other examples which I will perhaps come on to during the evidence where there is collaboration. The IACMST is the catalyst that identifies particular areas of research that are required and obviously the research institutes undertake their research as well, and they do come together. Perhaps if I can just highlight an example of where that has happened, and where that has happened well: the monitoring arrangements. This chart, which we will provide the Committee with, highlights 350 different programmes of where there is monitoring taking place in the sea and that is undertaken by a range of different organisations, but it is brought together and collated ---

Q481 Chairman: By Defra.

Jonathan Shaw: By Defra. It was the work of the IACMST that drew attention to the fact that it was very disparate and it is absolutely vital that we do have this monitoring that takes place. It is now brought together, not just for England but for the devolved authorities as well.

Q482 Chairman: We will come on to the Inter-Agency Committee for Marine Science and Technology a little later but, Sir David, I wonder do you see any real divisions between Defra and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, which will henceforth be called DIUS?

Professor Sir David King: In respect of marine science?

Q483 Chairman: Yes. Is there a conflict anywhere?

Professor Sir David King: I see it rather clearly. In 2003 Sir Howard took over from me as Chairman of the Inter-Agency Committee and at that point as well the officials moved to Defra and I saw it as becoming a full Defra responsibility with the ministerial responsibility in Defra. Now, of course there are many government departments involved, as there are in many other issues such as climate change, but the practice of giving key responsibility to one department exists right across government, so I do not see the conflict with that.

Q484 Chairman: Can I tell you why I have asked the question. Currently IACMST actually reports to OSI and OSI is moving lock, stock and barrel into the new department. That was the confusion. You are now saying that has changed and it is going to report to Defra.

Professor Sir David King: I believe in practice this has been the case. We have a member from the Office of Science and Innovation, as it was, and DIUS as it is now, on that Inter-Agency Committee but the chairmanship and the official responsibility now lies with Defra, and I believe has done since 2003. Your question means that we need to go away and make sure that the reporting lines are absolutely clear. As Chief Scientific Adviser on issues like this I would always pass initial responsibility to the Departmental Chief Scientific Adviser, for example, leaving myself a position of challenge so that I can come in not having been fully involved.

Q485 Chairman: It is not a trick question, it is just trying to get clarification, please do not think that. Sir Howard, the committee itself thinks it reports to OSI, not to Defra.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: It does. It believes it does.

Q486 Chairman: It believes it does.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We need some clarity here but I think there is an issue about clarity and that is a problem at the moment.

Q487 Chairman: It is as this is the key organisation that, if you like, co-ordinates marine science.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: It is quite true. If you go to the Inter-Agency Committee on Marine Science and Technology website you will see that the Inter-Agency Committee on Marine Science and Technology reports to the Office of Science and Innovation. It is true, and Sir David is absolutely right, I took over the chairmanship of the Inter-Agency Committee on Marine Science and Technology in 2003 from his department and have been chair of that ever since. I act, in a sense, as an independent chair of IACMST because on that committee sits representations from each of the major government departments, including Defra, so I purely and simply serve as its chairman and will continue to serve as its chairman, despite the fact that I shall no longer be formally associated with Defra when I leave government in September, and will continue being the chairman of IACMST for one year at least thereafter. That emphasises that I have an independent role as a chairman but we in Defra and the OSI, or DIUS - the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills - need to be clear about what the reporting lines are and I think there is a slight fuzziness there and we need to get that resolved.

Q488 Chairman: Could I just ask you, Sir Howard, whether the committee actually produces an annual report? Does it present it to Defra or to OSI?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: The Office of Science and Innovation. We have a report.

Q489 Chairman: The report goes to OSI?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Yes.

Q490 Chairman: So it does need clarification and you are going to do it, Jonathan.

Jonathan Shaw: In preparing for the evidence session this afternoon from some of the submissions of the previous evidence that has been presented to you I spotted that there was perhaps the need for clarity and, coming new to the job, that is something that I am going to do. It is very helpful that the Committee has highlighted this point because as we move forward the lines of accountability and reporting are very important. We have got an enormous amount of work ahead of us with the Marine Bill and it is right that we get this in place. Yes, I will get on and do it.

Q491 Chairman: Minister, you mentioned the Marine Bill. Everybody's eyes lit up at that point. When are we going to get the Marine Bill?

Jonathan Shaw: I have read The Guardian today and some other colleagues have as well. We are committed to the Marine Bill. We anticipate seeing a draft Bill early next year and in our manifesto it was stated that we would introduce that Bill. We have got a lot of work to do.

Q492 Chairman: It was not in the Queen's Speech, that is what concerned us.

Jonathan Shaw: It was referred to in the written statement. The Prime Minister did not say in his oral statement but there was reference to it in the written statement. It will be the first type of legislation anywhere in the world, so the world will be looking at us. We will have a blank canvas within which to paint the new planning and regulation of our ocean. It is absolutely vital that we get this right, both in terms of the science and also, very importantly, the co-operation with the devolved authorities, which The Guardian did not refer to.

Q493 Chairman: We are not responsible for The Guardian.

Jonathan Shaw: You are not, no.

Q494 Chairman: Not yet!

Jonathan Shaw: In terms of responding to that.

Q495 Chairman: Can I just lead on from that because the Committee, as part of this inquiry, and we think it has been a very significant inquiry into marine science ---

Jonathan Shaw: And very timely.

Q496 Chairman: ---visited the United States and three weeks ago we were in Portugal. Both Portugal as a small country and the US as arguably the largest country involved in marine science have comprehensive national strategies and we have not. Why is that, do you think? Are we going to put that right? Do we need one?

Jonathan Shaw: I referred earlier to Safeguarding our Seas and that started off the process and there was the follow-up charting our progress. What is vital is that good science informs the way that we shape policy. These documents lay out what the Government's intention is. As I say, we have the Marine Bill as well and that will bring in proper regulation and planning arrangements, which do not exist at the moment. It is a bit like on the land, is it not, where there is a myriad of different organisations and responsibilities but we have got a blank canvas. There has been good work in progress.

Q497 Chairman: But they are not national strategies, are they, the documents that you have referred to, they were part of a strategy rather than a whole strategy.

Jonathan Shaw: Do you mean in terms of where ---

Q498 Chairman: A comprehensive set of priorities which the UK marine science, marine industries, are working towards.

Jonathan Shaw: We have strategies to deal with marine life, we have strategies to deal with ensuring our coastal waters are clean, we have strategies in terms of climate change and the effect that is having upon the marine life and the effect it is having on our oceans. By way of inspiration, we also have a strategy for marine monitoring under UKMMAS. We are making steps in the right direction.

Q499 Chairman: I think we are trying to make the point that this is an important area to pull together rather than have a division.

Jonathan Shaw: I agree with you, Chairman, and you highlighted in your first points about reporting between different committees in terms of how they disseminate evidence and how they encourage research that is needed in order to shape that overall strategy. There is work in train and we need to do more.

Q500 Chairman: I will just ask one last question. The clerk and I were down in Southampton last week looking at the Oceanographic Centre and we came away having met a number of the scientists there who felt that there was a need for a champion for marine science. Sir David, I wonder have you met a champion for marine science during your time as Government Chief Scientific Adviser, and who is that person?

Professor Sir David King: The champion is sitting to my left and would be Sir Howard Dalton, in my view.

Q501 Chairman: Sir Howard, you have been named as the champion. Will you continue to be the champion when you have left government?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I am sure my successor will be happy to accept the mantle of being champion for it, and it is absolutely right in many respects that Defra should take some sort of leading role here and we would be happy to embrace that. It is important that strategically we get something together which from our point of view brings together the science, well structured and well organised, so that it can feed into the policy process. We need a proper marine strategy, you are absolutely right, and in order to do that it is essential that we get the science right. My role on IACMST is to try to bring together all those people in the UK who have a need for, and are involved in, marine science, particularly in the monitoring area, the research area, understanding fisheries, understanding everything that is going on in the marine environment, which has been rather poorly researched. I told you this when I last gave evidence to this Committee. I think it is right that we do it and we do it properly. In terms of developing a proper science base for that, I think Defra is probably as good as anybody else in order to do that. IACMST is purely and simply a vehicle for bringing people together and to understand what the issues are, it is not the one that sets the programmes up in the first place, it advises different government departments on what to do.

Chairman: I will bring Des in here because we would like to follow that up.

Q502 Dr Turner: I do not know who wants to take this one but having been in the job for two weeks Jonathan ought to be able to account for the deficiencies in the last 50 years! Anyway, the Lords Select Committee looked at marine science 20 years and they described the areas as "under-funded and fragmented". Nothing seems to have changed very much over the last 20 years because all of our witnesses have told us the same story, so why are we in this position?

Jonathan Shaw: I am not sure that is right. There will be a number of important areas to improve upon but in terms of funding, it is science that spends around £26 million and the Committee has been provided with a breakdown of the areas within the evidence that we submitted. There is also the science and marine science that goes from the Research Councils and you will be aware that there has been a significant increase in funding to the Research Councils. In terms of money and fragmentation, I would point to the example of MariFish. It is about us being more collaborative with other countries as well so we can use our resources with other countries. Defra have led MariFish, which is a collaboration of 13 countries with a whole series of different programmes, and that has been very successful. We are able to work with others and to use the resources available to us in a smarter way. In terms of how the UK stands up comparatively, and we will provide the Committee with a league table, we compare pretty well in terms of other European countries. I accept that there is bound to be a case of needing to do more. In terms of you saying that things have stayed the same for the last 20 years, I think that I could point to examples which would refute that, although not necessarily entirely.

Q503 Dr Turner: It is a pity that the marine scientific community does not see it that way. There are also reservations from the IACMST themselves because they do not seem to think that it is really fulfilling a proper co-ordinated and strategic role and it certainly does not have any actual powers. It does not have funding powers, it is a talk shop. Do you think that its powers should be increased? Should we consider moving to a formal agency like NOAA in the United States? We seem to have a situation where we have got some very, very good marine scientists at work and the reputation of British marine science stands very high in the world but they are having problems with inconsistent support, shall we say, which if you are looking at it from a strategic point of view, especially the monitoring programmes, would have been better avoided and many of these programmes have only been saved by the skin of their teeth by charitable finance. Do you think that we should be doing something with the IACMST? God, I hate that acronym, I can never my tongue round it

Jonathan Shaw: I know what we are talking about.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We can use MST as an abbreviation if that helps.

Jonathan Shaw: Another one!

Q504 Dr Turner: Should we do anything?

Jonathan Shaw: The opening questions from the Chairman highlighted an issue for me to look at in terms of the reporting and accountability and who is in the lead. That is probably the first thing that I need to do. In terms of whether the committee that we are talking about needs teeth and whether it needs to be an agency, I am not in a position to be able to make a proper assessment of. In terms of whether it is just a talking shop and does not do anything, the example I have just referred to of the 300 programmes of monitoring did not happen until the Committee was set up. It was through the Committee's work that people were brought together to ensure that all of that monitoring and those programmes then fed into Defra so we can have a good idea of what is happening on the sea bed. There is an example of where the Committee has provided an important function. The point the Chairman raises is something for me to look at. In terms of whether it needs teeth or money, et cetera, that will be something for me to consider. I hope that I will be able to consider that when I receive a copy of your report which will be very helpful

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Getting back to your question at the beginning, which was a fair one about the funding situation, that is absolutely clear. Historically the funding in the marine environment has been much poorer than it has in the terrestrial environment.

Q505 Chairman: In your evidence you said it was £2 million under-funded.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I gave you the figure in my evidence and that has not changed. What has changed is the realisation that we need to fund it better and it is an important and valuable resource for the UK. When you think about the programme that we talked about before, Oceans 2025, which is a NERC funded research initiative that Defra are teaming up with and other funders are getting involved with, I think it is a major step forward in trying to develop the science that underpins everything to do with the marine environment. There is a very important initiative and we must not lose sight of that. Where IACMST fits in all of this is an interesting and valuable question and it is one for the Minister to contemplate on because we need to think now what the role of IACMST ought to be. You are absolutely right. It has been a talking shop. It has been a vehicle for us to be able to think seriously about what we are trying to do, what different government departments are doing in order to address the issues. Maybe it needs some teeth. Maybe it does need a resource base that we can throw at this and say, "We think more money ought to be put in there and we have it to give you." That is a possibility. I would not want to presume any more than saying this is something we need to think about but it is certainly something for the Minister to contemplate.

Professor Sir David King: This may be an occasion when you find you have three different opinions before you. I personally think that we have rather over stressed the Inter-Agency Committee and its position in the discussion. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the right department to take on full responsibility for the marine environment. The full responsibility lies with that department, including the possibility to coordinate activities with other government departments. Coming back to the responsibilities of Jonathan, I think they lie within the Department. At the same time, I do support what Sir Howard in the sense that we have not, despite being a maritime nation, fully recognised the importance of marine science in the overall picture. As we move forward through this century, I think we will have to change that quite dramatically. If we look at the marine situation, we have biodiversity issues, water quality issues, impacts from climate change - by that I mean warming oceans - impacts from carbon dioxide levels increasing which means acidifying the oceans and we have major issues, I believe, around the food chain beginning with plankton. All of this impacts heavily on the way we move forward through this century. We will have to have a much greater focus of attention on marine science as we move forward.

Jonathan Shaw: One of the first questions I had for officials was obviously about how much money we were spending and where the shortfalls were. There are shortfalls. They have prepared me a chart of the different areas where we are spending now and where we see the shortfalls. I can very happily provide the Committee with that. It talks about sea birds, data assessment project management for productive seas, litter, noise, a whole range of different areas.

Q506 Chairman: That would be useful for us.

Jonathan Shaw: You will get it all from me. It is much better that you have all the information. The government has to make decisions about how much we spend and whether we will be able to meet all the shortfalls. We will probably not but it is important that the Committee have that information so that they can provide the most accurate report.

Q507 Linda Gilroy: I was very pleased to hear Sir David's comments about the recognition that is growing for marine science. I think I am right in saying that marine science and technology - it is one of the things we have learned, the interconnection and the importance between the two - is something like a £14 billion industry in Europe. It is a growth industry and it is one where the UK in many fields has a lead. I would just challenge you to look at whether it really is appropriate for it to be sited in Defra, that the champion we were trying to identify should be sited in Defra and not perhaps in DIUS or whatever.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: When you look at that £14 billion, you have to ask yourself who is generating it. A lot of it is oil, gas and marine engineering which in a sense fit probably much closer into that department than Defra. The fishing side of it is relatively small, although it is a very important part of the livelihood and wellbeing of the nation. It is important to think about where the major activities are from that point of view. I am not trying to shove it away to another department essentially but it might be more realistic to think about where the major resource earners are in that context.

Professor Sir David King: We just have to bear in mind that the DTI no longer exists. I think the department Sir Howard has just referred to is Business Enterprise, not DIUS.

Jonathan Shaw: In Defra's defence, Defra leads on sustainable development so it is appropriate that there is an umbrella that looks after the sea. I think it should remain where it is given all the work that has been undertaken.

Q508 Dr Turner: Oceans 2025 is going to need lots of good collaboration between Defra's institutes and NERC's institutes. Are you happy that this is going to work well? Are we going to get some symbiosis between all these different institutes?

Jonathan Shaw: Yes. At the moment there is a sustainable marine bioresources programme which is funded jointly with NERC, in the region of £700,000. It is happening and it needs to continue to happen. Yes, I am confident that that will be the case.

Q509 Dr Turner: Marine science is becoming increasingly relevant to climate change. Defra contains the Office for Climate Change. Is the marine science community being brought into the work of the Office for Climate Change?

Jonathan Shaw: It is. This is the marine climate change annual report card which sets out very clearly and succinctly where we are, what could happen and how confident we are about that prediction. That includes a whole range of different organisations and contributors. I am very happy that the collaboration is taking place. We have a very high level of contributors to this report card which is a good document and sets out where we are. It also includes NGOs and the devolved authorities and Guernsey and Jersey, for example. Yes, people are working together on climate change.

Q510 Dr Turner: There is a whole host of Defra led initiatives going on. Are you satisfied that there are not too many of them so that they are not going to trip each other up? Is each of them being adequately funded?

Jonathan Shaw: I have talked about the programmes in terms of the monitoring that is happening. Getting the most out of the resources that we are putting in is absolutely essential but I do not think we should just be looking at it from a UK perspective. It is obvious that marine life, pollution and such matters do not recognise borders so it is essential that we have collaborative arrangements, particularly with our European partners. That is an important part of the way ahead, how we use our resources. I will provide a very bold statement about how much we are investing and where we think the shortfall is so that you will have that clear picture.

Q511 Dr Turner: You have clearly come to the realisation that there is some under-funding in marine science. Do you think it is drastically under-funded? How optimistic do you feel about its level of funding under the comprehensive spending review?

Jonathan Shaw: What I hope we will see more of is collaboration between the Committee so that we know what we are talking about and the Research Councils, particularly NERC. There has been some work and Oceans 2025 is an important part of that, but we need to see more of that going forward. We need to be able to answer the big questions as to what is happening out there. What is climate change going to do in terms of impacting on marine life, not just within our immediate area but in the oceans around the world and how they all feed into each other? That is big research which we need to do in terms of the Foresight Programme looking forward but within that we need more applied science as well. I hope that we do see more discussion and collaboration. I have been advised that perhaps on the one hand the Committee and the IACMST and NERC have not had a lot of collaboration in the past. Oceans 2025 is an encouraging development and we need to see more of it.

Q512 Dr Turner: You carefully skated around the question about funding.

Jonathan Shaw: There will always be demands upon funding. Is the level of marine and scientific research going to get to the same level as terrestrial research? That would be a huge leap and I do not think that is likely. We will have to see what comes out of the CSR but it is reasonable for me to say that we need to use our money in a more collaborative way with other countries and I also think we need to see greater use of the significant resources that have gone into the Research Councils.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: The Minister is absolutely right that we have to get our priorities sorted. There is an issue over funding for marine science. I agree with that. If you look at the amount of money that we were putting into the marine environment research spend in 1994, it is the same as it is today in real terms. Therefore, it is less. You ask yourself: are you doing the same amount of research? We are being quite innovative in realising that there is less money available than there was. We do need to work very closely with our partners on it and the Minister is quite right in saying that what we have to find ways of doing is to team up with as many people as we can so that we do not all start doing the same sort of things. Working with our European partners has been very important. Working with the Natural Environment Research Council is a very useful and helpful way forward. We have to be more careful in the way in which we spend our money. You ask any scientist, "Are you spending enough money on your particular project?" any scientist will say, "No, we can always spend more" and we can. What is being clever is being able to do the right sort of science at the right time with the same amount of money. That is really what the challenge is for us and we try to do that.

Jonathan Shaw: We do compare well with other countries as will be illustrated with the information that I will provide to the Committee.

Chairman: Can we ask Sir David the same question? The real issue here is that throughout this inquiry we have been impressed by witness after witness, both the other side of the Atlantic and here, who have made the significant point that the research into what is happening in our oceans is absolutely fundamental to the future of this planet. Therefore, to hear that we will make the resources go a bit further perhaps is not the exciting response we need. We need someone to fight for this.

Dr Iddon: We are not even touching the deep ocean. We are talking about research on the continental shelf largely at the moment.

Q513 Chairman: Sir David, triumph. This is your opportunity.

Professor Sir David King: I want to respond by reminding everyone that there are two forms of government funding that we are talking about. One is the Research Council funding which is pushing the frontiers of knowledge. The other is government funding which is advising governments on policy decisions. They have different intents and different contents. At the same time, in the best of possible worlds, they pull in similar directions and I think this is an example where things are moving in a way that synergises these two aspects of the work. We had a discussion about Oceans 2025. That is a NERC led project. If you read their 2005 to 2008 projected work, you will see that it is right up there as one of the projects they plan to fund with increased funding. Within NERC there is a very clear understanding of the reason why we need to fund marine science more heavily. For example, the Exeter meeting on the impacts of climate change held at the beginning of our presidency year of the G8, a big, international meeting. I was present throughout that meeting and I can attest to the fact that it was the British marine scientists who led the way on this new area of concern which is what is climate change doing to our oceans. It was British scientists, funded very largely by the Met Office and NERC who were leading the way in terms of developing areas of science that needed exploring. This question of acidifying the oceans really became apparent through British work from Portsmouth and Southampton that was presented at that meeting. On the one hand we do have excellent research and I personally think that NERC has a chief executive and a council that are focused on trying to moved as quickly as possible into these critically important areas. From the point of view of the government department, there is much to be done in taking that research and converting it into policy advice. For example, we look at the movement of plankton, plankton being the beginning of much of the food chain. If Arctic plankton is moving north and we are seeing data showing 1,000 kilometre movement north, a different variety of plankton is moving up to replace it around the British Isles. What are the consequences for the marine food chain but also for the land based food chain, both in terms of cod stocks and fish stocks generally, because the fish larvae eat the plankton; but also in terms of bird populations, because the birds feed off the ocean reservoir as well? All of this feeds directly into Defra's responsible area in terms of the fisheries of the United Kingdom but also in terms of the environment. The Department has a very clear responsibility and, as time moves on, it really needs to look very carefully at the level of funding and see that it is appropriate to the needs.

Q514 Chris Mole: The Minister referred to applied science and Sir David was talking about some of the products of a particular scientific project. I am not sure whether these are some of the 350 projects mentioned earlier but Sir David referred to monitoring plankton and that is part of building up a long term picture about what is happening in the ocean, along with measuring acidity, salinity, temperature and all of those data sets. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that we have that continuous monitoring? Is that something that is going to sit with Defra? Has it been with the OSI in the past because of the project funding approach? Who is going to get hold of that and say, "We need this information on a continuous basis in order to properly inform our public policy in this area"?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: One of the things the Minister referred to early on and the one thing that we and IACMST have been very concerned about are marine data, what we do with marine data, where they go, how are they being properly used and can it be properly used in the future. There have been something like, when we started to look into this business, 350-odd data sets all out there, all over the place in different forms, all of which were necessarily important if we want to understand what is going on in the marine environment. Through our Marine Data Information Partnership initiative from IACMST, an activity that IACMST got engaged with, we said, "Let us try and put all this together so we have a proper system." We funded that with some money that came from NERC particularly in order to be able to set up a very small team of people to bring all that information together. We in Defra and many other organisations around the UK collect data together and put them all down so that they can be thoroughly used. The MDIP partnership has been responsible for pulling those data together and making them available in a form that everybody can then use. Defra funds an awful lot of this activity in what we call the non-R&D side of the budgets which is to do with monitoring, understanding what the fish stocks are, understanding what is going on in the environment, doing the sort of measurements that Sir David talked about in terms of CO_2, acidification, salinity measurements, funding a whole load of activities out there for monitoring the marine environment which is an international activity. It is not just a UK activity.

Q515 Chris Mole: Who should be pulling it together on an international basis?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: There are people who are pulling it together on an international basis. We have this global observation system for the ocean, GOOS. There is a number of internationally coordinated activities to look at the marine environment and that is part of it. We pull our weight by looking at the activities around the UK.

Q516 Chris Mole: Does that mean our contribution towards ensuring that things like the ARGO floats are going to be there and replaced when they drop off the system?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: That is an issue that I am concerned about. I am concerned about the funding and deployment and the continued funding and deployment of ARGO floats, which are playing a very important role globally, where the UK should be making a contribution to the international activities. We struggle every year to get money for it.

Q517 Chris Mole: There is no worry that that will not continue?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I am worried that it may not continue. We need to ensure that government, if it wants to involved in all of this, funds it properly and does not give us a situation every year where we have to go cap in hand, trying to raise money for it.

Q518 Chairman: The question that we would like an answer to is: whose responsibility is it? You have mentioned that Defra have pulled this together and the Committee are very supportive of what has been achieved there. In terms of some of the long term, continuous plankton records, NERC is doing that but it is doing it on a cycle by cycle basis.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: It is funded by Defra but it is done through SAHFOs, the Sir Alistair Harding Foundations.

Q519 Chairman: In Plymouth?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: That is right. Defra funds it and Defra has taken on board the responsibility for ensuring it is continued.

Q520 Chairman: It would be better if Defra took on responsibility for all the recording, do you think?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Probably. It is very useful for Defra to have some sort of element of control over what is going. IACMST which I chair has to go to a variety of different departments to get bits and pieces on this and I think it is good for somebody to pick it all up.

Q521 Chris Mole: That would be a new funding structure, a new approach to saying, "This is monitoring information" as opposed to scientific project based research?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We need a strategy for bringing all of that information together under one roof. I cannot disagree with that. I think it is sensible.

Q522 Chris Mole: Would Professor King endorse that?

Professor Sir David King: Absolutely. That should be closest to the department where the policy is most heavily involved.

Jonathan Shaw: In terms of bringing together organisations, I referred to Safeguarding the Seas. That brought together 60 organisations in the UK. Defra did that. Certainty of funding is very important for this. We have just agreed a ten year funding for CEFAS, which I know Chris Mole has visited recently in Lowestoft. There is commitment to long term funding to provide the certainty that science needs.

Q523 Chris Mole: We discovered in another inquiry that DfES has the lead on global monitoring for GMES.

Jonathan Shaw: Global Monitoring and Environmental Security.

Q524 Chris Mole: DfES has the lead on that?

Jonathan Shaw: CEFAS? Who are you talking about?

Q525 Chris Mole: Defra. There is some question about whether there was enough commitment to earth monitoring in general through satellite technology. Do you have concerns that we are maintaining as much earth observation from space as we should be?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I think I also gave evidence to your space committee that talked about GMES, Global Monitoring and Environmental Security. We did have some concerns again that we were not necessarily playing as full a role in being able to make contributions to it as we ought. There is this issue within Europe about juste retour in terms of satellite technology for GMES. If the UK is not making its contributions sufficiently large, UK industry begins to fall down a bit there. It is a bit like all of these monitoring systems. They get more and more sophisticated every year. They get better and better technology and usually you would like to see the technology getting cheaper but more often than not it does not. It is important that we try and pull our weight as far as GMES and satellite monitoring are concerned and that is an important part of that.

Q526 Chris Mole: I was not going to return to the funding question but we have raised even more demands there. Everyone has highlighted the imbalance in terrestrial and is not the answer to shift some of the money within the department on terrestrial monitoring of the environment to the oceans? It is 87 per cent of the biosphere and a huge amount of our biodiversity as well. Is that what we should be doing, Minister?

Jonathan Shaw: Each area of research is very important, whether it is on terrestrial or marine. We look forward to the Committee's conclusions and we will consider funding as we go forward. We are not alone in terms of how we compare to other countries. We are pretty good. With the determination for more collaborative work, we can undertake the type of work necessary to get the answers. That will then feed into policy, whether that is of an Oceans 2025 type or in terms of the stuff that Defra does, if it helps influence us when we are making decisions on fish stocks, or whatever.

Q527 Chris Mole: It was a vain stab on my part.

Jonathan Shaw: I cannot announce today that we will be cutting one stream and moving it over to marine research.

Professor Sir David King: It does seem to me that there is something critically important here. As we move forward over the next 10, 15 or 20 years, the pressures on our environment will continually increase. I am talking about pressures on the marine environment and the land environment. Our population globally will continue to increase. The climate change issues are an additional strain to all previous strains. At the same time, science has become capable of handling these extremely complex issues with very clear outcomes. That means that a government that is going to use the best scientific advice is going to do it in the best interests of its own population and more broadly. The basic message I want to get through is that it is going to be tough leaving Defra to say, "Now we have this new challenge we will just switch our resources onto another challenge that is arising." We need to look at the global funding. I do not think we can find a way round this just by saying, "Shift your budget around." Look at it globally and see the nature of the challenges that Defra particularly is faced with.

Q528 Chris Mole: Professor Dalton, just now you were talking about better coordination of a lot of the monitoring and measurement work. What steps have been taken to ensure that all the data output from publicly funded operations is available to researchers? I think it is important that we ensure that we do not get duplication or people are not having to do work twice. Specifically, are you confident for example that the mathematic data that comes from the Hydrographic Office is not degraded before it gets into the scientific arena?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I cannot give you a 100 per cent guarantee, but I can tell you that we are working very hard to ensure that all the information through our Marine Data Information Partnership operation is making those data that we get available to everybody. The whole point of this was that we wanted to get as much information into the system to make it as freely available for researchers to access so that the work can be done very effectively. You have to accept sometimes that some of those data are difficult to get because there is a commercial need to maintain and keep them. In a sense, it is not going to be a perfect data set but what we are trying to do is say to everybody, "Look, you put all that information into the system. You will get an incredible amount of information back." That is all we can do. We are making it available for everybody else. Anybody who wants to sign up and give us data gets access to the system that we are allowing. There is a multiplier. If you put data in, you get a heck of a lot more data out. We are putting it in a form that is accessible to everybody because when you look at data sets from a whole variety of different situations, they all have to be deconvoluted and restructured so that it makes sense to everybody. That is an issue that we are working on and that is why we have a management team to do it.

Q529 Chris Mole: There is no risk that bits of agencies that are asked to operate in trading functions are going to end up charging for things that academics really cannot afford?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I would hope not. I cannot guarantee it because you cannot hold a sword over people's heads and say, "You must give us those data." It is very difficult for us to ensure that but we are trying to do things for the good of the marine community. That is the way it works.

Q530 Chris Mole: Does the Minister need to talk to his defence colleagues about the information we get from some of their agencies?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: He might.

Q531 Chairman: When we were on the James Cook with scientists there, they said they often find it more difficult to get data from UK based operations than they do from operations the other side of the world. I think it is an issue which we need to have a clear policy on. You have stated that publicly funded research data should be available within a timescale which allowed researchers to be able to do their initial investigations and to write their papers, which seems perfectly reasonable. You are nodding in accordance with that?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Absolutely. I agree with that 100 per cent. I do not think those data should be kept secret. I really think it is important for the community and for UK plc to have access to them and for other people to have access to them, because they also in turn can give us their information. It is not just UK based. We are working with our European partners on this and that is an important part of the 19 centre organisations that Defra has been organising which the Minister referred to at the beginning, which I think is playing a very important role in us working with our partners to get as much information out of them as possible.

Jonathan Shaw: We will look at that and send the Committee a note on how quickly we get research information out.

Q532 Chairman: Would you like to make a recommendation?

Jonathan Shaw: It is something that you have found from your trip on the James Cook and if these things come up we want to answer those points.

Q533 Chairman: It was not a trip, Minister. It was a research visit.

Jonathan Shaw: You are correct. Thank you for putting me right.

Q534 Dr Turner: When the Marine Bill finally arrives, it is going to propose setting up a chain of marine protected areas. This is already looking a little problematic because of the deficiency of data. It is difficult to be truly certain as to the areas that most need protection. Can you tell us a little about how you see the designation of marine protected areas being done and how big is the coverage? What sort of conservation measures do you envisage?

Jonathan Shaw: You are right to point out that within the Bill there is going to be this opportunity. In terms of me defining how large they are going to be and how many there are going to be, with all matters in this area, we will develop that. We will not say there are going to be 15 or 20. We need to see how they progress and what type of information they provide for us. It will be about trying to preserve stocks. It is unlikely that they will be able to preserve fish stocks because obviously they do not recognise non-fishing areas. It would be good if they did but, for other crustaceans and other forms of marine life, there will be fishing and no extraction of minerals within those areas. That will then provide us with important information as to whether that has a positive effect upon oceans and marine life.

Q535 Dr Turner: You have a target of getting this network of MPAs in place by 2010 which only gives you three years. There is not time to get a significant amount of data to decide where to designate. How will you cope with that? Is there a sensible case for saying, "Let's have sufficiently comprehensive coverage and collect data later"?

Jonathan Shaw: My presumption would be that there will be a range of different areas that we would cover within our coastal shores to provide information on a range of different species.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We do have extant marine protected areas. Lundy. Skomer.

Q536 Dr Turner: About three square kilometres?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: You are pretty close, yes, 3.3. Those are areas where of course there is substratum coal growing and therefore with crustaceans particularly we can look at those but there is a bigger issue. We are doing an awful lot of monitoring of the seas in order to be able to look at what is happening to fish populations: whiting, cod, herring and so on. We will almost certainly have to come up with protected areas in order to allow those stocks to recover. It is important that we understand what is going on in the whole food chain in order to be able to understand best how we are going to be able to stimulate and allow those stocks to recover and develop a viable, profitable fishing industry.

Q537 Dr Turner: It is my understanding that the thing is meant to be based on the ecosystem approach. Unfortunately we do not sufficiently understand those ecosystems at the moment to be precise about designating areas but equally, if we have not designated some areas, we probably will not be able to understand the ecosystems. There are some conundrums to be resolved here. It is going to need some funding. Will that be in place?

Jonathan Shaw: I have just been handed some inspiration. I am advised that there has been a lot of work that has been undertaken in the network areas already. We can provide the Committee with an up to date report of what work has been undertaken. What we intend is by 2012 to have made substantial progress in completing our network by designating additional European sites, bringing the total of fully marine sites into the territorial sea adjacent to England and the UK offshore area to around 30.

Q538 Chairman: In terms of these marine protected areas, it is not clear to me what it is we are trying to achieve and how we get the balance between commercial exploitation of the seas, which is absolutely crucial - we had figures earlier about the commercial benefits of the oceans as far as Europe is concerned - and the need to do good science. Are we going to have marine protected areas which exclude the science or are they going to simply exclude commercial activity? How do we decide the balance between the two?

Jonathan Shaw: In the White Paper it says that by 2020 we want to develop a network of effectively managed sites comprising European marine sites, including highly protected sites. We want to conserve enough rare, threatened and representative species and habitats to maintain and improve biodiversity and ecosystems whilst covering as small an area as possible. It sets out what our intention is for these sites.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Marine protected areas in this context have to be thought of in terms of what you are going to do with them. You are absolutely right. We are not going to be exploiting these particular areas. We are not going to be fishing these areas because if you do that then the whole thing gets screwed up anyway. What we need to do is good quality science that helps us understand what is necessary in order to regenerate the populations of stock that can then ultimately be fished in the future. The reason behind producing these protected areas is that we can get into them and understand what is going on from a scientific perspective.

Q539 Chairman: Can I put a scenario to you? If you put an offshore wind farm three kilometres square, where clearly commercial fishing cannot take place for very obvious reasons, could that become a marine protection area as well? Can you have these two functions going on at the same time, where you can develop a specific site but have a commercial activity as well which is not in conflict?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Commercial other than fishing? You have something there. I do not know to what extent offshore wind farms affect the marine environment. We are doing work on trying to understand a bit better what is going on there. It was quite interesting that IACMST produced a report on underwater sound and the effects it has on marine populations. It is quite significant and important. You do get transmission of underwater sound from wind farms. There is an effect there. It may well be a bit more difficult if we are going to try to understand better what is going on in the marine environment. Possibly we need as little commercial interference in those areas as possible.

Q540 Linda Gilroy: There was a strong perception amongst the marine science community that a good proportion of the protected areas would be like Sites of Special Scientific Interest on land. Presumably from what you are saying there is no danger that that will be let slip? I have been lobbied by my very large local community to express some concerns that this might not even appear in the Marine Bill, which I am seeking to offer reassurances by other means is not the case. Can you offer the Committee that assurance?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: No, I cannot offer the Committee that assurance. What I can do is ensure that my ministers understand that that could be a potential problem.

Q541 Dr Turner: There is a very clear possibility that some of the areas which you most want to protect are also areas - for instance, they may have very good tidal streams - that are very desirable for development from the point of view of tidal stream energy, for instance. Do you see a conflict?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: If you are talking about something like the River Severn ----

Q542 Dr Turner: I am not talking of barrages.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: What are you talking about?

Q543 Dr Turner: For instance, the tidal stream turbine which is waiting to be installed in Strangford Lock right now.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I do not know. It is a perfectly reasonable question to ask and as a scientist I say why not just get the evidence. Let us evaluate that and look at what is going on. What is the impact of that? Then we can make a sensible decision. Unless an environmental impact assessment had been done prior to that, which would help inform it, you will not get the information you need to put it in and do all the measurements, again a very good case to be made for us getting the science right so that we understand what the implication might be for other places.

Jonathan Shaw: One of the purposes of the Marine Bill will be that planning will be at its heart. With all of the potential conflict, we need to get the proper planning and regulations in place.

Q544 Chairman: We have heard a lot of evidence during this inquiry about blue biotech or marine biotechnology. I wonder what the government's policy is towards marine biotechnology and where we are going?

Professor Sir David King: I am going to defer to Sir Howard on this one because you are referring to exploiting the biodiverse systems that still exist in our oceans for potential economic benefit.

Q545 Chairman: Or even for soaking up more carbon dioxide or using plankton.

Professor Sir David King: These are areas that all need to be explored, but I defer to Sir Howard.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: The answer is yes, we are engaged with our partners. It is not the sort of thing necessarily that Defra has a direct, immediate role in. We do work very closely with the Natural Environment Research Council and there is a programme on microbial biotechnology in the marine environment. Indeed, I spoke at one of their conferences very recently on how one could think about exploiting marine systems for biology. Take for example the experiments that Craig Fenton has been doing in Bermuda, where he has been looking to identify what sort of organisms are out there in the marine environment. On one major fishing expedition he identified something like several thousand new microbial species about which we know absolutely nothing. That is a very good example, it seems to me, of using science proactively to try and understand what they are doing. What NERC has done very cleverly is look at a whole number of organisms that they have isolated from the marine environment and asked the simple question: do they do anything interesting that we know nothing about? The answer is yes, they do. In a number of cases they are producing pharmaceutical compounds which no other organism on this planet, as far as we can tell, is able to produce. There is an example of exploitation there. We are understanding better how various genes are transferred between one organism and another and that is also making a big difference.

Q546 Dr Iddon: The Foresight Marine Panel was set up in the 1990s and disbanded. What did we learn from that exercise?

Professor Sir David King: It was set up in the 1990s, shortly after the original Foresight Programme was established. The question is?

Q547 Dr Iddon: What did we learn from that exercise?

Professor Sir David King: The Foresight Programme that was established in the mid-1990s was a very different beast from the one that we have now. What we learned was a matter of very broad ranging knowledge, who was the marine science community, who should be pulled together, what sort of research was already being done and how was the industry interacting with that. There was a very broad learning process. Interestingly, after the Office of Science and Technology stopped the programme, it continued. It had a life of its own and continued for a few years. Clearly, the people within the Foresight Programme felt it was worthwhile to keep connected. Much of the outcome has gone into both the industry and the Research Councils in terms of current work.

Q548 Dr Iddon: It made a number of important recommendations like campaigning to improve public awareness of the marine environment and the science, leading roles for three Research Councils, the formation of government departmental strategies for marine technology. What are we going to monitor in terms of whether those recommendations have been carried out or not and have been effective or not?

Professor Sir David King: I am sure the Minister will explain to you that these have been largely taken on board by Defra.

Jonathan Shaw: In terms of improving the quality of marine water, that has happened. Where there still are problems they are probably for historic reasons in estuaries. We do not pollute the sea in the way that we used to. Man's behaviour is causing other problems in terms of global warming. Elsewhere, I am thinking about the target we have by 2015 to ensure that our fish stocks are at a sustainable level. That was agreed in Johannesburg. That again is an international agreement. There is a great deal of awareness of that. So many people are employed within the marine industry and related industries. It is in the region of 450,000 people. There is awareness. Take blue flags. People are aware of cleaner beaches these days, at a very practical level. We want to open up coastal footpaths and coastal areas. We have made some strides but in terms of monitoring whether we are making sufficient progress, this Committee is doing Parliament's job for it in making sure that we are held to account.

Q549 Dr Iddon: Could I ask Sir Howard about the European Commission and the Framework Seven Programme in particular, but also the Marine Strategy Green Paper? What input are we putting into one and what are we getting out of the other? Marine science does not seem to play a very large role in the Framework Seven Programme. Am I wrong?

Jonathan Shaw: We are pleased that marine and maritime have connected. Defra has made contributions to the consultation which has concluded now. We are not expecting any legislation to come forward this year. It will probably come forward next year. Some of the things that we want to do in the Marine Bill we think will be unlikely to get agreement in Europe. What we want to do in the Marine Bill is to be at the forefront of marine legislation and inform Europe as they draw up legislation.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I am not familiar with the contribution that comes out of the Framework Seven programme on the marine environment. I ought to know it but I do not. We certainly interact with Framework Seven largely through our Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Agriculture Science Centre because that is an important part of where we interface.

Q550 Dr Iddon: Perhaps somebody could write to us.

Jonathan Shaw: I am informed that our memo to the Committee highlights our involvement.

Q551 Dr Iddon: On research, as you have heard, the Committee has visited the James Cook. I did not go but I gather it is a pretty impressive vessel and also very costly. We have also heard that the number of vessels in our fleet for research at sea or on the continental shelf and in the deep sea has reduced over the past year. Whilst we are talking about collaboration with Europe, are we planning to build more ships or are we going to plan to collaborate more within the European Union for exploration?

Jonathan Shaw: The James Cook cost in the region of £25 million. That was a substantial capital investment and we hope we get a good return on that investment and the research undertaken. I am pleased that the Committee has been on that important fact finding mission, not a trip of course. In terms of whether we are going to extend the fleet, I am not aware. The collaboration point is well made. I know that in previous evidence you asked whether the Royal Navy were involved in some of that research work and I understand that they are. We will make use of all the resources at our disposal. We are developing new technologies that enable us to record information in some of those buoys.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: CEFAS and NERC both have ships. It is important that you recognise that if you have ships you want to be using them all the time. You do not want them docked up too much. We are trying to dovetail our research requirements with the Natural Environment Research Council and with other people who need access and the use of those ships. That is very important. The whole idea is to ensure that we are all getting the maximum amount of activity out of those. We cannot afford to have them in dock for too long.

Q552 Linda Gilroy: Whose responsibility is it to monitor and address skills shortages in marine science? Where do you think the key skills shortages are?

Jonathan Shaw: Defra commissions research. One of its principal bodies is CEFAS. We have a ten year funding agreement with them. That ensures certainty. We have collaboration arrangements. Where there are shortfalls, people are recruited internationally as happens a great deal with science of this nature. In your own constituency, obviously as you are aware, we have the Plymouth Laboratory. We have very highly regarded institutions. People want to come and work in them so I think we are reasonably well placed. Our marine science base is well regarded. It has not been highlighted to me since taking over this job that there are particular shortfalls.

Q553 Linda Gilroy: It has been highlighted in various sessions with us that there are shortages. The Proudman for example told us that the UK skills base for marine science is not healthy, particularly in the area of marine physics. Other witnesses have identified shortages in everything from mathematicians, oceanographic and ecological modellers, molecular biologists, environmental geophysicists and taxonomists. There is also concern about the recruitment of young people into marine science and whether the opportunities are well enough known.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: All the disciplines that you mention are quite well served in the United Kingdom but not necessarily for the marine environment. In other words, if you look at the molecular biologists, the physicists, the mathematicians, they tend not necessarily to move into the marine environment when it comes to applying the work that they do, but I agree that there is a shortage in certain areas, particularly in terms of taxonomy, ecosystems analysis and also probably in terms of modelling. It is a question really of trying to attract the existing individuals who have skills in those areas to apply them to that particular discipline.

Q554 Linda Gilroy: How? Given the importance that I think we are agreeing should be attached to the future of marine science, how can we up the ante on that?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I have just come back from a BBSRC meeting, on which I also sit, where skills shortages have been identified for laboratories such as the Babraham Institute, which feels that it needs a lot more people who understand mathematical modelling. This is now an area which is moving up the agenda for an awful lot of science disciplines. How do you attract people? You put resources into it. You make it an interesting area for people to want to go into. You talk about career structures for people and that is the way you get people to move into those areas. What attracts people to these things is exciting and interesting science. If the science is interesting, needs to be done and is valuable, people will move into it.

Q555 Linda Gilroy: Given the importance of climate change, how can we ensure that people are aware at the stages they are making their decisions and also that the money is right in research as compared with other attractions that there might be, particularly for mathematicians and modellers?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I do not necessarily think it is Defra's job to do that. The Research Councils have a very important role to play. Universities have a very important role to play there in terms of trying to stimulate activity in those areas. There is quite a number of courses that are going on in a whole variety of different university departments in these sorts of areas. I think about Bangor, Plymouth, York and all the courses that they put on. Newcastle puts courses on in these areas. St Andrew's puts on some really good courses in these areas. There is a number of different universities that are all trying to stimulate activity there across the piece. Why people get concerned that there are not enough people out there filling the gaps that they perceive is because sometimes these are highly specialised areas that have some difficulty in attracting an individual or group of individuals to those particular areas.

Q556 Linda Gilroy: Is it also because of lack of continuity of funding and security which we talked about earlier? In particular, CEFAS has complained that lack of funding for salaries and continuity of research is hindering their ability to recruit good scientists. Do you accept that that is a problem?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Yes.

Q557 Linda Gilroy: Any advances on what we have already discussed in how that could be put right?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: The way in which you get scientists engaged in these sorts of issues is to pose some very interesting and fascinating problems that they want to work on and in such a way that there is a career structure associated with them too. Once you have both of those in place, you do not have a problem. There is a whole load of areas of science where we have no problem in recruiting people. That is because they are challenging, interesting areas of science and they are at the cutting edge of what is going on.

Jonathan Shaw: If the ten year funding is not as much as people want that is a shame but in terms of providing certainty, if projects can be undertaken and completed, that is a positive development. I am pleased you have raised the question because it is a very interesting point.

Q558 Linda Gilroy: Finally, a couple of questions on raising awareness first of all amongst school children on learning related issues and then the wider public. What research has been conducted into wider public awareness?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: As far as school children are concerned, I think they are being served pretty well these days. If I think about the laboratories for which I had former responsibility within Defra and I look at CEFAS, I think they are an exemplar in this area. Particularly for example in Weymouth, one of the CEFAS laboratories there brings in lots of school kids. They spend time there, getting engaged in some of the projects and activities there.

Q559 Linda Gilroy: Who pays for those programmes?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We do.

Jonathan Shaw: We want to see more collaboration with universities and schools. The government set that out within the last Education Act. The recent references to a curriculum change concentrated on climate change and part of that should be about how climate change is affecting sea life. We have published The Marine Fisheries Science Yearbook. I think you have all seen a copy. I have brought you all a copy if you have not. That sets out some of the work undertaken by Defra in a very informative and clear way. There were 226,000 length measurements and 24,500 samples taken of age determination of fish, so huge amounts of work are being undertaken which informs our policy.

Q560 Linda Gilroy: Does it inform the wider public?

Jonathan Shaw: Information is disseminated. It has to happen in the first place. Do the public understand that there is an issue in terms of the amount of fish and cod in the North Sea?

Q561 Linda Gilroy: That is the question we are asking. We have had a very short inquiry on science centres and there is a group of science centres that I would draw to your attention, normally known as marine aquarians, but there are displays in other science centres as well relating to climate change, the oceans, fish, et cetera. When we were in the United States we came across a programme called Sea Grant. I do not know if it is one you are familiar with but I would certainly recommend it as something to look at because it is a programme which funds the States to do a whole variety of public awareness and education of school children amongst that, which I think has produced some quite exciting results and includes the support of some marine aquarians.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: The other CEFAS laboratories do get actively engaged in it and for example in Plymouth, where the aquarium is and where you have the MPA, the PML, the university all together in one place, they do a seriously good amount of work, working with the local community and with school children. That s a good way of being able to stimulate it. I know it goes on in other university areas. I know St Andrew's carried out a lot of work in that area.

Q562 Linda Gilroy: Is there scope for having a coherent approach towards that or do you think you already have a coherent approach?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: The various institutions are conscious that they need some sort of future life blood fed into them. They recognise the value associated with getting to kids at school age because stimulating them at that sort of stage can be critically important in later years. I know from my own experiences how stimulated I was by those sorts of activities going on in schools and I think that is a really important area.

Jonathan Shaw: We have not done enough. The funding disparity reflects that. I hope that with the Marine Bill, when we have eight or nine million people who are members of environmental NGOs, all of those organisations getting their members to lobby Members of Parliament to support this important piece of legislation, that will raise awareness of the importance of our actions.

Chairman: On that note, can I assure you, Minister, that we will also be raising awareness through our humble efforts. Can I thank the Minister, Jonathan Shaw, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at Defra? Thank you very much for coming at such short notice. We very much value your contribution. Thank you again, Professor Sir Howard Dalton, Chief Scientific Adviser at Defra. As ever, it has been a pleasure to listen to you and, in his absence, Sir David King.