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Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, I am a scientist. I have worked on a few problems involving agricultural stations. I also ran the Met Office during a period under the previous regime when the government placed considerable emphasis on economising on government science.
I want to place the debate in context. Since 1997 there has been a substantial increase in the total research budget in the UK. The way the debate has been going suggests that there has been an accelerating reduction in science. That is not the case. In the past five years there has been a substantial increase in research in universities and in a number of major research centres. There has been a considerable concentration of research in major centres of excellence, such as those to which the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, referred.
I understand the point that there has been a great reduction in small local centres, some of which were good and some not good, which was the point of the reduction. But many independent observers have pointed out that UK science—as should be the case in all countries—needs to maintain a balance between science in universities and in government institutes so that the science is delivered and the capability is there.
A more constructive approach would be to request that the Government look to see that there is a proper balance between university research and research carried out in a devolved way in a number of centres. I hope that the Minister will reflect in a more balanced way on the situation but also ask his colleagues in charge of balancing the scientific effort to see whether we are keeping a proper balance between the areas of the science budget. Some of the concerns expressed this evening are obviously well founded.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, these amendments are unusual. They seek to designate to Ministers levels of staffing and the level of research in specific areas. It would be unusual to find any such stipulation in a Bill.
However, I turn to the merits of the matter. Those noble Lords who have said that over the past 20 or 25 years there has been a substantial reduction in the size of the State Veterinary Service are undoubtedly correct. But that argument needs to modified. For the past 10 years, the number of field vets has not varied greatly.
In an outbreak, we deal principally with field vets and those we can mobilise into the field. There is not a great deal of point in re-establishing the rather hefty management structure for the State Veterinary Service through the former MAFF regions and elsewhere. Some of the losses in the State Veterinary Service have been people who moved across to the VLA and were at the scientific end of the service so are not lost in gross terms.
The management of outbreaks is important. The contingency plan will have a unified structure of management of an outbreak. In the early stages of the last outbreak the vets had one management structure, the administration had another and the Army another. Bringing them together would not necessarily mean that a management structure dealing with an outbreak would be composed solely of members of the State Veterinary Service.
The way the amendments are expressed is also confusing for reasons referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby. In an outbreak the point is how many vets can be mobilised into the field, not how many are there to start with. We are looking to develop and finalise the contingency plan with the profession. We need to see how in the event of an outbreak we can mobilise the widespread veterinary resources in the private sector, some of whom work in the public sector on occasion, to deal with an emergency situation.
It is not possible to employ a level of SVS permanent staff adequate to deal with future large-scale outbreaks. They would not be adequate in any circumstances; one would always need to mobilise more people. Although it is right to draw attention to the importance of the levels of staffing, the way in which the amendment is expressed is not appropriate.
We are attempting to specify the nature of research. As my noble friend Lord Hunt indicated, if we are talking about government research in total, there has been an expansion in research over the past few years rather than a contraction, as many of the contributions have implied. Parts of the agricultural research budget have indeed reduced over that time. The Royal Society suggests that more is required.
The amendment is directed to "the Minister", which is anachronistic in that we now talk about the Secretary of State. But even if "the Minister" implies DEFRA, much of the state-funded research does not occur within DEFRA. Pirbright, for example, is a BBSRC institute, as are other institutes in this area.
We jointly fund other veterinary research, for example, with the Wellcome Foundation and there is also private sector research. The totality of research does not have a single budget. We accept that more research is needed in a number of areas, including those referred to in this debate. Whether it would be carried out by DEFRA institutions or by DEFRA contract is a second order issue.
Additionally, this is a European problem. There is no point reinventing the wheel in Britain, Germany or Switzerland—Switzerland is not in the EU but it is in the same area. There are centres of excellence in all those countries. We need to develop a European approach to maximise the amount of high-quality research into animal disease. Some such research is delivered outside this country and comes into this country. We have centres of excellence in this country whose research facilities we need to maximise. However, we should not do so in the proposed way. It will not be necessary for British researchers to do research into all the diseases listed in the schedule. It would be sensible to share that out under the European
framework rather than to follow the letter of the amendment. I recognise the concerns that lie behind the amendment but it does not propose a sensible way to deliver what the noble Lord envisages as the outcome.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I shall deal fairly rapidly with a number of points.
I stated that there are currently approximately 220 field vets out of a total of 286 in DEFRA. I am not necessarily harking back to the levels of the 1980s but it would be prudent to increase the State Veterinary Service to a level that could cope with more normal types of outbreak. I do not refer to the "mega" outbreak that we had in 2001, when we had to import, I believe, more than 1,000 vets from countries all over the world to assist. I acknowledge what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said about increases in budgets and research. That has indeed occurred. I do not wish to give the impression that we denigrate what the Government are doing in that regard.
On research, there was a great move to what was known as neo-market research in the 1980s in particular. It was orientated totally towards the market forces that were operating and fundamental research tended to go by the board. The balance has been disturbed.
The Minister's comments on private research were all very good. We acknowledge that such research has gone on but it is orientated very much towards the profit motive. That is understandable; after all, the companies are in the business for profit. However, it is important to have fundamental research on, for example, different strains of foot and mouth disease, and only state research can carry that out.
The Government must surely take on board the need for a balance between all those factors. I believe that the Minister acknowledged that something must be done in this area if we are not to be caught out again by a catastrophe such as that of 2001. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth moved Amendment No. 46:
- After Clause 13, insert the following new clause—
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment refers to the situation involving the Welsh Assembly. I note that other amendments have been modified since
There were, however, a number of pinch points that, frankly, were not acceptable. I mention in passing—I should not really do so only in passing—that the proposal to bury and burn at the Mynydd Epynt site in my former constituency was ill-conceived, particularly because it had to be enforced by the West Midlands police force, among others, to ensure that it was carried out. That caused all sorts of mayhem and there were meetings in the middle of the night between ourselves, the Assembly and DEFRA staff to try to sort things out. Clearly, that can be done in a much more satisfactory manner. I acknowledge the Minister's answer to my question earlier this afternoon about what was happening in relation to the transfer of powers, particularly in relation to veterinary matters, to the National Assembly for Wales. I beg to move.
"TRANSFER OF POWERS FOR ANIMAL DISEASE PREVENTION TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES
(1) The powers in the Animal Health Act 1981 (c. 22) for animal disease prevention and control relating to Wales shall be transferred to the National Assembly for Wales.
(2) State veterinary staff in Wales and their functions relating to animal disease prevention and control shall be accountable to the National Assembly for Wales.
(3) The National Assembly for Wales shall publish a strategy for animal disease prevention and control in Wales."
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