HC Deb 18 July 1961 vol 644 cc1041-2
9. Mrs. Hart

asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science what consideration he has given to the need for a social sciences research council.

Mr. Denzil Freeth

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is reviewing the support given by the Department in this field. One aspect of the review is the desirability or otherwise of a separate human or social sciences research council. My noble Friend will consider carefully the views of the Research Council when he has received them.

Mrs. Hart

Will the Parliamentary Secretary ask his noble Friend to seek the views of leading social scientists and sociologists in this country about the contribution which a continual search unit might be able to make to Government policy and Government research?

Mr. Freeth

I hope that such experts in this field will either send their views to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research or to my noble Friend, who will pass them on so that a full and proper survey of the desirability or not of having a social science research council can properly be made.

Mr. Peart

Why wait? Surely the hon. Gentleman knows that there is a need for it. Everybody accepts that. Why not action now?

Mr. Freeth

My noble Friend put his finger on it when he said in a previous Session in another place that it is possibly premature to have a research council for the social sciences and that if one wishes to encourage the social sciences there may well be other means of so doing, in the universities for example, without the need to set up a special research council.

Mrs. Hart

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is not a question of encouraging the social sciences but of enabling them to make the contribution which they can make?

Mr. Freeth

The hon. Lady has made up her mind. My noble Friend will await the report of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research on this problem.

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