HC Deb 19 March 1963 vol 674 cc184-5
9. Mr. Alba

asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science whether he will take steps to co-ordinate the procedures of the Medical Research Council for financing research units in universities with the methods of financing research of the University Grants Committee.

Mr. Denzil Freeth

Close co-ordination already exists between the Medical Research Council, the University Grants Committee, and the universities in the matter of financing medical research at the universities. In this the functions of the Council and the Committee are complementary. The arrangements are kept under continuing review by the bodies concerned.

Mr. Albu

Is the Minister aware that one of the complaints of medical research workers is that the Medical Research Council establishes a unit at a university and pays for it for three years and then leaves it to the university to carry on, and that very often the university does not obtain the funds from the University Grants Committee to enable it to do so?

Mr. Freeth

If a particular project is not able to be financed out of the funds received by the university from the University Grants Committee, it is open to the research worker to re-apply to the Medical Research Council for an extension of his grant, and a number have done so within the last six months. I am not suggesting that the present arrangements are absolutely perfect. Indeed, if the hon. Gentleman will read the speech made by my noble Friend in another place on 27th February, he will find that my noble Friend refers to the fact that he not only encouraged but initiated the general inquiry going on into the organisation and support for them.

Mr. Crossman

Is not part of the trouble due to the decision of the Government to cut, or to refuse to give to the University Grants Committee, the full sum for which it asks? Did not that destroy the balance between the amounts of money allocated to the M.R.C. and the universities, with the result that the universities were not able to take over from the M.R.C., and is not the solution to see that the Government pay enough to the M.R.C.?

Mr. Freeth

It is still the fact that the Medical Research Council has not been inhibited in giving grants for which the universities were not able to take over support due to lack of funds.

Mr. Crossman

That is not the question I asked. Is it not a fact that, as a result of having to continue projects which the universities would normally have taken over, the M.R.C. was unable to take up new projects with the result that many new projects were refused last year?

Mr. Freeth

I do not think that I can agree with the terms in which the hon. Gentleman has put his supplementary question. Certainly the number of possible projects which the universities might have taken on far outweighed any possible funds which they could have expected from the University Grants Committee.