Science and Scientific Research

HC Deb 07 February 1989 vol 146 cc861-908 7.16 pm

Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn)

I beg to move, That this House condemns the Government's failures properly to support Britiain's science base, to secure adequate time in the science curriculum and to overcome the crisis in the supply of science teachers, to stem the loss of so many of our ablest scientists by giving teachers in higher education adequate status, pay and research resources, to increase or even to sustain planned levels of expenditure on the science budget after 1989, and to provide the organisation and funding needed to tackle the vital problems of the global environment, the quality of life, and the technological competitiveness of British industry.

Mr. Speaker

I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Straw

Science is central to the quality of life in Britain and to our survival as a leading industrial nation. But we spend less of our national income on science, as other countries spend more. We have fewer scientists and engineers. We value and honour them less than do other countries. The consequences are stark.

The sharpest decline of all in our ability to compete with other nations has occurred in our overseas trade in science-based goods. In 1979, we ran a surplus on such trade of over £3 billion. By 1987, it had turned into a deficit of £2 billion. Last year—in one year—the deficit had trebled to over £6.5 billion.

The distinguished American economist Robert Solow won the 1987 Nobel prize for his work on the essential link between science and technology and the growth of the economic and social welfare of a nation. His thesis has sadly and dramatically been proved by the British Government's neglect of the science base and by the dramatic relative decline in our share of world trade and in our international competitiveness.

The superficial stance of the Government is that of self-congratulation and complacency, well illustrated by their amendment today, but the reality is shown by the Secretary of State's failure to publish a long-promised policy statement on a strategy for British science and by the Government's refusal for more than three and half years to provide any Government time in the House of Commons to debate science policy.

The last Government debate on science, in June 1985, predated by over a year the Secretary of State's incarnation as Secretary of State for Education and Science. Today's debate on science, like last year's, has been provided by the Opposition out of its scarce Supply time. But the announcement of this debate brought one modest success, even before its start. It forced the Secretary of State to make up his mind about the allocations to the research councils under the science budget which were announced three months ago in the Chancellor's statement.

In a panic, the Secretary of State would have nothing to say. He rushed out a letter to Sir David Phillips, chairman of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils, last Thursday, a parliamentary question was planted yesterday and a press conference was called this morning to give the news that the pain would not be quite as bad as it had been in previous years.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Baker)

If the hon. Gentleman's claim is that I announced the science allocations as a result of the pressure of the debate this evening—that is the charge, I believe—let me answer it. Last year, I announced the allocations on 13 February and the previous year I announced them on 9 February, so it is quite normal that this year I should announce them on 7 February. The fact that the hon. Gentleman uses that as an argument to attack the Government shows that his criticism of the Government's scientific policy is pettifogging, puerile and pedantic.

Mr. Straw

The Secretary of State is damned by what he did not say. He stood up to deny our charge but failed to do so—he simply gave a series of dates. He called his press conference this morning because we called the debate and he was forced into making his announcement today. The coincidence is too acute for even the Secretary of State to deny. That is by no means the gravamen of our charges; it is merely one of them. It is an illustration that the Government are ashamed of their own record, as is shown by the fact that they have refused to debate it for about four years.

Those of us who chart the Secretary of State's progress know that, although he might be an elegant user of language, he murders statistics when it suits him. He has claimed that there has been a substantial increase in resources for the science budget. He said that it was 26 per cent. more in real terms than in 1979–80, and 10 per cent. more than in 1988–89.

There has, we accept, and as we welcomed at the time, been an increase over previous plans for next year's science budget. Without it there would, in the words of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils last May, have been: very substantial reductions in the volume of scientific activity funded by the research councils At the time, the board said that it viewed the "relative decline"—its words—of British science with "considerable concern", and called for an injection of a minimum of almost £380 million over three years.

Even with some double-counting and juggling, the most that the Secretary of State can identify is £300 million over three years. Next year, because of prior earmarking, only £75 million will be available to the science base compared with the minimum of £97 million sought by the ABRC.

In the following years, the picture is more dismal. No wonder that the Secretary of State has been trying to hide away from debate.

The Daily Telegraph, of all papers, on the day after the public expenditure White Paper was announced, together with another press notice from the Secretary of State claiming an increase in the science budget, reported that cuts in the science budget were disclosed in the plans for the Department of Education and Science. If the Secretary of State could not even convince his friends in The Daly Telegraph, it is not surprising that he has wholly failed to convince the scientific community.

The point emphasised by the ABRC in its latest pronouncement is that the Secretary of State's figures imply a 3 per cent. reduction in real terms, after allowing for inflation. As the ABRC states in a document published today, those figures imply a significant reduction in the volume of science which the Councils can support". Those are the figures that the Secretary of State was bragging about this morning.

In its report published today, the ABRC expresses its gratitude to the Secretary of State, and I do not blame it. One of the worst aspects of the Government's parsimonious record on science is the way in which the scientific community has been browbeaten into a belief that funding will—in the fashionable jargon—have to exist at a "steady state", in which the horizons and expectations of the science community have been lowered.

Set against last year's promise of real decline, this year's budget has come as a disproportionate relief.

In its May 1988 document, the ABRC reported that the United Kingdom's share of world scientific output and influence was declining. It said that this was largely because UK output". of scientific endeavour, as measured by data on publications and citations, had remained fairly constant at a time when the world total has increased significantly. The Secretary of State's advisory board said: Some countries—notably United States of America, France and West Germany—have increased scientific output and then maintained their world share whilst Japan has markedly improved on its low share.

At best, this latest budget and announcements will simply maintain the slow, relative decline in Britain's science base. The science budget is only one part of overall Government investment in research. Last February the British Medical Journal reported that as a percentage of gross domestic product, Britain already spends less than all other countries belonging to the OECD, and is spending less as other countries spend more. The Government are typically self-congratulatory about their record over the past 10 years, but it is a poor record compared with that of other countries.

The Government have failed to understand that if we want to keep up with other countries, let alone beat them, we must put an increasing share of gross domestic product—of national income—into science, not a static or declining share. The figures show that, taking increases in national income spent on research in 16 countries since 1978, Britain's increase is twelfth. Its increase is only half that of France and one quarter that of Japan. No wonder that an ever-growing percentage of equipment used in British science laboratories is made abroad—usually in Japan.

The wild claims of the Secretary of State contrast with the figures issued by the Cabinet Office which show that total research expenditure by civil Departments, excluding the research councils, is down from £1,004 million in the early 1980s to £933 million in 1989–90, at 1985–86 prices. They show that total civil research spending is down from £2,217 million to £2,158 million. Separate analyses from the Cabinet Office show that between 1986–87 and 1990–91 there would be a 6 per cent. decline in Government investment in civil research and development, while our gross domestic product was expected to grow by 8 per cent. The author of the BMJ article concluded that objective indicators show that British basic science is in decline", and that most scientists whom he met considered the main cause of the decline to be the decline in government funding for research".

In early March, the Government will host an international conference on the global environment. A further speech from the Prime Minister about how green she is is promised. We welcomed the sudden conversion of the Prime Minister to matters environmental and her stated support for basic science after years of neglect under this Government. However, like many outside organisations we are healthily sceptical about the reality of the Government's commitment to the environment, especially when it is set against the £30 million cut in the Agricultural and Food Research Council's budget, the 120 jobs shortly to be cut in the Natural Environment Research Council's projects, and the switch in research resources from Wales to the south of England.

Many involved with research into the global environment, in which there has been some improvement in investment, are sceptical about the Government's record. For example, the United Kingdom stratospheric ozone review group, in its second report, argued that Britain has failed to take advantage of the lead given by the British Antarctic Survey's discovery in 1985 of a hole in the ozone layer. It said: the promotion and proper resourcing of fundamental research in this area of major environmental concern has been quite inadequate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) will deal in more detail with research into the global environment. I shall describe the state of the paleoecology research unit at University College, London, which my hon. Friend and I visited earlier today. Its condition neatly encapsulates the imbalance and lack of strategy behind Government science policy.

The work of the unit is goal-driven, applied research about acid rain, covering the history, cause, rate arid extent of lake acidification in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. For this, the unit's officials make plain that they have been "very well funded" by the Department of the Environment, the Royal Society and the NERC, with total support in excess of £1 million.

However, in parallel with the increase in applied research funding, the unit says: the pure research base required to develop basic techniques for the future has all but disappeared … There has been a continued cutting away of infrastructure, especially of technical staff. It is exceptionally difficult to keep highly motivated and highly skilled research staff together when such staff have such incredible insecurity. Only one person—the director of the unit, Dr. Rick Batterbee—has security of tenure. It goes on to say that the availability of such staff is the only means of servicing applied research problems.

The unit goes on to say that it is utterly demoralising to be faced year after year with internal cuts and savings targets. Most serious of all, no one in this unit is now engaged on curiosity-led pure research to develop new techniques for the applied research of the future. [Interruption.] I think that the Secretary of State is muttering that the purpose of this unit is to do applied research. Yes, but it could not be doing applied research today unless the same people had done pure research yesterday, and it now has nobody to do the pure research into new techniques for measuring, for example, acidification in lakes by which we may find some solution to the problem of acid rain for the future.

Moreover, the income generated by contracts, by applied research, is now having to be used to subsidise teaching and other basic running costs of the institution. This undermining of the basis of pure science research arises partly from the increased calls on the science budget, the switch towards applied reseach—the switch, for example, to research into the global environment and into AIDS, which has to be paid for out of the science budget —and from the fact that relative price inflation is higher in high-tech areas than in the general economy. But it arises also from the squeeze in the core funding of universities —something that the Secretary of State never takes into account when he congratulates himself on the general increase in funding in the science budget, through the squeeze on the dual funding system, which is supposed to support the laboratories, equipment, technicians and core academic staff of our science base.

This year's public expenditure White Paper announced, in paragraph 42, that the Government now intend to pursue in, the university sector, a separation between funding for teaching and funding for research". The Government have also announced some interdisciplinary research centres and has encouraged the University Grants Committee to pursue subject-based reviews such as the Edwards review on physics and the Stone report on chemistry, with the consequence that some universities may end up with neither chemistry nor physics departments.

Two years ago the ABRC published recommendations for a strategy for science, which gave one view—its view —about the future course of science policy, including the controversial recommendations for the categorisation of universities into research, teaching, and research and teaching institutions. A response from the Government —their own policy for science—was promised by the Secretary of State last year. That is what he told us in the debate on 29 February. Even as late as November he was telling his Cabinet colleagues that the document would be published at the end of last year. Now the public expenditure White Paper tells us that it is not expected to be published at least until the summer.

I ask the Secretary of State to give the reason for this delay. Is it, as I understand it, because of a serious conflict between the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State over the direction of science policy?

Mr. Derek Fatchett (Leeds, Central)

He has not won that one yet.

Mr. Straw

My hon. Friend says that he has not won one yet. The conflicts between him and the Prime Minister and her policy unit are notorious.

If that is not the reason for the delay, what accounts for the extraordinary limbo in which science strategy now finds itself? Why has the Secretary of State broken the undertaking that he gave to this House last year to publish a policy for science during the course of 1988?

The Secretary of State must not delude himself about the state of our universities. When the head of a well-funded research unit like the one at University College London spoke of a situation being utterly demoralising he spoke for the whole of the university community. Many good academics are simply voting with their feet, as are many recruits. There is a brain drain. Of course we accept that that is difficult to quantify, but the study published by the Royal Society and the Fellowship of Science and Engineering Policy Studies Unit in 1987 on the migration of scientists and engineers to and from the United Kingdom said that, although quantitatively there were similar flows across the Atlantic, qualitatively the picture was very different. The net loss of talent was regarded as having an adverse effect on British research, particularly in universities.

If the Secretary of State requires more evidence, let me quote from the New York Times, which on 22 November published a major article entitled British Brain Drain Enriches U.S. Colleges". It said: In the last five years perhaps 200 British professors, driven by hard times in the British higher education system and enticed by irresistible financial and scholarly opportunities in the United States, have weathered the pain of moving themselves and their families across an ocean and settling in a strange terrain.

The British brain drain began early this decade but has become a hemorrhage in the last five years, and many of the emigrants blame the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Government for the exodus. The author goes on to say: They are part of a migration that may be the largest single influx into this country from a single source since Jewish professors were forced to leave Germany and Austria in the 1930's.

The article quotes David Cannadine, a Cambridge historian, who went to Columbia university in September. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary seeks to trivialise the brain drain by saying that that man had an American wife.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson)

He has an American wife.

Mr. Straw

The Under-Secretary seeks to trivialise the brain drain by saying that he has an American wife. Yes, he does have an American wife, and since the Under-Secretary of State raises that matter I should say that for five years Mr. Cannadine carried on at the University of Cambridge trying to maintain his scholarship and his interest at that university, and he will say, as will many others, that he has been forced to leave because of lack of opportunity in this country. What the Under-Secretary needs to do is not just to make cheap remarks like that but to look to the reality of the brain drain and a serious shift of people of quality across the Atlantic.

If the hon. Gentleman does not believe that, let him look at the figures for vacancies for professorial posts. Recent studies, including one by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, reported that 36 per cent. of key professorial posts were vacant. Moreover, there are many anecdotes from heads of institutions to suggest that, whilst in the end they accept what is offered, the quality of many people appointed to senior posts is significantly lower than they would have wished.

All that is confirmed by the Secretary of State's own adviser, Sir David Phillips, who said that Great Britain contributes more scientists and engineers to the United States' technical work force than almost all other European countries put together, and by Sir George Porter, who, in his lecture last year, said: We are particularly well-endowed with such bright young people in this country and their loss is the saddest and most deplorable result of the philosophy of the present time of this Government. We recall that only eight months ago Sir George Porter said: The most tangible evidence of third-word science is the early preparation and export of outstanding scientists and of the production of scientific works. Sir George added: We in this country seem well prepared to join the third world of science.

Mr. Spencer Batiste (Elmet)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the most important incentives to remain in Britain is a low tax rate comparable to that of other countries? If he seeks to redress the brain drain that he describes, will he support further reductions in tax in Britain?

Mr. Straw

Most British academics are so poorly paid that they do not get into the higher tax brackets. Moreover, what has happened to the brain deain in this decade is proof, if ever it were needed, that relative tax rates have nothing to do with the flight from British universities to the United States. As the tax rates have gone up, the flight from this country has increased. [Interruption.] If there is any correlation, it is the reverse.

Central to the problem of recruiting and retaining the best is the issue not of tax rates but of university pay. On simple grounds of national self-interest, let alone the clearest grounds of justice, university teachers have an overwhelming case. Every other group of university employees and every other public sector group has had a pay rise in 1988–89 but not university academics. The consequence is that their pay lags 20 per cent. behind their comparators.

The Financial Times reported today, however, that the Government were likely to reject the claim from the Association of University Teachers and the call from the union and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals for further funding. Will the Government let the claim fester, or will they take action to settle it? If the Government's record on funding academic science is so wonderful, why are our science-based universities unable to find the minimum funds to pay the increase which they accept is necessary?

Without a supply of well qualified science students, this country will slip into that third world of science of which Sir George Porter spoke so eloquently. Once again the Secretary of State's attitude to science in the curriculum and to the supply of science teachers is complacent neglect. Of course, we know what he will say. What matters is what he does or has not done. He has rejected the advice of his own expert science working party. He has downgraded science in the national curriculum. He has created a two-tiered science curriculum which, for those following single science, will snuff out the chance of a scientific-based education and training beyond 16. By rejecting the broadening of A levels, as recommended by his committee under Professor Higginson, he has snuffed out the chance of many more students taking science at a higher level.

The Association for Science Education was correct in saying that the Secretary of State's proposals for two-tier science would cut off significant numbers of students from science-related jobs and undermine our competitiveness even further.

Worse, the Secretary of State is downgrading science in schools for the least acceptable reason: that there are growing shortages of teachers. He is unwilling to take effective measures, such as paying teachers more, to deal with the shortages.

Mr. Ian Taylor (Esher)

On the requirement of finding teachers in these disciplines, will the hon. Gentleman add that regional pay negotiations should be paramount?

Mr. Straw

The hon. Gentleman should read the recommendations of the interim advisory committee last year which, in discussing the problems of subject shortages, ruled that out.

The wastage of teachers is chilling. Three out of 10 people who qualify fail to enter teaching in the following year; four in 10 who enter teaching leave within five years. Even on the Secretary of State's wildly optimistic assessment of teacher shortages, by 1995 there will be a 5 per cent, shortfall of mathematics teachers, a 14 per cent shortfall of physics teachers and an 18 per cent. shortfall of chemistry teachers. The Secretary of State knows that the shortages exist. That is why he has insulated his favoured city technology colleges by allowing their teachers to be paid more than they would get elsewhere in the local authority sector, but he has prevented any general increase in teachers' pay beyond the rate of inflation by the cash limit which he has imposed upon the recommendations of the interim advisory committee.

We have to add to the teacher shortages, which will deny many children a decent education, and to the underfunding of academic pay the prospect of student loans. They will plainly deter students from following the rigour and uncertainty of an academic career in favour of the richer rewards of the City or accountancy.

As a highly developed nation we should have the wit to allow the pursuit of science for its own sake because knowledge and education are good and because so many scientific advances with direct application today have been derived from scientists being permitted the space and time to follow a hunch. DNA, electricity, X-rays, penicillin, nuclear energy, radio and television, electronics, photography, sound recording, quantum mechanics, transistors, super conductors and lasers were all discovered unexpectedly, sometimes by accident, by scientists engaged in pure research.

It is on the foundation of pure research and of basic science that applied research development has to be built. At the turn of the year the deputy chief executive of British Aerospace said that there has to be a major decline in research and development to stop the decline in medium and low technology business; the Financial Times has complained of a declining science base; the head of venture research in BP has proclaimed that in today's world stagnation in science investment can only lead to oblivion. Einstein wrote in 1936: Intellectual decline brought on by a shallow materalism is a far greater menace to the survival of a society than numerous external foes who threaten its existence with violence. There is no materialism more shallow than that of the Governmment or the Secretary of State. The Government's science policy, in so far as they have one, is for stagnation. We do not need stagnation; we need imagination. We do not need shallow materialism; we need vision. Above all, we need a comprehension that we will have a decent future tomorrow only if we invest in it today.

7.44 pm

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Baker)

I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof: applauds the steps taken by the Government to sustain and improve still further the strength and quality of science in the United Kingdom, noting inparticular: the inclusion of science as part of the new national curriculum, measures to improve the supply of science teachers in schools, recent evidence that eminent scientists are returning to this country, the 26 per cent. real terms increase in the science budget since 1979, and the allocation of extra funds for research to tackle problems of the global environment, to improve the quality of life and to underpin the technological competitiveness of British industry.

It is a supreme irony that the Opposition should have chosen to debate the support for science and scientific research on the very day, planned some time ago, when I have announced the allocation of an extra £300 million to the research councils and other bodies. In the two years in which I have been responsible for this part of the expenditure of my Department I have always announced the allocation in the first fortnight of February. Today happens to be in the first fortnight of February. To begin to mount his attack upon our policy on that basis set the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) off on the wrong foot straight away. When I interrupted him, his arguments did not improve. They remained pettifogging, pedantic and puerile.

What I announced bears repeating. The science budget in 1989–90 will be £115 million, or 16 per cent. higher than it is this year. Since the Government came into office, they have increased the science budget by over 26 per cent. in real terms. These are very substantial sums of money. It is this record that the Opposition are attacking. When they were last in office, between 1975–76 and 1979–80, they did not increase the science budget in real terms by a single penny. Yet we have had the attack which the hon. Member for Blackburn has launched on us.

As hon. Members know, I.depend upon the Advisory Board for the Research Councils for advice on the size, composition and allocation of the resources announced today. The ABRC is chaired by Sir David Phillips, to whom the hon. Gentleman referred. He is an eminent scientist in his own right in cell research and, like the whole board, is well known for taking an independent view. Sir David reported the board's view to me in the following terms: We were delighted by the substantial increases in the Government's plans for the Science Budget and greatly encouraged by what you had to say about the importance to the nation of maintaining excellence in basic and strategic science. He also said: This year's PES settlement provides an excellent foundation for the development of UK science. Others too have commented favourably. Even Professor Noble of Save British Science expressed his agreement with the board's view that the extra money would do much to raise morale in the scientific community.

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

If the commitment is so profound, will the Secretary of State explain why, for the following two years, there is a real reduction in the budget in the Government's expenditure figures produced only weeks ago?

Mr. Baker

I expected that question because I got it at the press conference this morning. The simple answer is that I was asked to increase, as I have done, the actual science budget by some £350 million over the next three years. I have increased the base. I will receive further advice on the requirements for the next two years. I will receive additional advice from the ABRC and others. The hon. Gentleman knows very well that various proposals will be put to me and that I shall put them to my colleagues. He must wait to see in a year's time how well I fare. I assure him that the commitment of the Government is absolute and complete. This is a tremendous increase in real terms in the amount of money.

That leads me to another point. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) is falling into the mistake which the Opposition Front Bench always makes. The Opposition are preoccupied with input. Their reaction is that we only get good science by putting in more and more money. They are considering the input all the time. I have said already that we recognie that we have to have a substantial investment in the scientific base for laboratories, equipment and the retention of good research. I shall come to the brain drain later.

Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton)

On the subject of inputs, has my right hon. Friend noticed that on this Opposition Supply day, on a subject on which the Opposition presumably place a great deal of importance, there are no more than eight Labour Back Benchers present in the Chamber plus one Liberal, and they are almost outnumbered by those on the Opposition Front Bench?

Mr. Baker

It shows their fleeting and transitory interest in this matter.

I would like to deal not just with the inputs but with what all this money is buying, because I have to justify this expenditure against competing expenditure claims from other Departments. I remind the House of some of the outstanding scientific achievements over the last few years. The Science and Engineering Research Council, in its work in astronomy, leads the world. Its superb new telescopes—a millimetre wave telescope in Hawaii and an optical telescope in La Palma£are now probing deeper and deeper into space. United Kingdom particle physicists, supported by SERC, contributed to the discovery of the W and Z bosons in 1983, which established the unification of two of the fundamental forces of nature. This is absolutely world-lead science into particle physics and into physics itself, which is often called the queen of sciences.

Then there is nuclear magnetic resonance, and the House will know of the success we have had in this area and of the outstanding work that has been done in our laboratories. The Oxford enzyme group has developed high field spectrometers in collaboration with Oxford Instruments, and Oxford Instruments has been able to capture a large proportion of the world markets for high field magnets required for commercial NMR machines.

When I visited Nottingham university a few weeks ago I was told that Nottingham and Aberdeen universities both get £1 million a year from their royalties on earnings as a result of NMR research. Our scientists at Cambridge —this is probably one of the most significant breakthroughs—have over the past five years done pioneering work on protein engineering, resulting in the successful design of novel proteins. I am advised that they have enormous potential implications for new forms of therapy as well as for non-medical applications.

Can I say how this extra money is going to be spent? The first requirement I see for this fund is that there should be concentration on basic and strategic science. Near market research should be funded more and more by the private sector. My concern is with the science base, with the excellence of science which produces that sort of breakthrough, world-lead science. To talk in terms of British science being in the second division is absolutely absurd; in area after area it is not.

To reinforce the science base I have allocated a further £49 million to the new interdisciplinary research centres over the next three years. This will increase the number of IRCs to 17, covering areas of science such as high temperature super-conductivity, animal genome research and surface science.

Mr. Straw

It was Sir George Porter, the president of the Royal Society, who said that British science was slipping into the third world. Is the Secretary of State describing Sir George Porter's claim as absurd?

Mr. Baker

I said that there was a danger of that happening. I actually think that there is little danger of this happening because of the excellence one sees in British science. When I visit other countries—and I will come back to the brain drain in a moment—the attraction of research units in this country is very considerable and is pulling back a lot of people from other countries. I will come back to that later.

Can I stress the importance of the initial "I" of "IRC". What is striking about research now is that when I go round medical laboratories I find not only doctors doing research; I find a whole range of disciplines: geneticists, molecular biologists, physicists, research chemists and psychologists. Much of today's research only hangs together because of its interdisciplinary nature.

It is also necessary to exploit in full the many new and existing scientific opportunities to which the ABRC has drawn attention. I am providing over £85 million over three years to key directed programmes for research recommended by the board. They include, for example, the search for the constituent elements of the human genome. This is the genetic chain which will unravel the genetic mysteries of life. Secondly, they include a major international programme to study the influence of the oceans on world climate. These programmes touch all our lives in one way or another.

I have been especially concerned to increase the funding of basic curiosity-driven research. Such work is absolutely fundamental, because when investing in scientific research we cannot know with any certainty whether it will be successful. We have to provide a background: a sufficient number of laboratories, institutions and teams of people to draw upon. However, no one can ever be sure which group will make the breakthrough. Therefore, in the money I have announced today, I am glad to say that we have restarted the Royal Society's small grants scheme, which will help in funding individual small projects, and we are funding a 25 per cent. increase in the Royal Society's research fellowship schemes, which support some of our outstanding and particularly young scientists, people in their late 20s and early 30s. In addition, we are increasing the number of research studentships which the three research councils, AFRC, MRC and SERC, can award.

The Government is earmarking new money—and the hon. Gentleman pushed this aside—for major national programmes, such as research to deal with the scourge of AIDS. This is additional money. I have also earmarked money to support the particle physics work at CERN in Switzerland.

The allocation allows for the reorganisation of the research council institutes themselves. They have been pressing these plans for some time, and I have allocated £37 million over the next three years.

I would now like to come to the global environment and research on oceans and climate. The funds which I have allocated today represent a very substantial increase indeed in global environment research. Britain is making an outstanding contribution to this. We have a unit called the British Antarctic Survey, which is in the forefront of world science. It was this group of scientists, operating from the Antarctic bases, which identified the hole in the ozone layer in 1985–86. As a result of this, we have decided to build upon this work. The House will know that last year I invested in the new ship, the "James Clark Ross." This year there will be a new gravel airstrip and a larger aircraft to take the scientists out to the ice floes of Antarctica. Britain is making a significant world contribution. We should all recognise, as I am sure Labour Members do, how outstanding this work is.

I have said that I am providing extra funds for the survey this year, but the range of global environmental research goes beyond Antarctica. It covers truly global matters: atmospheric circulation, the movement of the oceans around the world, the water cycle, the chemical fluxes. All of these different matters are covered. It also covers more local and regional phenomena such as acid rain, deforestation, pollution of regional seas and soil infertility and erosion.

I emphasise the international nature of this. One cannot do this sort of research alone. This country is involved in one group after another. First, there is the universities global atmospheric project, which is developing global climate models. I apologise to the House for these long, technical titles, but they do actually describe the work rather well. Next, there is the biochemical ocean flux study. This study is examining the transfer of carbon from the atmosphere, the excessive amount of carbon in the atmosphere which is causing the greenhouse effect. It is transferred through the surface of the sea into the various organisms, which put on body weight and then die and drop to the seabed. This is a process of transferring carbon from the atmosphere to the seabed. We simply do not know enough about this process. I have explained it in very broad terms. I have to explain it in terms that even Opposition Members will understand. This is a major study of course, involving, other countries.

Then there is the world ocean circulation experiment. Again, that is connected with the world climate research programme. Then there is the ocean drilling project, which NERC is involved in. All of these are major international projects.

Mr. Jim Cousins (Newcastle upon Tyne, Central)

The weak point of the Minister's argument is the connection between the matters to which he is referring and actual technological application. Most of the nuclear magnetic resonance machinery in our hospitals is imported from America. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that at least the order for the ship which he is proposing to commission for the British Antarctic Survey will be placed in a British shipyard?

Mr. Baker

That is for the NERC to decide. I understand that it is assessing bids for that order at the moment. I wish that the hon. Gentleman would not put down the British scientific instruments industry, as quite a lot of NMR magnets are made in Britain. Perhaps he should talk about those a bit more instead of trying to say that equipment is always imported. We have a strong scientific instrument industry, although inevitably there is a considerable amount of international research.

The hon. Member for Blackburn made great play of the brain drain. He said that there is a substantial flow of bright, intelligent scientists away from Britain. The Royal Society report last year found it difficult to show that there was very much of a brain drain. Indeed, the Financial Times, which follows such matters very closely, called it a brain trickle.

Only last week, the chairman of the University Grants Committee, Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer, who has been conducting a large survey on earth sciences, said that in earth sciences alone he has been notified that 13 senior ex-patriots—seven of professorial rank—are coming back to Britain this year. The chairman of the Scientific Engineering Research Council, Professor Mitchell, sent me a list of some 16 senior research scientists—11 of whom are professors—who are coming back to Britain this year. Therefore, some quality scientists are coming back. One would expect that because the base is interesting and there is an attractive climate for scientific research in Britain.

It is not just a question of British scientists coming back to Britain; many overseas scientists wish to work here. Only this morning I was at a presentation of awards ceremony and I met a young American petroleum scientist who is working at Heriot Watt university. He explained to us why he was here. He had been offered a job by Texas university but he refused and chose Heriot Watt on the strength of the scientific base of that very good university and its particular strength in petroleum sciences. Therefore, the picture is much rounder than the impression given by the hon. Member for Blackburn. There is a flow both ways. What I find so attractive about the reports from the research councils is the fact that people of quality are now coming back. That is very important.

I shall now reply to some of the other points raised by the hon. Member for Blackburn. He asked me to reply to the ABRC document. His article in The Times yesterday summarised his speech rather well. Indeed, it was rather better than his speech. It gave me an idea of what he was going to say and it was an interesting article. I wonder whether as a result of writing an article in The Times the hon. Gentleman will resign or leave the Opposition Front Bench. Last week, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) was sacked within 24 hours of working for Mr. Rupert Murdoch's televison station. But apparently members of the Shadow Cabinet do not have to leave if they write for Mr. Murdoch's newspaper. That is an example of the inconsistency in the behaviour and practices of the Opposition.

In answer to some of the hon. Gentleman's specific points about the way forward, I have already dealt with several of the matters that the ABRC's strategic advice document asked me to deal with last year. It asked for greater funds and we have provided that this year in the £300 million that I announced today. It also asked for greater selectivity in research so that it could concentrate money on some of the better units. It recommended dividing the universities into R, T and X categories. I rejected that in a speech I made in Oxford last October, but we wish to achieve greater selectivity by different means. It also asked us to concentrate and improve the management of our research councils. We are doing that and they will receive £37 million in this settlement.

Later this year I envisage bringing out a paper reporting on all those developments. It will also deal with matters that are still under discussion, the proposal to divide research and teaching in universities so that we know how much is being spent on research and how much is being spent on teaching, not only in sciences but throughout the universities. It will also deal with proposals about the future organisation of the research councils, which raise very important matters indeed. The past few years have seen considerable changes in the organisation of science and we should be considering again the organisation within Government and the organisation of the research councils.

Mr. Straw

Since the Secretary of State promised that the policy document would be produced last year, and would be available by last November at the latest, what accounts for the delay of eight or nine months?

Mr. Baker

Several of the matters with which I have already dealt. The hon. Gentleman could not have been listening to me. Part and parcel of the delay are the extra funding, the selectivity of R, T and X, the organisation of the research councils, the separation of research and teaching in universities and one outstanding matter—how much money should be transferred from the UGC to the research councils, and current proposals about the reorganisation of the research councils. Those important matters need to be considered.

In conclusion, since 1979 there has been a substantial rise in real resources of 26 per cent. in the basic science budget. As I said, that compares with no increase whatsoever when the Labour party was in power. There was absolutely no increase in real terms between 1976 and 1980.

Mr. Straw

rose—

Mr. Baker

There was an increase in the very first year until the IMF came knocking on the door and the economic policies—

Mr. Straw

rose—

Mr. Baker

The hon. Gentleman should look at the figures from 1976 when the IMF said that there should be no more spending. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to say that there was an increase in real terms, I say to him, look what you did to the universities when you were in office. You cut the spending in the universities—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

Order. The Secretary of State must not hold me responsible for such things.

Mr. Baker

You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, had no hand in such villainy and destruction. It was them. They did it. They cut the spending on the universities by 18 per cent. in real terms. Where do all the scientists work? They work in the universities. The Opposition cut university spending by 18 per cent. and we have increased it by 17 per cent. in real terms. The reason is that we run the economy successfully and we can afford it. They ran the economy hopelessly and as a result spending on everything, including good things, was cut.

It was said earlier that people are not attracted by tax rates and that people will not come back. Many people will be coming back to a Britain with a standard rate of tax of 25p in the pound and a top rate of tax of 40p in the pound. When the Opposition left office the top rate of tax was 98p in the pound. Their present policies would take them back to it. As Conservative Members will recognise, the success which we are celebrating tonight of the increase in the science budget is based on the economic success of the country and the increased profitability of British industry which has allowed us to expand and develop the scientific base in our country. That is why the House should reject this footling motion.

8.8 pm

Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth)

One could comment on any specific element of the motion, but I wish to concentrate on the need for organisation and funding to tackle the vital problems of the global environment. The Government's failure in this respect is highlighted by their attack on environmental research in Wales. The Secretary of State's tributes to the success of scientists and research workers are well deserved, but they come ill from the representative of a Government who have failed to support that work. At present we are experiencing the asset-stripping of environmental research in Wales. That is bad for Wales, bad for the United Kingdom and bad for the international community. It gives the lie to any suggestion that the Government have any real interest in scientific research or in the environment.

In Wales we deplore the Government's neglect. I will give three illustrations of our worries. Two of them are important in an international context as well as in Wales. Research Vessel Services at Barry and the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology research station at Bangor have shared the experience of seeing their share of any research council money decline during the years of Conservative government. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and I have failed to get sensible answers from Ministers, especially about the situation at Barry, or any answer at all from the Prime Minister. Written answers today show something of the budgetary decline that we are experiencing. In 1979 Bangor took 0.69 per cent. of the budget. By last year it was 0.5 per cent. and the Minister is not sure how much it will be this year. In the case of Barry, it is 0.44 per cent. of the budget. By 1988 it was down to 5.88 per cent. and in 1989–90 it will be 5.31 per cent.

The employment of staff in those vital establishments has also shown a dramatic fall. In 1979, there were 44 full-time staff at Bangor, but that was reduced to 34 in 1988 and in 1989 there are only 26 staff. In the case of Research Vessel Services at Barry, in 1981 there were 206 staff and in 1988 the number had been reduced to 165. No significant change is expected in 1989, but it can expect some significant change as a result of the announcement made today that the services are to be closed down.

The implications for Welsh universities are dramatic. Taken together, they represent the destruction of two viable and internationally recognised centres of environmental research at a cost to Wales of reduced academic capabilities and job losses in areas of high unemployment. The university of Wales is already in a desperate financial state which is being paid for with cuts in course options, job losses and amalgamations. The establishment of the new unit at Bangor must be seen in the context of the botanical and zoological departments at that university "amalgamating" into a smaller department of biology, and the long-term plans to begin the amalgamation of departments at Bangor and Aberystwyth along the lines of the reorganisation at Cardiff. Those plans can only have the same effect of reducing student places and course options and will have effects on the scientific activities and the ethos and environment around those towns.

The head of the new biology department at the university college of North Wales complained that environmental research in Wales has now been put back to the position that it occupied in the 1950s. Is that not truly deplorable? It is now already a year since the staff of the research station at Bangor were informed that the Natural Environment Research Council was closing the station and setting up a small unit.

The situation at Bangor has unfortunate parallels with the situation in other parts of the country, such as the treatment of staff at the Institute of Marine Biology at Aberdeen. The Natural Environment Research Council decided to move the group to the Scottish marine station at Oban and prepared accommodation there costing £100,000. Months passed, but no decision was made to move the staff and in October the remaining nine staff at Aberdeen were made redundant.

At Bangor, no agreement has been signed with the university college of North Wales and there is little communication between management and staff, although promises were made. Building costs are estimated at £90,000 and will possibly reach £130,000, although the Natural Environment Research Council has only £30,000 available. The staff are becoming concerned that, because of the delays, NERC will repeat what it has done at Aberdeen and make all the staff redundant. The future—far from being a new start—is bleak for the staff and, more importantly, for environmental research.

The situation at Bangor has to be linked with that developing in Barry, where the Research Vessel Services base is also threatened with closure. Today that threat became actuality. The base was opened in 1972 with just 15 staff. The Secretary of State seems amused at that news. The announcement was made in a way typical of the Government, who announce only what they want the public to hear and when they want the public to hear it. The press heard about the future of RVS Barry at 11 am, but the staff were not told until 3 pm. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West and I are still waiting for a reply from the Prime Minister and others on these matters and, no doubt, we shall wait a long time for a satisfactory one. The decision must be changed because it is irrational and wrong.

The base employs almost 200 staff and on the vessel whose research voyages it supports there is a range of disciplines such as navigation, communications, datalogging, processing, biology, geology, geophysics and physical oceanography. Its clients include 14 British and two American universities, eight institutes and Government Departments and three American institutes. Over the years, it has developed a coherent package of ocean-going and shore-based research skills personnel and equipment, and the staff are proud of that achievement.

Yet the Secretary of State wants to close it down. There are strategic considerations too. The vessels leaving Barry have immediate access to open water, which is not the case at Southampton, where the Government apparently wish to relocate the base. According to a written answer that I received today, the cost of creating the relevant new facility at Southampton is about £21 million over four years, at 1988–89 prices. The savings offset are assumed —only assumed—to reach £11 million. That is a waste of at least £10 million which could be given to the essential work of environmental research. I appeal to the Secretary of State and to Ministers to leave the RVS at Barry in south Wales where it is doing a good job.

Earlier, the Secretary of State claimed credit on behalf of the Government for the Antarctic survey, but he failed to mention the money being double-counted because it is in the NERC budget and ring-fenced by the Government, so it is hardly disposable income available for use in the United Kingdom. On the other hand, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State confirmed to me yesterday that the total cost of a major and vital refit for the RRS Discovery is about £10 million at current prices. He added: It will be for the NERC to determine its priorities, both in 1989 and later years, in the light of available resources." —[Official Report, 6 February 1989; Vol. 146, c. 464.] The Government are responsible for resources and the Government are responsible for the pattern of work and it is misleading and irresponsible to suggest that an outside body or quango rather than the Government is taking the decision. It is cowardice on the part of the Government not to accept responsibility for their decisions. Asked how many jobs would be shed at the NERC establishment in 1989, the Minister said that 160 posts, the majority in marine sciences, are to be shed in the financial year to March 1989. Thirty-eight staff will be made compulsorily redundant, the remainder having been shed through voluntary redundancy. The Minister said that he understands that further posts will be lost in the next financial year, although it is hoped to limit those to 60; the locations of the posts concerned are not yet known. What an admission of failure that is.

My third example is the need for research and action in respect of low-level radiation and safe means of disposal of radioactive waste. That research should be acted upon for the protection of the public. The Secretary of State for Wales, who is neither present nor represented this evening, has unaccountably decided to allow low-level radioactive waste from a local firm to be dumped on a council tip in my constituency. Previously such waste had to be taken to British Nuclear Fuels' disposal site at Drigg because safety processes were considered important. Now, without apparent justification or argument, the Secretary of State for Wales has changed his mind. I should make it clear that the firm concerned is well respected and responsible and has gone out of its way to give access to information to local authorities and other interested parties. My criticism is reserved entirely for the Secretary of State for Wales, who appears to be acting irresponsibly. He is irresponsible in ignoring the views of the local authority, which deplores his decision. The authority's reservations are based not on high-flown theory but on simple practicalities and common sense. It fears that the many scavengers who gain unauthorised entry to the refuse site—including children —may be affected and that the parameters for low-level radioactive waste disposal could be exceeded in tissue handled by children. It believes that special disposal procedures should be adopted and fears that the health risk to employees could lead to a serious situation arising if the work force refused to handle the waste. It also points out the need to provide adequate monitoring of every load arriving at the tip. Is the Welsh Office prepared to meet the cost as we expect and believe that it should?

Those are just three examples. One could also draw attention to early-day motion 271 and the information given by a former US submarine commander about discharges of radioactive coolant into British waters. Questions asked have received no proper answers and there seems to be no intention on the part of the Government to undertake proper research or to tell people the truth about these matters.

What a year we have already seen in 1989.1988 was bad enough. We saw a year of mounting concern over the international effects of a series of shocking incidents of pollution and bad waste disposal. Now in 1989 we appear to be set for an even worse picture. We are about to see an expansion of the disposal of toxic waste at ReChem in Torfaen. The plant has long caused immense local opposition, passionately voiced by my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) and other Welsh Members of Parliament. We are now in a year when the Water Bill threatens our environment, health and water supply. It is a disastrous Bill, inadequately supported either with words or resources. We are also in a year in which the carriage of radioactive material in aeroplanes has caused outrage.

Why will the Government not accept their responsibilities to ensure that environmental research is well funded, effective, well directed and acted upon? This Government are afraid of research, afraid of the facts, afraid of exposure and afraid to admit that they do not care about the environment locally, nationally or globally. They are willing to accept praise for the success of our scientists, but not willing to give them the support, encouragement and resources that they need. The Government do not care about those who work to protect our environment or, ultimately, about the interests of the British public.

8.20 pm

Sir Ian Lloyd (Havant)

The governance of great countries such as this is always and inevitably an immensely complex and difficult task. No one who has been in the House for any length of time would expect the Government to admit anything other than that at times they make errors of judgment or mistakes and that at times they do things that are not in the national interest. That is what this House is here to check and what we are about.

However, when I listen to speeches such as the one that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael)—which was interesting in its way—my reaction is that neither he nor many of his colleagues ever seems to allow that over a broad area of Government activity the Government may possibly get it right some of the time, in some places, on some issues— [Hon. Members: "And wrong."] Yes and wrong, but the general tenor of many speeches is that the Government never do anything right at any time. The House is diminished by speeches that never make any allowance for reality.

In the whole sphere of Government, if there is any one area in which it is possible to make serious, responsible and measured criticisms of Government—such criticisms go way back through successive Governments as far as science is concerned and have been made ever since I have been in the House—without antagonising Conservative Members by sweeping condemnations of everything that the Government do, it is in science. Therefore, I very much regret that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth and others who speak like him never seem to acquire the minimum degree of responsibility that would so enhance our debates and make them relevant to the profound issues that we should be addressing.

I very much agree with the views of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about Professor Sir George Porter, who is an old friend of mine. I have great respect for him as a scientist—and who would not? He is president of the Royal Society and stands on a pinnacle of science, recognised not only in this country, but throughout the world. The magnificent structure of British science upon which so much world science has been built remains profoundly and basically in pretty good shape. Of course, it can be improved and could always have more resources. However, I should be astonished if in 10, 15 or 20 years' time an hon. Member were to say that in the past two decades we have had no Nobel prizes, that there have been no new fellows of the Royal Society and that no outstanding new British science has appeared on the horizon to lift the plateau upon which so much world science is built above its present level. I do not believe that such an argument is credible. For that reason, I fully support my right hon. Friend and disagree with the analysis, even if it was conditional, of Sir George Porter.

It seems that sometimes the Opposition are more interested in the circulation of dogma than in the circulation of Carbon.

My purpose this evening is limited. I wish to consider the scope of the analysis of science policy, permitted by the expenditure White Paper—all 19 volumes of it—which I have been looking at this afternoon. I want to ask whether the analysis of science and research in that expenditure White Paper is balanced and whether we in Parliament have the necessary material to facilitate an analysis of the nation's science policy and priorities. I suggest that it is an area for improvement.

I warmly welcome the increased funding in real terms which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a few months ago and which was emphasised this evening by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Naturally, I share the Opposition's hope that that will continue and that it will not be cut. If the success of the economy is based on science, the success of our science is, in the long run, based on the success of the economy. There is a symbiosis between the two that the House must never neglect.

The Opposition's motion seems fatally flawed by its excessive use of the ill-defined word "adequate". What is "adequate"? We talk about adequate this, adequate that and adequate the other. The late President Kennedy once summed up the argument beautifully when he said that enough is a function of what else is important. It is that consideration of priorities which neither the Opposition motion nor, in frankness and fairness, the Government amendment addresses. Both are deficient and both fail to suggest—

Mr. Straw

What we mean by "adequate" is the test that the hon. Gentleman used this time last year in a debate on British science, when he quoted the conclusions of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils, that the then expenditure plans '"do not provide the means to move our nation's scientific capability towards the 21st century',".—[Official Report, 29 February 1988; Vol. 128, c. 740.] The ABRC was right then and, in my judgment, it is right now.

Sir Ian Lloyd

That may be so, but I should like to see a more precise definition of "adequate" over a much broader range of considerations. We should be able to make judgments between, for example, defence and civil research; nuclear and non-nuclear research; fundamental science and the application of science; pure chemistry and biology; fibreoptics and semi-conductors; metrology or measurement and other claims on the scientific budget; space science and terrestrial science; big astronomy and fundamental particle physics; and between agricultural DNA and human DNA. As I understand it, we cannot make such judgments now in the House of Commons.

However, can it be done? If we look at the analysis of expenditure in the latest White Paper—all 19 volumes of it —we find an interesting set of figures. Only five Departments of State are together responsible for a total of £5,178 million out of a total expenditure on research and development in the United Kingdom of £5,500 million. I repeat that five Departments are responsible for 90 per cent, of our R and D.

Let us look at how that is presented in the national expenditure analysis. The biggest is, of course, the Ministry of Defence, which spends £2,545 million. The analysis of defence expenditure in the White Paper is summarised by one line of text. There is no analysis between the R and D carried out in each of the three services which, I imagine, could have been done without disclosing secrets to the enemy, which is obviously the primary and overriding consideration in defence research. However, let us leave the question of defence because it may have special considerations.

I move now to the Department of Education and Science. It is second on the list, with a total expenditure in this area of £1,739 million. Out of the total volume, it has two pages. The Department of Trade and industry is down at £510 million. It has three pages of rather mixed analysis. I am glad to be able to say that I give the Department of Energy a clean bill of health because its £219 million on R and D enjoys a full, considered and vigorous 12-page analysis. That is an example which other Departments should be more willing to follow. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food spends £165 million, and its research and development is analysed in two paragraphs.

I put those facts before the House, because, as I said earlier, there are responsible and realistic grounds on which we can criticise the way in which we provide Parliament with information as a basis on which we can conduct these debates.

Nowhere is any attempt made to consider, describe or discuss the major departmental priorities except for energy. I believe, however, that there are a number of broader issues with which the House should deal. In a fascinating paper which was recently published in the Economic and Social Research Council Newsletter 56 of January 1986, a Dr. Kenneth Prewitt of the Rockefeller Foundation said this about democracy and science: The question stems from a concern that the institutions of democracy may not be robust enough to contend with the range of issues being brought to the political agenda by the rapidly accelerating development of 20th century science and technology. He went on to say: There is a high degree of concern, certainly in the United States"— I believe that there is a high degree of concern here, too "that citizens not be disenfranchised because of their scientific illiteracy in the face of a really enormously growing technical agenda".

I shall continue quoting from this paper because I believe it to be of importance and Dr. Prewitt's analysis is so outstanding. The paper said: Science brings truth to bear on the exercise of power.… When science is doing its task, sovereignty is constrained to act within the boundaries set by demonstrable facts and probable outcomes. Science puts partial but significant restraints on the exercise of power; it constrains the arbitrary decision of either the high officials or of mass opinions; it weakens the hold of ideology on opinions by demonstrating the complexity of issues, the stubbornness of the factual constraints on their solution." I do not believe that I could have put that better myself.

That brings me to the statement in the White Paper on the response to the first report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, published in July 1987. Mention is made in the White Paper of the welcome development of a science and techology assessment office within the Cabinet Office at No. 10. The White Paper says: The Assessment Office will build up a picture of the relative contribution of the different R & D expenditures to the United Kingdom economy and will contribute advice on these matters, to the new, strengthened central structure.

Recently I put a series of questions to the Prime Minister asking what technology assessments had in fact been carried out by the new unit at No. 10. I received an answer telling me to refer to this document, because there I would see what it was all about. In fact, the unit has carried out no such assessment itself, but, apparently, has fulfilled its general responsibility of encouraging the other Departments of State to carry out such assessments.

Paragraph 12 of the White Paper reads: The Select Committee recommend that approximately one per cent, of all Government R & D expenditure should be devoted to evaluation … The Assessment Office will discuss with all bodies involved in the public funding of R & D the need for adequate resources"— there is that lovely word "adequate" again— to be devoted to the various stages of the assessment process".

That raises a number of simple questions which I should like to leave with my right hon. Friend. One per cent, of the nation's research and development expenditure is 1 per cent, of £5,500 million, which gives the respectable sum of £55 million.

What are the technical assessments which have been carried out by the new unit at No. 10 as a result of the direct stimulus of other Government Departments? Has it been done and, if so, where? Secondly, how much has been spent directly as a result of this initiative and as a result of the statement made in the White Paper? Thirdly, have any results been published, especially in those areas outside defence where, as I understand the situation, there is no reason why such results should not be published? The entire purpose of technology assessment is to enable this House and the nation to make their judgment in such an area. I suggest that at present we are almost incapable of doing that.

I have given my right hon. Friend enough questions to answer, but I ask him finally when we should expect to reach the target figure of £55 million.

8.35 pm

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

I shall encourage the hon. Member for Havant (Sir Ian Lloyd) a little by first acknowledging that this year the Government have substantially increased the amount of money given to science. It would be foolish to do otherwise. Therefore, when looking at both the Labour motion and the amendment, one has to conclude that there is truth in both. The Labour motion is largely valid and points out the deficiencies in the Government's programme and position, but the Government's claims are also partly true, although I believe that the message from the House must be that they should not be complacent.

Like the hon. Member for Havant, before coming to a debate such as this, I go first to the general handbook provided in the House—the Government's Expenditure Plans. Interestingly, if one compares the breakdown given last month of the science budget expenditure in real terms, projected backwards and forwards—starting from a base point in this year's paper of 1982–83—one sees that, if one takes that as 100, the projection is that in the coming year for the first time since then there will be a substantial increase. We know that that was the import of the Chancellor's announcement in November. Indeed, it was reinforced by the detailed breakdown of figures this year and the Secretary of State's announcement this morning. However, we have seen that the pattern is consistently one that suggests that if we are not careful the increase will be what the Chancellor would call a blip rather than a fundamental change in direction.

As I put to the Secretary of State in my intervention, beyond the forthcoming financial year there is a tailing off in real terms—a decrease—of investment projected in the Government spending plan. I couple that expression of fact—on the basis of the Government's evidence—with a concern which stems from looking at the relative importance that we as a country still give to investment in science. Again, I follow the area of comment of the hon. Member for Havant. If one looks at what are now 21 volumes of the Government's Expenditure Plans, in the slim volume 12 which is the education and science volume, there are only a few paragraphs on science—paragraphs 57 to 70. That is the sum total of analyses of what is, in effect, the necessary base to sustain the whole of our country's economic, manufacturing, competitive, productive and future technological activity. The relatively little importance given to science is reflected in the way in which it is expressed, solely in the context of inputs of finance, in the presentation of the Government's economic programme.

That is not a politician's comment without justification. Until the announcement of the increase for the forthcoming year to £824 million—£94 million up on this year—that was the general tenor of the commentary by all eminent scientists in this country. We are spending far too little in the important places.

One could quote presidents of all the august and learned bodies, societies and associations. I shall quote one who has not been mentioned so far—Sir Walter Bodmer, last year's president of the British Association. In the last paragraph of his presidential address in September last year he said: My frustration, shared 1 believe by most scientists, is that now when science is better placed than ever before to contribute to a better future, we are having to struggle increasingly hard to prevent a damaging decline in the government support for fundamental science and to encourage industry to increase its support in scientific research and development. Only this morning I received an invitation from Manpower 2000, a project of the southern science and technology forum at Southampton university, to speak at a conference in April which says: It is no exaggeration to say that the resurgence of industry and the doubtful benefits to be gained from privatisation and modernisation of UK's basic services are wholly at risk because of the potential shortage of technically literate people needed to manage and operate them. This shortage will not be due so much to the Demographic Gap …as to the wholesale movement of young people away from engineering, science and maths to other less demanding disciplines. I want briefly to refer to what seems to be the fundamental problem. I am concerned, as the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) was rightly concerned, that nearly 10 years after the Government took office there is still no strategy for science in Britain. That is an extraordinary state of affairs. Even when encouraged to produce a strategy as they were in 1987 by the Advisory Board for the Research Councils, and even having promised to do so, they still have not done so. I hope that the Minister will come clean and tell the House that the Government still do not have a strategy rather than making excuses. We should have had a strategy long ago. The Government are responsible for such matters and I hope that they will now produce a proper scientific strategy without further delay.

It is not only that promise which has been broken. I was looking through the Hansard of the other place for the day when the statement on the Health Service review was made last week. There was much criticism by peers of the fact that in that review a response was promised to the Griffiths report on community care and to the report of the Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology on priorities in medical research. I do not know whether hon. Members have yet looked at the part of the White Paper entitled "Working for Patients" which deals with that matter. There are two bland paragraphs on pages 37 and 38 on training and research. Responses were promised, but they have not been delivered. In spite of much encouragement from hon. Members and with the best expert evidence on all specific areas of science and research, we have still had an inadequate response. The Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology produced its third report of the parliamentary Session 1987–88 on priorities in medical research, making several recommendations, but that report has not yet been responded to or adequately implemented.

The same Select Committee in its first report in this parliamentary Session, 1988–89, on agricultural and food research said: the need for a firm commitment to agricultural and food research cannot be too strongly emphasised. On basic research the report said: Scientific advances will depend on basic studies—in agriculture and food it will be essential to improve understanding of the basic biological processes underlying production…Basic research is a scientific investment and such an asset should be protected and used productively. On levels of funding the Committee concluded: The Committee share the concern of witnesses at the effects in Government funding for agricultural research in recent years. Later, and typically, the report says: Another, particularly topical, example of 'public good' research which Government must fund is that on salmonella. If anything is now likely to receive funding, I suppose that that is. The report then says: The Committee do not share the Government's belief that research, once discontinued, can be easily re-started. There have been many encouragements for the Government to act, but in reality their performance has been poor.

I shall not go at length into global environmental matters, although that is one of my interests, as the House knows, but it is sad to record that when I asked a parliamentary question in the summer about the amount of money spent on environmental protection research across the sectors the answer showed that there had been a decrease from £22.4 million at 1987–88 prices in 1985–86 to £21.3 million at the same prices in 1987–88. If we are to be taken seriously in caring for the global environment, we must demonstrate our commitment.

The substantive point about where research investment should be placed has been made. It has to be in basic research because that is the fount of all scientific progress. At the moment we are in a state of profound national scientific crisis. There is insufficient money for basic research. Nor are sufficient people being brought into science at school or university as students or teachers. Moreover, education is continually losing scientists to the private sector, whether at home or abroad. Some go abroad and some do not.

University salaries are now down to three quarters of what they were 10 years ago in real terms and we shall lose good people from our universities. Chairs are unfilled. They are being filled not by professors but by lecturers acting up in subjects that are not their speciality. There are not enough lecturers because there are not enough postgraduate students. There are not enough postgraduate students because there is more money to be gained from training in industry than From postgraduate work at university. We do not keep overseas students because they go back to their own countries with their knowledge. Britain has done less basic research for the past 10 years than ever before.

All the time the Science and Engineering Research Council directorate, for example, will not accept projects without industrial backing. But industry is not interested in results 10 years hence. Industry wants what is of interest to it in the short term. We pay for industrial development in universities which should be done by industry when we should be paying for research. What is now done may be "near market place" research—I think that that is the phrase—and it may be more strategic, but it is at the expense of basic research. The trend is clear. The figures show that in 1978–79 the division between strategic and basic research was 42 per cent. to 56 per cent. That position has now reversed and the figures are 55 per cent. to 46 per cent. That is a worrying trend which should be reversed.

Other countries do not fall into that trap. For example, Japan has a pre-competitive research element in its universities. When the ideas are far enough developed, the Government back out and industry takes over along with the competitive market. We also apply performance indicators that are invalid. For example, the number of papers that a department produces, including the number of pages in a paper, is not necessarily a measure of a meritorious project. The number of chapters in a book or the number of lectures given are no evidence of the best form of research.

We also fail to fund our national research if we think money is available from the EEC. The trouble is that that is often not forthcoming and, if it is, it takes a long time to work through the bureaucracy. I say that as a pro-European, not as a critic in general terms of the Community. Therefore, the money is not forthcoming from either source.

The Government should respond with increasing urgency to the lack of funding for basic resources in universities. Industry is becoming increasingly fed up with being asked for cash, and the neglect of basic research means that only those areas in which industry is most interested are funded.

I shall give three examples before concluding. We have pretended in the past that we could do well by funding basic research sufficiently to the stage where industry could take it up. Yet the head of the Ariane space programme research group resigned after two or three years because the Government would not put in money to complete the programme. The airbus is another example of the Government blowing hot and cold so that we have lost credibility with our partners.

Perhaps the best example is the APT—the advanced passenger train, which the House will remember as the tilting train. It would increase speeds in the north and was expected to increase revenue by drawing people away from motorways, and even from airlines. Indeed, in France the equivalent train has done just that. British Rail was pushed by the Government far too hard and too quickly to produce results. The train broke down during a very premature test drive with Ministers and public relations officials on board and the Government then pulled out, although British Rail said that only another £10 million was required to finish the project as the problem was only superficial. Now one of the trains has gone to the train museum in Crewe and the rest have been scrapped.

What has happened since? Our suppliers from Sweden, ASEA, are building the trains in Sweden and the first one will be ready for delivery in the autumn. They are expected to sell well. We are likely to buy our own idea from the Swedes because we never got far enough to sell, patent or use it ourselves. Far too often we judge what we should do by what is necessary to please the City and accountants rather than going to the fundamentals of what science and research need.

I welcome the increase announced by the Government although it is worrying that there will not be the same commitment in the second and third years. But, first, science and research needs planning, and planning needs a continuity of funding. The increase needs to be sustained rather than being made available for only this year.

Secondly it is no good just funding research councils when we do not also fund our universities to the same extent.

Thirdly, and most important of all, the Government still do not appreciate, and certainly do not show that they appreciate, the skills gap, which is the most unappreciated economic crisis of all, and the lack of scientists, engineers and technologists for the future.

We know about the demography of the future, but because of underpayment of university lecturers and insufficient funding of staff in schools, and the Government's compromise that only 12 per cent. rather than 20 per cent. of the national curriculum can relate to science, these people are not likely to be available. If we do not invest in the people, we shall not have the science or research. The Government must not be complacent. They have begun to put some money into science, but very much more is needed.

8.53 pm

Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest)

In supporting the amendment, I want to concentrate on science in schools. Before I do that, I shall refer to an article in The Times Educational Supplement which quoted Sir Herman Bondi reminding the writer that the rise of the German dye industry to world prominence and the great strides subsequently made in organic chemistry occurred when there was no chemistry teaching in German schools and very little in German universities. That extreme example shows that much of the most valuable research is through application in industry meeting the demands of the market, driven by the demands of those who need to put it to work commercially in the private sector.

The Japanese electronics industry, the German petrochemical industry and the United States aerospace industry are good examples of that principle. That is why the Government are correct to increase the science research budget by 15 per cent. since 1979, and again today, and to increase total science spending by 11 per cent. since 1979 to £1.4 billion this year, yet encourage rationalisation of scientific departments in universities, to ensure that research is better targeted and to concentrate resources more effectively. It also encourages collaborative research through, for instance, the Link initiative. I understand that the Government are spending £210 million on that initiative over five years, and it should elicit from industry a pound-for-pound response of another £210 million. The project has enabled some universities to rely for as much as 30 to 40 per cent. of their income on the funds they gain from collaborative projects with industry.

It is absolutely right for the Government to say that when profit levels show a 7 to 11 per cent. return on capital for industry, and investment is up 16 per cent. as it was last year, and profitability levels are the best for 20 years, it is correct for United Kingdom private industry to fund more of its own basic research. At present, as a proportion of GNP, United Kingdom private research is only 1 per cent., or 60 per cent. less than in Germany, and a third less than in the United States and 80 per cent. less than in Japan. Incidentally, the Japanese Government's civil research and development funding is lower as a proportion of GNP than it is in the United Kingdom. That gives an indication of the strides needed from an increasingly profitable private sector in this country to improve its basic research spending.

I want to concentrate now on science in schools. Although there have been significant improvements recently in the standards achieved in science by schoolchildren, nevertheless over the long term there is a problem which is deep-seated and even cultural. That was highlighted in a recent survey carried out by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. The study shows that Britain's children at age 10 came 12th out of 15 countries in their scientific knowledge. In other words, at the age of 10, only a ninth of British children know what makes the moon shine—that light is reflected off the sun.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West)

The hon. Gentleman can have two brownie points for that.

Mr. Coombs

I am sorry, it is the other way round; the sun's light is reflected off the moon. That shows the extent of my scientific knowledge.

The survey shows that 70 per cent. of Swedish children knew that fact at age 10. At the age of 14, the British children surveyed came 11th out of 17 countries, yet by the age of 17 British children were second out of 30 countries.

The survey shows that our sixth formers are as good as those anywhere. The major problem is that only 20 per cent. of our young people go through to sixth forms, while the proportion doing so in Japan is 63 per cent. and it is 90 per cent in the United States. That is why the Government are absolutely right to concentrate their attention in framing the national curriculum on increasing the participation of children in science to the age of 16, so that they will continue with it until the age of 18,—albeit that at present about 300,000 children annually take biology GCSE, 210,000 take chemistry, and 244,000 take physics. Grades are criterion rather than norm-referenced, and the numbers of those notified as achieving A, B and C in those subjects are as high as for others. It is vital that we ensure that 100 per cent. of children up to age 16 continue with science.

It is also right of the Government to insist that balanced science forms an important part of the scientific curriculum. I am happy that, although 20 per cent. of the curriculum is allocated to children wishing to take two subjects, 12.5 per cent. of it will be accounted for by less able children following an integrated science curriculum. That type of course is more likely to be attractive and relevant to pupils of lower attainment, whom we need to attract to maintain their scientific education. Also, an integrated curriculum is, in educational terms, more rigorous. As evidence of that, I quote Professor Paul Black, chairman of the Government's assessment group, who was educational consultant to the Nuffield Chelsea Curriculum Trust: One of the deficiencies of the separate sciences was that pupils learned one concept of energy in physics and another in biology, and a different language again in technology. Teachers did not get their act together and left the pupils to sort it out. That is professional criticism of the separate, three-subject science curriculum, and it is why the Nuffield co-ordinated scheme offers one of the leading integrated science curricula, trying to persuade more people to maintain their scientific education—at least to GCSE O level and, it is to be hoped, to A level. If more of them can achieve A levels, there will be a larger field of potential science teachers for the future.

The Government are right to ensure that more is done in respect of primary science. I am pleased that, over the next three years, the Government will spend £25 million extra on extra advisory teachers for primary education. It is equally vital to improve schools' industry links. One of the problems in encouraging people to take an interest in science, and to go on to engineering, is the culture gap between schools and industry. Schemes such as UVI, Trident, SATRO, and enterprise projects, all of which have been pioneered by the Government, can improve relationships between schools and industry, and thereby enhance the climate in which business and science is taught in schools, and improve their popularity.

It will be difficult to improve science standards in schools unless the problem of teacher shortages is addressed. At present, there is a shortage of 2,000 physics teachers, and about 70 per cent. of local education authorities recently notified shortages of mathematics teachers. It is not a problem that is experienced only in the United Kingdom, and it did not happen overnight. It is the result of policies stretching over the last 20 or 30 years, including the anti-industry, anti-science culture I mentioned. The Government are right to attack it with initiatives such as the teachers' career unit, which visits universities encouraging people to take up science teaching, the £1,300 per annum tax-free bursaries given to probationary science teachers, and by encouraging girls to enter science. At present, only 16 per cent. of physics graduates are women. There is encouragement also for an increase in the number of licensed teachers, which ought to attract more older scientists—who may feel that their industrial careers are at an end, but whose expertise can be applied to teaching science in schools.

The problem will not be tackled at a fundamental level, and the situation in which 34 per cent. of physics teachers who have a teaching qualification decline to enter the teaching profession will not be resolved unless we improve the archaic method of paying our teachers that this country has historically enforced. It takes the form of an insistence that teachers on the same grade should all be paid the same, wherever they may work in the country—outside London, whatever may be the shortage of their skills, whatever subject they happen to teach, and irrespective of how many unskilled people teach subjects in which they are not qualified, and of how much staff turnover there is in particular subjects. We notice, for instance, that there is a 50 per cent. staff turnover in London among computer teachers. Irrespective of all those labour market factors, teachers are paid the same in each grade, wherever they are and whatever their skill.

The 1988 legislation dealing with teachers' pay and conditions introduced a wider scale of five merit points to reward good teachers and teachers with skills in short supply. Local financial management will give schools more flexibility with which to operate that. Nevertheless, they will still be weighed down by the archaic dead weight of the incremental system, which means that even in the first year fully 70 per cent. of the money going to incentive posts must be based on the old incremental system. Only £257 million of the £7 billion annual teachers' bill can be spent on incentives which could go towards attracting people with skills in short supply, while £2,000 million goes to rewarding mere longevity, more length of service, irrespective of grade, skill or ability.

If, either from schools or centrally, we can get even a part of that incremental bill, that £2 billion a year, pushed through into incentive payments to those who have skills of which there is a shortage, who are high-fliers, who a re particularly talented, we shall be going some way towards being able to pay the increased salaries in respect of the local labour markets for those science subject shortages that we see today. If we do that, we ought to be able to go some way towards increasing the number of science teachers in schools without increasing unduly the burden on ratepayers and taxpayers of the teachers' pay bill. That step alone would do more than any other to improve standards of scientific education in this country.

9.6 pm

Mr. Jim Cousins (Newcastle upon Tyne, Central)

I hope that the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) will, after the speech he has just made, proceed instantly to his nearest university and deliver his homily on the importance of monetary rewards in stimulating effort. I hope that he will particularly seek out scientists working on short-term contracts and deliver to them his thoughts on the labour market structure and monetary rewards in encouraging endeavour.

The Secretary of State came into this debate tonight woofing like an old, wet dog off the lead, excited by the money he had to put in front of us, but his case has been entirely shot down by his hon. Friends. The hon. Member for Havant (Sir I. Lloyd) very rightly pointed out that, lost in the public expenditure White Paper, in other chapters than the chapter to which the Secretary of State drew our attention, is the fact that there are cuts in research expenditure. He drew to our attention in particular the significance of the withdrawal of the Government from so-called near market research expenditure, which, of course, has financed the apparent gains that the Secretary of State had to offer tonight.

The hon. Member for Wyre Forest gave the game away even more comprehensively when he drew to our attention the very low level of research expenditure in this country when it is not associated with defence and with Government spending. He very rightly pointed out, and I hope what he had to say was taken to heart by those on the Government Front Bench, that industry fails to support science in this country through its own expenditure. There are one or two industries—the pharmaceutical industry stands out—which make an honourable effort in that respect. The others do not. We live in a scientific disaster world for British science.

Again, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest pointed out the failure of science in our schools, the declining numbers of people who are even applying to do A-level physics and chemistry, and the linkage between that and the labour market because of the world outside the school that children can perceive.

The Secretary of State paints a picture, honest and genuine enough in its own way, of a handful of world-class research teams still based in Britain. But the base on which those teams stand is crumbling. The Secretary of State only emphasises what has been true in Britain for many years and unfortunately is still true: that while we may be successful at invention, we are poor at innovation and disastrous at spreading that innovation through our industries.

The fact is that top management in British industry is the least well-educated, the least well-trained and the least scientifically sophisticated in the world. The problem in British science is the lack of connection between the world-class research teams and what really happens to the future of our industries. It is significant that, apart from the brief appearance of another Minister, the work of tonight's debate has been left to the education team. As we all know, science is a jumble of responsibilities throughout Government. But the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has been pondering whether he can bring himself to require companies to certify the level of research and development spending in their accounts, perhaps as a way of stimulating greater interest in the science base on the part of industry.

In the debates on the Companies Bill in the other place the noble Lord has been promising to consider that, but we are still waiting. How happy we would be tonight if a Minister could tell us, "Yes, the Government will require companies to declare their research and development spending in their accounts." Then we would be sure of a science-based commitment that was not merely based on a handful of research teams, but would be a product of industry as a whole.

How nice it would be if the Secretary of State for the Environment—given all the expenditure for which he is responsible—would come and talk to us occasionally about his commitments to research, in the subjects that have been mentioned and in others. He could make an enormous contribution to turning such cities as mine—the city of Newcastle—into science cities by binding together urban development corporations, bringing in higher education institutions and linking hospitals to the process. He is in a position to take such initiatives, but we hear nothing of them: we simply hear from the Secretary of State the story that he is protecting, on their reservations, that handful of at-risk animals, top-level British scientists.

All that that tells us is that the Government have stopped asking the wrong questions. They have still to tell us that they have found the right answers.

9.12 pm

Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry)

I always enjoy following the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins), because at one stage we found ourselves at college together. I have to say, however, that I disagree with many of his conclusions—and with the somewhat doom-laden atmosphere that his speech produced.

It seems to me, both from what the hon. Gentleman said and from the Opposition motion, that the Opposition barometer is stuck permanently at "stormy". The motion contains a number of important misconceptions which I should like to clear up at the outset. The first, essential misconception is that the process of Government spending on any particular item is in some way divorced from the general course and strength of the economy. It would be the easiest thing in the world to bump up the proportion of gross national product spent on science, overseas aid or anything else by the simple device of ensuring that the growth of the rest of GNP was zero.

The second, related misconception is to divorce spending in the public sector from what is available and will come forward from the private sector. Here I perhaps agreed with the hon. Gentleman: I too would like to see a surge forward in private sector expenditure. A long period of low profits is now changing into a period of rather higher profits, and I hope that that will be accomplished, not necessarily through compulsion, but through a readiness on the part of private firms to declare their research and development spending. There is in this country a prevailing sin by which we measure the quality of output as a function of the state-financed input into any activity.

I feel that I must, though it is unusual to do so, refer to my curriculum vitae. I admit frankly that I have no science O-level. That is a function of the past and it would be less likely to happen now. I have been attempting to claw my position back from that state of affairs for a number of years, in practical application as a farmer; by participating as a council member in a private sector agricultural research trust for over 20 years and as its chairman for five years; and recently, and with diffidence in view of my past record, as a newly nominated member of the Agricultural and Food Research Council.

That story of myself developed strongly my support for the national curriculum requirement that everyone shall study science until school leaving age. That will create the broad base of scientific interest and, I hope, sympathy on which the higher points of the pyramid may rest.

As for Higginson and A-levels, there will have to be changes in this area. Not enough is made of the practical problems involved in changing timetables to accommodate a variety of subjects. I am equally conscious of the importance of some academic rigour and depth, and 1 would favour the retention of one or two traditional A-levels, with subjects being gone into in detail. But there must be some generality and a broader spread than the sort of education that many of us may have enjoyed in the past.

I shall now concentrate my remarks on science as such, with particular reference to the Agricultural and Food Research Council and what I have seen of that. Several hon. Members have referred to the need to improve the information and decision-making structure. It is, for example, difficult to say what the AFRC is spending, from where it is getting its money and the areas to which it is going. We are aware that it has DES and MAFF money and that it is in receipt of outside funds, but when Scotland is added along with other bits and pieces and adjustments are made for various financial years, it is difficult to come up with a single figure. We need a matrix—where from and where going to—to improve the quality of decision-making.

I am not ashamed of drawing an analogy with the National Health Service. We can proclaim that we have higher real spending on the science budget. We must, equally, face infinite demand; one cannot have too much science. We also have all the strains and stresses of the necessary management inputs, with the reorganisation and rationalisation of the vehicles for delivering that science which are now taking place.

That is happening nowhere more clearly than in agriculture, where the historic legacy has been over 25 establishments within the remit of the AFRC, now rationalised down to eight main institutes with two or three centres. This has meant a reduction in staff of 25 per cent. since 1983, a third of those by compulsory redundancy. There has also been—I would defend this—some shift towards activity within the university sector rather than within state institutes.

All this has meant many changes and much apprehension and concern among personnel. We need to complete this process as soon as we decently can. There is, and must be, scope for a number of centres of world excellence within the AFRC, although there is not scope for one in every one of its sites. Let us continue the process and also remember, as the debate has shown, the obligation of Government to ensure that there are adequate salaries and pay structures to safeguard the personnel who work for us on the sites.

It is difficult to divide up the spectrum—from blue-skies research, through innovation and invention, to research and development. The second order but equally important world of supportive science must in future be collaborative.

My attitude towards the Health Service would be that, provided we did not prejudice ethical standards and maintained the central core of funding, the more outside funding we could add, the better. I have the same attitude to science. That was the context in which the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food carried out its celebrated, if not notorious, Barnes review and the promotion of near market funding. I am sure that the concept of the review is excellent. However, I have some concern about the speed with which it has been carried out because it has meant a rapid phasing—which is different from the central science point that I was making earlier. I am also concerned about the large cuts in funding, although I appreciate that they are not within the direct purview of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

I am sure that there are already encouraging signs that the industry will pick itself up and come to terms with the final conclusions of the review but I must emphasise the importance of collaborative activities. I have some indirect experience of the funding of the university of Essex. which enjoys a high level of self-financing.

Through my work in the trust that I mentioned, I also have some direct experience of the work of Sheffield university's commercial and industrial development bureau, which has worked tremendously hard to draw in the benefits of intellectual property. For example, it has introduced my foundation to the prescription for a commercial confidentiality agreement.

The commercial sector makes a major contribution. Agricultural food companies are already putting in about £100 million a year—and that should be more. There is more scope for outside trust funding, to which I have referred, and for collaboration with Europe. I welcome what AFRC is doing about that. Management savings can also be made from, for example, the co-location of institutes at Swindon. It is clearly useful if managements can work together, particularly in biological sciences.

The Government must keep faith by maintaining the tax-funded core of the science budget and an adequate level of remuneration for workers. Equally, the science sector and the research councils have an obligation to obtain the best possible results from their budgets and to explore all sensible increases in outside funding. The Government have set forward a basis for a balanced contract for operating effectively in the science sector. I shall support the Government amendment.

9.24 pm

Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West)

In the few minutes remaining, I shall tell the House about the strong objections felt in south Wales about paragraph 20 of the report of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils, which has been accepted by the Secretary of State and which refers to this morning's announcement of the closure of the Research Vessel Services base at Barry and its removal to Southampton. That totally contradicts paragraph 34 of the report.

Paragraph 20 refers to the Natural Environment Research Council placing a high priority on its plans to relocate the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences from Wormley in Surrey and its Research Vessel Services base from Barry to a single site co-located with the oceanography department of Southampton university. That will cost £17.2 million over three years, though I understand that the full figure for the commitment is twice that—some £35 million over five years—when the costs of relocating the civil servants involved are thrown in with the capital costs. So this is a £35 million, five-year commitment that the Secretary of State has entered into today.

If we turn to paragraph 34 we see a reference to the NERC's proposals for additional funds to support the biogeochemical ocean flux study. That caused the Secretary of State some verbal difficulty earlier tonight, though I am sure that all he was trying to do was indicate to everybody that 50 per cent. is the pass mark in the national curriculum from here on in. Paragraph 34 says: NERC's proposals for additional funds for the biogeochemical ocean flux study and its North sea programme are warmly endorsed by the board on scientific grounds. Their importance has been highlighted by recent Government concern about the greenhouse effect and marine pollution. Therefore, what I am making tonight is not a constituency point. This institution is, in fact, just outside my constituency, though many of my constituents work at RVS Barry, and they are quite apoplectic with rage today about the nature of the decision that has been imposed on them. It is not a constituency point, and it is not particularly a Welsh point; it is a British point, a point about the whole structure of this document. Is this document putting raw science first, or is it putting bricks and mortar first?

In this decision, whatever the Secretary of State may have said about wanting to put more money into the scientists doing the science, what he has actually done is to commit himself to a colossal programme of capital expenditure which will give him bricks and mortar but will starve the raw science half of the oceanography effort and will not enable Britain to play its full part in research into the greenhouse effect and the ozone layer, in which the Prime Minister has invested a great deal of her prestige, and the Secretary of State a great deal of his. He is spending £35 million. That is very generous, but the money is being spent on the wrong things.

If the Secretary of State had listened to the scientists who work in the field and not merely to the wheelers and dealers on the ABRC, who have gone past the live science field and are into negotiations in the corridors of power, he would have been told that the important thing is to refit HMS Discovery. That would cost some £10 million. That should have been the priority because the condition of HMS Discovery is dreadful. It is the flagship, the mainstay, of British oceanographic research, yet in the national newspapers, before a gag was put on them during the past month leading up to the announcement today, its superstructure was described as "rotting", and its hydraulics as hopelessly out of date. If the hydraulics of a deep-sea oceanography vessel are out of date, it cannot use its winches properly to do deep water sampling.

Being British scientists, they will muddle through. We have this "sealing wax and string" tradition. They will make an effort to hold their heads high when they are working on these new and wonderful collaborative ventures, about which the Secretary of State has talked tonight. They will hold Britain's head high as best they can, but the Secretary of State is not giving them the tools to do the job.

The boat is the important thing. If he were to spend £10 million on the boat and halved the money he is allocating to new laboratories and the relocation of civil servants who do not want to be relocated, for supposed benefits of co-location with a university department of oceanography—a very shadowy concept of more efficient management of science—he would be spending the nation's money in a far more practical way, a way he probably approves of himself except that he has had the wool pulled over his eyes by the operators in the ABRC and the NERC.

There is the question of exactly what the Secretary of State's own powers of interaction are. What kind of Secretary of State do we want to manage our science? Do we want a hands-on Secretary of State who will look at the decisions that are proposed to him by the advisory boards and say, "Is there something wrong with this? Why are we spending money on a new laboratory? Are we sure we have got the priorities right?" Can he really defend his hands-off attitude, saying, "Oh, well, it looks all right. There will be some nice new laboratories to open in a couple of years. I can still say we are taking part, and wrap the question of the greenhouse effect and the ozone layer in a nice red, white and blue ribbon and say that Britain is in the lead, that it discovered the ozone layer, and that we are spending money in the Antarctic as well"?

When it comes to the choice of priorities, the right hon. Gentleman has failed to exercise his decision-making power and to make the judgment of priorities which is the job of the Secretary of State. He is paid by the taxpayers to decide what we should spend money on. There is a reasonable increase in his budget, but he has failed to examine that budget to see whether the right expenditure is being made on raw science rather than on bricks and mortar. By his failure he has shown a dereliction of duty and that he is not fit to run the scientific budget.

9.30 pm

Dr. Jeremy Bray (Motherwell, South)

My hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) and for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) have brought out specifically some of the fundamental errors of Britain's science and industrial policy. The combination of research facilities, universities and industrial applications will provide the new jobs for the future and create economic growth, but those facilities are being drained from Wales, from the north and from Scotland by moves such as that of the Research Vessel Services base from Barry which has been announced today. The advisory committees on which the Secretary of State relies take the academically easy course by concentrating the services at Southampton, but that is not the total picture that the Government should consider.

The hon. Members for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) and for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) made the important point about science in schools which justified this as a necessary debate. It has been a useful debate. If the Government are so confident about their science policy, I hope that in future they will find time for a debate on it.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) stressed the necessity for university science and of producing the scientists in the first place. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins) dispelled the complacency that the Secretary of State brought into the debate and took out to dinner with him in the middle, as indeed he took out most of the Government Back Benchers who rallied to hear his speech but were unable to stay the course through dinner, leaving my hon. Friends in a majority for most of the debate.

To please the Secretary of State, I shall try to deal mainly with the important issues of outputs rather than inputs, and with organisation and management rather than just expenditure. To please the hon. Member for Havant (Sir I. Lloyd) I shall acknowledge a real achievement by the Government. First, however, I ask the Secretary of State to ensure that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State elaborates on the point that he made about the reorganisation of the research councils and the unfinished business in a science policy statement. These are important issues and we should know more about the state of play on them.

The Government, and the Prime Minister in particular in her Royal Society speech, have acknowledged that we face a potentially serious problem in global warming and the greenhouse effect. But the problem has caught them on the wrong foot and they do not seem to know how to tackle it. The additional costs of the research are not great. Indeed, they are tiny by comparison with the cost of what would otherwise be ill-informed policies. Ministers have reduced the scientific establishment to a state in which it needs the courage of an Oliver Twist to ask for more, and with the same fear of the consequences if it does. Through ignorance and prejudice, the Government are in danger of creating problems in the environment as big as those they seek to remedy.

The greenhouse effect is a new kind of scientific problem. Weather forecasters are used to having a check on their forecasts within a day, a week or a month. Astronomers and particle physicists who cannot experiment on the universe can make predictions which can be checked by further observations and experiments. Doctors' patients either recover or they do not. Engineers design structures which either stand up or fall down. In every case there is a feedback which checks the theories and designs of the scientists. But with the global environment the feedback may come too late, in 50 or 100 years' time, long after irreparable damage may have been done. We may only get one chance to get the answers sufficiently right.

At the same time as science faces these problems, scientific research and analysis has been organised to tackle systems of unprecedented complexity. These methods are those which have been used to identify the problem of global warming and will need to be developed to still higher orders of complexity to solve them. The carbon cycle in the oceans and atmosphere controls the greenhouse effect and keeps temperatures on earth tolerable to life in all its forms. Research into just the physical aspects of the carbon cycle requires new combinations of chemistry, atmospheric physics, fluid dynamics, solar physics, marine biology, ecology, agricultural sciences, remote satellite and direct observation, ocean survey and computer science, which all have to be brought together.

To assess their interaction, all these effects have to be brought together in computer models of the general circulation in the atmosphere and oceans. There are at present five such general circulation models in the world—four in the United States, in three different, fiercely competing federal agencies, and a university, and one in our own Met Office, which is of course under the Ministry of Defence. While the modellers meet, compare notes and agree comparative exercises, the models are each run by the handful of scientists in the teams which construct them. The smallest team is in the British Met Office—one and a half men are running our only model of the global environment, there is no exchange of models, no independent testing or comparison, no access by outside researchers and no work on new computer developments such as massively parallel computers, which will transform the approach that can be taken.

It is outrageous, but that is the research on which the future of the globe depends. It is managed by a number of researchers who would fit into a small interview room in the House of Commons. Their latest estimates of the effects of doubling carbon dioxide on global mean surface air temperature vary from 5..2° C by the Met Office to 2.8° C by Schlesinger in the university of Oregon, but the estimates change dramatically as new factors, such as cloud cover at different altitudes, are brought into the equations. The effects forecast in particular regions are, of course, still more variable, with at present differences of forecasts between the models of 4° in summer and 10° in winter, as they forecast prospects in parts of Siberia and China. As yet, none of the models is treating land use or agricultural yields, let alone economic and industrial activity generally.

Weather forecasters are used to attaching error margins to their forecasts; they are not used to calculating the policy adjustments needed to modify rather uncertain weather and climate changes. particularly as those policy adjustments must work with long and uncertain lags through economic, social arid political behaviour. If it comes to seeking effective international agreements to limit such sensitive questions as fossil fuel burn by conservation and to deal with such difficult issues as nuclear power, many countries will not even be able to tell the direction in which their interests lie. It may be difficult to persuade the Soviet Union and China to undertake policies which will save Leningrad, Shanghai, London, Calcutta, and the estuaries of Bangladesh and China from being flooded by melted ice from the polar caps if they felt that the new climate quite transformed the possibilities of growing wheat in the more northern latitudes of Siberia and Mongolia.

Earlier precedents in the politics of modelling global problems—the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" study and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis study, "Energy in a Finite World"—are not encouraging. Very serious criticisms were made by the scientific community and were fully justified, using precisely the methods of technology assessment that the hon. Member for Havant emphasised. It is essential to make the scientific basis—the theoretical, empirical, and statistical basis—of the work on global modelling and global research generally as sound, open, transparent and accessible as possible to different interests, sciences and methodologies. They should be open to independent as well as competitive checking.

Our scientists, including Joe Forman of the British Antarctic Survey, Richard Wayne on the photochemistry of ozone and John Mitchell in the Meteorological Office, have done an outstanding job, but the organisation and resources available are inadequate. The work has no coherence. It is divided between different Departments and there is no follow through to policy. With the leadership that our working scientists have given us, a centre should be set up to test, compare and make generally available the key global general circulation models and their extensions to cover other aspects of the global environment such as land use, agricultural, economic and industrial activity which will now proliferate. The United Nations environmental programme might well be the appropriate body to invite competitive proposals which should be judged by the highest peer group standards relevant to undertaking such vital work.

Within the United Kingdom, the Natural Environment Research Council covers the Arctic, the Antarctic and the oceans. The Science and Engineering Research Council covers most of the atmosphere and satellites and the Ministry of Defence looks after the Met Office while in the Departments responsible for action and research the Department of the Environment looks over its spectacles at all this puzzling scientific stuff and the Department of Education and Science cannot even teach children science in schools. To put together and manage a coherent research programme in the United Kingdom, and United Kingdom participation in essential international programmes, a joint research council directorate should be set up on the global environment, with control of the substantial funds needed for urgent, sustained, well-integrated applied strategic research.

The additional costs of the research are tiny by comparison with the avoidable costs of errors in what otherwise would be necessarily ill-informed policies. The Science and Engineering, Natural Environment, Agricultural and Food and Economic and Social Research Councils should all be involved. The present organisation of research into the global environment, with individual scientists and teams, who have done invaluable work in identifying the problem, and who have sensible plans for continuing it in the manner appropriate to background research, is a quite inappropriate organisation for the goal-directed research of global importance which is now needed.

The nature of the problem and the research required is such that the research must be managed at one remove from Government—in the research councils and not from within the Ministry of Defence, as the Met Office is managed, and not within the Department of Education and Science or the Department of the Environment. The research must be seen as objective at home and abroad. By all means let industry and the defence budget contribute, but they must not manage or direct.

At the same time, as recent experience has shown, individual research councils and the individual scientists and teams that they support must be adequately supported because from their discoveries important results may emerge in new and unexpected directions.

Many problems that will arise from climatic change are extremely relevant in the world today. Desertification, arid agriculture and the flooding of low-lying land are not just problems of the future, but problems to which the research councils are and should be addressing effort where such problems occur in the world today. We not only meet a vital current need by tackling them, but we learn invaluable lessons for the bigger problems that may arise in the future.

Unless a research programme of the highest calibre is undertaken into the global environment, there will not exist the evidence or consent on which political agreement can be reached within this country and with other countries on the major policy initiatives that may be required to pass on to our children a global environment that they can enjoy. The Government must set up a programme without delay. The inadequacy of the Government's management of research into the global environment reflects their lack of understanding and competence in science policy generally. For that reason, we urge the House to vote for our motion tonight.

9.46 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson)

As with our previous debate on science at this time last year, this has been an interesting and—from Conservative Members—a sober discussion that has helped to illuminate the issues. That it has done so is, alas, no tribute to the Opposition because, more than anything else, this debate has revealed the intellectual poverty of the Labour party. We are all accustomed to the airy persiflage and fourth-form humour of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw).

For all the undoubted sincerity and worthiness of the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray), I am afraid that it is clear that his thinking has, once again, failed to rise to the level of his subject. His policy for the funding of science is simply to add £100 million or so to whatever figure the Government provide and his policy for the organisation and management of the science base is simply to parrot the panaceas of the latest scientific pressure group—or pressure group among his colleagues—which catches his attention.

In reply to the hon. Member for Blackburn, may I say that it is not enough for him, yet again, to traverse the barren ground of international comparisons of Government financial inputs into science. We had that debate last year. I remind him that it was the central issue of that debate and was firmly settled in favour of the Government's modest self-assessment that, as I put it last year, "our financial inputs, as a percentage of GDP, are broadly in line with those of our competitors". The hon. Gentleman was on new ground when he talked about spending on higher education as distinct from spending on the science base. He is on even more unprofitable ground there from his point of view. The percentage of GDP spent by the Government on higher education in Britain is at the top of the European league and is second only to that of the Netherlands.

To grasp the strategy that the Government have been pursuing in science, it is necessary to recall the position from which we started in 1979. In science and technology, that position was marked by three striking features. First, British academic science was excellent and remains so, as my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Sir I. Lloyd) clearly and convincingly pointed out. With every respect to my esteemed friend Sir George Porter, the fact is that our national contribution to the world's basic science was, and remains, second only to that of the United States; and it is marked by a range of strengths in depth that is remarkable for a country of our size and economic weight.

The second feature of the science scene in 1979 was that, in acute contrast with our strength in basic science, British science-based industry, like British industry in general, was in a bad way. Profitability was the lowest in the western world arid management and work force alike were demoralised, pessimistic and intensively focused on short-term crisis management. That was the environment in which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) and as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins) pointed out, investment by British industry in research and development was steadily falling behind that of the countries with which we compete.

A third feature of the scene, and one of the key contributory causes of that weakness in British industry, was that British science was separated by an invisible wall of culture and attitudes from British industry. At the same time, within the world of British science, a similar invisible wall of culture and attitudes ran along the striking vertical divisions between the research councils and Government Departments; between the research councils, the Government and the universities; and between and within the research councils and even within the Government's own machinery for directing science policy.

The first of those features of the scene in 1979—the excellence of British basic science—was a consequence of the historical dominance of Britain's position in science, built up by generations of British scientists since the 17th century. However, the second and third features—the weakness of British industry and the institutionalised divisions between industry and science and within the scientific world—were part of the sad harvest of 30 years of Labour-dominated thinking about the role of the state and the way in which it should be organised.

The Government's strategy for science has flowed logically from our analysis of the position that confronted us at the beginning of the decade. The overwhelming aim has been to restore the profitability and confidence of British industry so that among other things it is in a position, both intellectually and financially, to expand its commitment to research and development.

A key element in that drive has been the reduction in the burden of taxation and consequently of public expenditure. Science and higher education have shared in the rigorous scrutiny of priorities and programmes which has gone on across the whole gamut of public expenditure under this Government. That rigorous scrutiny has accompanied a 26 per cent. increase in real terms in Government spending on science between 1979 and 1989, compared with the level funding under the Labour Government—supported by the Liberals—between 1975 and 1979. I assure the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) that our support for science will continue on this trend which is rather better than that achieved by the Government whom his party supported in the 1970s.

Our strategy for encouraging industry is paying off. In the course of this decade, the profitability of British industry has been restored to the point at which it ranks among the highest in the world. I must advise the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central, who made a powerful and effective speech, that among the results of that has been a strong rise in industry's investment in its in-house research and development. The most recent figures relate to 1986 and 1987 and show that between those years industry's investment in intra-mural research and development rose by 3 per cent., while in the chemical industry, for example, research spending rose by no less than 20 per cent.

That growth is not yet fast enough or large enough, but it represents a great improvement, which the Government are determined to speed by reducing their commitment to the support of near-market research as industry's capacity to fund its own research continues to grow. At this point I should like to say how much I welcome the emphasis placed by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) on the need for industry—and especially agriculture, which he knows so well—to respond to that challenge.

Mr. Straw

If British science-based industry is doing so well, why have we swung from a £3 billion surplus on science-based trade to a £6 billion deficit? If things are so good, why are they so bad?

Mr. Jackson

There are various ways in which one could measure the effectiveness of industry. The fact is that the profits and productivity of British industry have soared. The question of the balance of payments is a different one and it involves all sorts of other considerations, for example, of oil, exchange rates, and financial flows which are quite distinct.

Rebuilding industry's commitment to research and development is the first limb of the Government's strategy for science. The second limb has been to dismantle the strong vertical divisons of culture and attitude that have marked relations between Government, industry and science, and the organisation of science itself in Britain. Here again, our strategy has been marked by an encouraging if still insufficient measure of success. On the crucial interface between industry and academic science, there has been a striking shift of attitude on both sides of the divide, which is reflected in the increased earnings by universities from research contracts with industry. They have risen from £27 million in 1982 to £78 million in 1987—a rise of 129 per cent.

At the same time, the past 10 years have seen a powerful development of the machinery for co-ordinating our national scientific effort. My hon. Friends the Members for Havant and for Daventry were right to emphasise the importance of this. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Havant that the basis of our entire approach is to strengthen the machinery for evaluation and for priority-setting in Government science policy. That is the thinking which lies behind the range of recent developments—the strengthening of the Cabinet Office in the heart of Government, with its "Annual Review of Government funded Research and Development", the creation of new machinery for collective ministerial consideration of science and technology matters, the creation of ACOST—the Advisory Committee on Science and Technology—and the strengthening of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils, the internal reorganisation and restructuring within the research council of which my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry spoke, the creation of the interdisciplinary research centres and the growing focus on improving research management in the universities. All of those developments are helping to address some of the weaknesses in the way in which we have organised science in Britain compared with the way in which science is organised in other countries.

It is in that context that I shall briefly deal with what the hon. Member for Motherwell, South said about the co-ordination of environmental research. Research related to the environment touches many different areas of science and many different areas of practical activity affecting all the research councils and almost every Government Department. It is certainly important to keep policies and priorities in this area, as elsewhere, under constant review, because the deployment of resources simply cannot be frozen in a fixed pattern, whether financially or geographically. That, briefly, is the answer to the complaints of the hon. Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth and for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) about the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology in Bangor and the removal of Research Vessel Services from Barry.

With regard to what the hon. Member for Motherwell, South said, there is certainly a case for stronger measures of co-ordination, but at the same time there is a danger of detaching environmental research from cognate research in associated areas and detaching it from the diversified contexts in which environmental research is necessarily conducted. Those questions are being addressed by ACOST and by the ABRC and we await their advice.

Part of the common ground in this debate—and there is common ground—is that basic science is important. I think especially of the speech of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey and the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Havant. The Government recognise the fundamental importance of basic science. It is our concern that lies behind the 16 per cent. increase in science funding which the Government have just announced for this year.

Our strategy can be summed up in four brief points. We are promoting a closer relationship between academic science and industry. We are promoting the growth of industry's commitment to research and development. We are promoting a more coherent approach to the management and the purposeful direction of the science base. We are continuing and strengthening the Government support for basic science.

Those policies are part of a successful strategy for continuing excellence in British science and for the revival of British industry. All of us in this House recognise that those two matters are linked. The point has been effectively made by a number of hon. Members. It is on that basis that I commend the Government's amendment to the House.

9.59 pm

Mr. Win Griffiths (Bridgend)

I would like to take up a matter that was completely unanswered by the Secretary of State, which is the problem that will be created in the future because of the reduced number of scientists entering the teaching profession. The Department of Education and Science, in its submission to the Select Committee on Education, said that there would be a shortfall of 1,000 physicists by 1995. However, there has been a report, entitled "Securing our Future", sponsored by the Headmasters' Conference, the Secondary Heads Association and the Engineering Council, which estimated that there would be a shortfall of 2,000 physicists by 1995 and an optimistic shortfall of more than 4,000 mathematicians and, using a pessimistic figure, a shortfall of more than 12,000. It is a pity that the Minister did not deal with that issue.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 212, Noes 279.

Division No. 80]	[10 pm
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane	Dunnachie, Jimmy
Adams, Allen (Paisley N)	Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth
Allen, Graham	Eadie, Alexander
Alton, David	Evans, John (St Helens N)
Anderson, Donald	Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)
Archer, Rt Hon Peter	Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)
Armstrong, Hilary	Fatchett, Derek
Ashley, Rt Hon Jack	Faulds, Andrew
Ashton, Joe	Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)	Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)
Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)	Fisher, Mark
Barron, Kevin	Flannery, Martin
Battle, John	Flynn, Paul
Beckett, Margaret	Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Beith, A. J.	Foster, Derek
Bell, Stuart	Foulkes, George
Benn, Rt Hon Tony	Fraser, John
Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)	Fyfe, Maria
Bermingham, Gerald	Galbraith, Sam
Blair, Tony	Galloway, George
Blunkett, David	Garrett, John (Norwich South)
Boateng, Paul	George, Bruce
Boyes, Roland	Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Bradley, Keith	Godman, Dr Norman A.
Bray, Dr Jeremy	Golding, Mrs Llin
Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)	Gould, Bryan
Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)	Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)
Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)	Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)	Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Buchan, Norman	Grocott, Bruce
Buckley, George J.	Hardy, Peter
Caborn, Richard	Harman, Ms Harriet
Callaghan, Jim	Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)	Haynes, Frank
Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)	Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Campbell-Savours, D. N.	Heffer, Eric S.
Canavan, Dennis	Henderson, Doug
Cartwright, John	Hinchliffe, David
Clark, Dr David (S Shields)	Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)
Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)	Holland, Stuart
Clay, Bob	Home Robertson, John
Clelland, David	Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Clwyd, Mrs Ann	Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)
Cohen, Harry	Howells, Geraint
Coleman, Donald	Hoyle, Doug
Cook, Robin (Livingston)	Hughes, John (Coventry NE)
Corbett, Robin	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Corbyn, Jeremy	Hughes, Roy (Newport E)
Cousins, Jim	Hughes, Simon (Southwark)
Cox, Tom	Illsley, Eric
Crowther, Stan	Ingram, Adam
Cryer, Bob	Janner, Greville
Cummings, John	Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)
Cunliffe, Lawrence	Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)
Cunningham, Dr John	Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Darling, Alistair	Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)	Lambie, David
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)	Lamond, James
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'I)	Leadbitter, Ted
Dewar, Donald	Leighton, Ron
Dixon, Don	Lestor, Joan (Eccles)
Dobson, Frank	Litherland, Robert
Doran, Frank	Livsey, Richard
Douglas, Dick	Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)
Duffy, A. E. P.	Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Loyden, Eddie	Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn
McAllion, John	Richardson, Jo
McAvoy, Thomas	Roberts, Allan (Bootle)
McCartney, Ian	Robertson, George
Macdonald, Calum A.	Robinson, Geoffrey
McFall, John	Rooker, Jeff
McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)	Ruddock, Joan
McKelvey, William	Sedgemore, Brian
McLeish, Henry	Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
McNamara, Kevin	Shore, Rt Hon Peter
McTaggart, Bob	Short, Clare
McWilliam, John	Skinner, Dennis
Madden, Max	Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
Mahon, Mrs Alice	Smith, C. (Isl'ton & F'bury)
Marek, Dr John	Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk'ds E)
Marshall, David (Shettleston)	Snape, Peter
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)	Soley, Clive
Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)	Spearing, Nigel
Martlew, Eric	Steel, Rt Hon David
Maxton, John	Steinberg, Gerry
Meale, Alan	Stott, Roger
Michael, Alun	Strang, Gavin
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)	Straw, Jack
Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)	Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)
Moonie, Dr Lewis	Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)
Morgan, Rhodri	Turner, Dennis
Morley, Elliott	Vaz, Keith
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)	Wall, Pat
Mullin, Chris	Wallace, James
Nellist, Dave	Walley, Joan
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon	Wardell, Gareth (Gower)
O'Brien, William	Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)
O'Neill, Martin	Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley	Wilson, Brian
Parry, Robert	Winnick, David
Patchett, Terry	Wise, Mrs Audrey
Pendry, Tom	Worthington, Tony
Powell, Ray (Ogmore)	Wray, Jimmy
Prescott, John	Young, David (Bolton SE)
Quin, Ms Joyce
Radice, Giles	Tellers for the Ayes:
Randall, Stuart	Mr. Frank Cook and
Redmond, Martin	Mr. Robert N. Wareing.

NOES
Adley, Robert	Brazier, Julian
Alexander, Richard	Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Alison, Rt Hon Michael	Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)
Allason, Rupert	Browne, John (Winchester)
Amos, Alan	Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)
Arbuthnot, James	Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)	Buck, Sir Antony
Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)	Budgen, Nicholas
Ashby, David	Burns, Simon
Aspinwall, Jack	Burt, Alistair
Atkins, Robert	Butcher, John
Atkinson, David	Butler, Chris
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)	Butterfill, John
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)	Carlisle, John, (Luton N)
Baldry, Tony	Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Banks, Robert (Harrogate)	Carrington, Matthew
Batiste, Spencer	Carttiss, Michael
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony	Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda
Bellingham, Henry	Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Bendall, Vivian	Chope, Christopher
Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)	Churchill, Mr
Benyon, W.	Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Bevan, David Gilroy	Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Biffen, Rt Hon John	Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)
Blackburn, Dr John G.	Colvin, Michael
Body, Sir Richard	Conway, Derek
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas	Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)
Boscawen, Hon Robert	Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Boswell, Tim	Cope, Rt Hon John
Bottomley, Peter	Cormack, Patrick
Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)	Couchman, James
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)	Cran, James
Bowis, John	Currie, Mrs Edwina
Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes	Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Davis, David (Boothferry)

Day, Stephen	Jones, Robert B (Herts W)
Dickens, Geoffrey	Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine
Dorrell, Stephen	Key, Robert
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James	Kilfedder, James
Dunn, Bob	King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)
Durant, Tony	Knapman, Roger
Dykes, Hugh	Knight, Greg (Derby North)
Eggar, Tim	Knowles, Michael
Emery, Sir Peter	Knox, David
Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)	Lang, Ian
Evennett, David	Lawrence, Ivan
Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas	Lee, John (Pendle)
Favell, Tony	Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Fenner, Dame Peggy	Lightbown, David
Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)	Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)
Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey	Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Fishburn, John Dudley	MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)
Fookes, Dame Janet	McLoughlin, Patrick
Forman, Nigel	McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael
Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)	Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Forth, Eric	Maude, Hon Francis
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman	Mills, Iain
Fox, Sir Marcus	Miscampbell, Norman
Franks, Cecil	Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Freeman, Roger	Mitchell, Sir David
French, Douglas	Moate, Roger
Fry, Peter	Monro, Sir Hector
Gale, Roger	Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Gardiner, George	Morris, M (N'hampton S)
Gill, Christopher	Morrison, Sir Charles
Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian	Moss, Malcolm
Glyn, Dr Alan	Moynihan, Hon Colin
Goodhart, Sir Philip	Mudd, David
Goodlad, Alastair	Neale, Gerrard
Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles	Neubert, Michael
Gow, Ian	Newton, Rt Hon Tony
Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)	Nicholson, David (Taunton)
Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)	Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)
Greenway, John (Ryedale)	Norris, Steve
Gregory, Conal	Oppenheim, Phillip
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)	Page, Richard
Grist, Ian	Paice, James
Ground, Patrick	Patnick, Irvine
Grylls, Michael	Patten, Chris (Bath)
Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn	Patten, John (Oxford W)
Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)	Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)	Pawsey, James
Hampson, Dr Keith	Porter, Barry (Wirral S)
Hannam, John	Porter, David (Waveney)
Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')	Powell, William (Corby)
Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)	Price, Sir David
Harris, David	Raison, Rt Hon Timothy
Haselhurst, Alan	Rathbone, Tim
Hayes, Jerry	Redwood, John
Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney	Rhodes James, Robert
Hayward, Robert	Riddick, Graham
Heathcoat-Amory, David	Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Heddle, John	Ridsdale, Sir Julian
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael	Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm
Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)	Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)
Hill, James	Roe, Mrs Marion
Hind, Kenneth	Rossi, Sir Hugh
Holt, Richard	Rost, Peter
Hordern, Sir Peter	Rowe, Andrew
Howard, Michael	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)	Sainsbury, Hon Tim
Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)	Sayeed, Jonathan
Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)	Scott, Nicholas
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)	Shaw, David (Dover)
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)	Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)
Hunt, David (Wirral W)	Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)	Shelton, Sir William (Streatham)
Hunter, Andrew
Irvine, Michael	Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)
Jack, Michael	Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Jackson, Robert	Shersby, Michael
Janman, Tim	Sims, Roger
Jessel, Toby	Skeet, Sir Trevor
Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey	Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)	Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Soames, Hon Nicholas	Vaughan, Sir Gerard
Speller, Tony	Viggers, Peter
Squire, Robin	Waddington, Rt Hon David
Stanbrook, Ivor	Wakeham, Rt Hon John
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John	Walker, Bill (T'side North)
Steen, Anthony	Waller, Gary
Stern, Michael	Ward, John
Stevens, Lewis	Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)
Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)	Warren, Kenneth
Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)	Watts, John
Stradling Thomas, Sir John	Wells, Bowen
Sumberg, David	Wheeler, John
Summerson, Hugo	Whitney, Ray
Taylor, Ian (Esher)	Widdecombe, Ann
Taylor, John M (Solihull)	Wiggin, Jerry
Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)	Wilshire, David
Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)	Winterton, Mrs Ann
Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)	Winterton, Nicholas
Thorne, Neil	Wolfson, Mark
Thornton, Malcolm	Wood, Timothy
Thurnham, Peter	Woodcock, Mike
Townend, John (Bridlington)	Yeo, Tim
Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)	Young, Sir George (Acton)
Tracey, Richard
Tredinnick, David	Tellers for the Noes:
Trippier, David	Mr. David Maclean and
Twinn, Dr Ian	Mr. Sydney Chapman.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments):—

The House divided: Ayes 270, Noes 206.

Division No. 81]	[10.12 pm
AYES
Adley, Robert	Butler, Chris
Alexander, Richard	Butterfill, John
Alison, Rt Hon Michael	Carlisle, John, (Luton N)
Allason, Rupert	Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Amos, Alan	Carrington, Matthew
Arbuthnot, James	Carttiss, Michael
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)	Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda
Arnold, Tom (HazelGrove)	Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Ashby, David	Chope, Christopher
Aspinwall, Jack	Churchill, Mr
Atkins, Robert	Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Atkinson, David	Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)	Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)	Colvin, Michael
Baldry, Tony	Conway, Derek
Batiste, Spencer	Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony	Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Bellingham, Henry	Cope, Rt Hon John
Bendall, Vivian	Cormack, Patrick
Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)	Couchman, James
Bevan, David Gilroy	Cran, James
Blackburn, Dr John G.	Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)
Body, Sir Richard	Davis, David (Boothferry)
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas	Day, Stephen
Boscawen, Hon Robert	Dorrell, Stephen
Boswell, Tim	Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Bottomley, Peter	Dunn, Bob
Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)	Durant, Tony
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)	Dykes, Hugh
Bowis, John	Eggar, Tim
Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes	Emery, Sir Peter
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)
Brazier, Julian	Evennett, David
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter	Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas
Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)	Favell, Tony
Browne, John (Winchester)	Fenner, Dame Peggy
Bruce, Ian (Dorset SouthM)	Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)
Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick	Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Buck, Sir Antony	Fishburn, John Dudley
Budgen, Nicholas	Fookes, Dame Janet
Burns, Simon	Forman, Nigel
Burt, Alistair	Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Butcher, John	Forth, Eric

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman	Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Fox, Sir Marcus	Mitchell, Sir David
Franks, Cecil	Moate, Roger
Freeman, Roger	Monro, Sir Hector
French, Douglas	Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Fry, Peter	Morris, M (N'hampton S)
Gale, Roger	Morrison, Sir Charles
Gardiner, George	Moss, Malcolm
Gill, Christopher	Moynihan, Hon Colin
Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian	Neale, Gerrard
Goodlad, Alastair	Neubert, Michael
Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles	Newton, Rt Hon Tony
Gow, Ian	Nicholson, David (Taunton)
Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)	Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)
Greenway, Harry (Eating N)	Norris, Steve
Greenway, John (Ryedale)	Oppenheim, Phillip
Gregory, Conal	Page, Richard
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)	Paice, James
Grist, Ian	Patnick, Irvine
Ground, Patrick	Patten, Chris (Bath)
Grylls, Michael	Patten, John (Oxford W)
Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn	Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)	Pawsey, James
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)	Porter, Barry (Wirral S)
Hampson, Dr Keith	Porter, David (Waveney)
Hannam, John	Powell, William (Corby)
Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')	Price, Sir David
Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)	Raison, Rt Hon Timothy
Harris, David	Rathbone, Tim
Haselhurst, Alan	Redwood, John
Hayes, Jerry	Rhodes James, Robert
Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney	Riddick, Graham
Hayward, Robert	Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Heathcoat-Amory, David	Ridsdale, Sir Julian
Heddle, John	Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael	Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)
Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)	Roe, Mrs Marion
Hill, James	Rossi, Sir Hugh
Hind, Kenneth	Rowe, Andrew
Holt, Richard	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
Hordern, Sir Peter	Sainsbury, Hon Tim
Howard, Michael	Sayeed, Jonathan
Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)	Scott, Nicholas
Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)	Shaw, David (Dover)
Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)	Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)	Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb'j)
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)	Shelton, Sir William (Sfm)
Hunt, David (Wirral W)	Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)	Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Hunter, Andrew	Shersby, Michael
Irvine, Michael	Sims, Roger
Jack, Michael	Skeet, Sir Trevor
Jackson, Robert	Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)
Janman, Tim	Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Jessel, Toby	Soames, Hon Nicholas
Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey	Speller, Tony
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)	Squire, Robin
Jones, Robert B (Herts W)	Stanbrook, Ivor
Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine	Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John
Key, Robert	Steen, Anthony
Kilfedder, James	Stern, Michael
King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)	Stevens, Lewis
Knapman, Roger	Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Knight, Greg (Derby North)	Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)
Knowles, Michael	Stradling Thomas, Sir John
Knox, David	Sumberg, David
Lang, Ian	Summerson, Hugo
Lawrence, Ivan	Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Lee, John (Pendle)	Taylor, John M (Solihull)
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark	Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)
Lightbown, David	Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)
Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)	Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)	Thorne, Neil
MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)	Thornton, Malcolm
McLoughlin, Patrick	Thurnham, Peter
McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael	Townend, John (Bridlington)
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)	Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)
Maude, Hon Francis	Tracey, Richard
Mills, Iain	Tredinnick, David
Miscampbell, Norman	Trippier, David

Twinn, Dr Ian	Widdecombe, Ann
Vaughan, Sir Gerard	Wiggin, Jerry
Waddington, Rt Hon David	Wilshire, David
Wakeham, Rt Hon John	Winterton, Mrs Ann
Walden, George	Winterton, Nicholas
Walker, Bill (T'side North)	Wolfson, Mark
Waller, Gary	Wood, Timothy
Ward, John	Woodcock, Mike
Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)	Yeo, Tim
Warren, Kenneth	Young, Sir George (Acton)
Watts, John
Wells, Bowen	Tellers for the Ayes:
Wheeler, John	Mr. David Maclean and
Whitney, Ray	Mr. Sydney Chapman.

NOES
Abbott, Ms Diane	Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Adams, Allen (Paisley N)	Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'I)
Allen, Graham	Dewar, Donald
Anderson, Donald	Dixon, Don
Armstrong, Hilary	Dobson, Frank
Ashley, Rt Hon Jack	Doran, Frank
Ashton, Joe	Douglas, Dick
Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)	Duffy, A. E. P.
Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)	Dunnachie, Jimmy
Barron, Kevin	Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth
Battle, John	Eadie, Alexander
Beckett, Margaret	Evans, John (St Helens N)
Beith, A. J.	Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)
Bell, Stuart	Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)
Benn, Rt Hon Tony	Fatchett, Derek
Bennett, A. F. (D'nfn & R'dish)	Faulds, Andrew
Bermingham, Gerald	Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Blair, Tony	Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)
Blunkett, David	Fisher, Mark
Boateng, Paul	Flannery, Martin
Boyes, Roland	Flynn, Paul
Bradley, Keith	Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Bray, Dr Jeremy	Foster, Derek
Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)	Foulkes, George
Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)	Fraser, John
Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)	Fyfe, Maria
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)	Galbraith, Sam
Buchan, Norman	Galloway, George
Buckley, George J.	Garrett, John (Norwich South)
Caborn, Richard	George, Bruce
Callaghan, Jim	Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)	Godman, Dr Norman A.
Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)	Golding, Mrs Llin
Campbell-Savours, D. N.	Gould, Bryan
Canavan, Dennis	Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)
Cartwright, John	Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Clark, Dr David (S Shields)	Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)	Grocott, Bruce
Clay, Bob	Hardy, Peter
Clelland, David	Harman, Ms Harriet
Clwyd, Mrs Ann	Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Cohen, Harry	Haynes, Frank
Coleman, Donald	Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Cook, Robin (Livingston)	Heffer, Eric S.
Corbett, Robin	Henderson, Doug
Corbyn, Jeremy	Hinchliffe, David
Cousins, Jim	Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)
Cox, Tom	Holland, Stuart
Crowther, Stan	Home Robertson, John
Cryer, Bob	Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Cummings, John	Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)
Cunliffe, Lawrence	Howells, Geraint
Cunningham, Dr John	Hoyle, Doug
Darling, Alistair	Hughes, John (Coventry NE)
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)	Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)	Parry, Robert
Illsley, Eric	Patchett, Terry
Ingram, Adam	Pendry, Tom
Janner, Greville	Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)	Prescott, John
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)	Quin, Ms Joyce
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald	Radice, Giles
Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil	Randall, Stuart
Lambie, David	Redmond, Martin
Lamond, James	Richardson, Jo
Leadbitter, Ted	Roberts, Allan (Bootle)
Leighton, Ron	Robertson, George
Lestor, Joan (Eccles)	Robinson, Geoffrey
Litherland, Robert	Rooker, Jeff
Livsey, Richard	Ruddock, Joan
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)	Sedgemore, Brian
Lofthouse, Geoffrey	Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Loyden, Eddie	Shore, Rt Hon Peter
McAllion, John	Short, Clare
McAvoy, Thomas	Skinner, Dennis
McCartney, Ian	Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
Macdonald, Calum A.	Smith, C. (Isl'ton & F'bury)
McFall, John	Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk'ds E)
McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)	Snape, Peter
McKelvey, William	Soley, Clive
McLeish, Henry	Spearing, Nigel
McMamara, Kevin	Steel, Rt Hon David
McTaggart, Bob	Steinberg, Gerry
McWilliam, John	Stott, Roger
Madden, Max	Strang, Gavin
Mahon, Mrs Alice	Straw, Jack
Marek, Dr John	Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)
Marshall, David (Shettleston)	Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)
Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)	Wall, Pat
Martlew, Eric	Wallace, James
Maxton, John	Walley, Joan
Meale, Alan	Wardell, Gareth (Gower)
Michael, Alun	Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)	Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)
Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)	Wilson, Brian
Moonie, Dr Lewis	Winnick, David
Morgan, Rhodri	Wise, Mrs Audrey
Morley, Elliott	Worthington, Tony
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)	Wray, Jimmy
Mullin, Chris	Young, David (Bolton SE)
Nellist, Dave
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon	Tellers for the Noes:
O'Brien, William	Mr. Frank Cook and
O'Neill, Martin	Mr. Robert Wareing.

Question accordingly agreed to.

MR. SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House applauds the steps taken by the Government to sustain and improve still further the strength and quality of science in the United Kingdom, noting in particular: the inclusion of science as part of the new national curriculum, measures to improve the supply of science teachers in schools, recent evidence that eminent scientists are returning to this country, the 26 per cent. real terms increase in the science budget since 1979, and the allocation of extra funds for research to tackle problems of the global environment, to improve the quality of life and to underpin the technological competitiveness of British industry.