§ 11.47 a.m.
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, with permission I should like to repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Minister of Technology in another place.
The Statement is as follows:
"Last year the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority appointed a Working Party to review their present effort on plasma physics and fusion research. After considering the views of the Working Party, the Authority have advised me that this effort should be reduced over the next five years by about 10 per cent. a year. I have now 890 endorsed their conclusion. Since the decision to start fission reseach, rapid progress has been made towards economic nuclear fission power. In particular, the fast breeder reactor programme shows real promise. Consideration of this progress in relation to the earliest period when fusion could conceivably contribute to the power programme, leads inevitably to the conclusion that plasma physics and fusion research should be substantially reduced. The present annual expenditure of £4 million on this work will be cut by nearly half.
"In so advanced a technology as this, circumstances can change rapidly. I have therefore agreed that the Atomic Energy Authority shall keep the situation under review and that in any event there should be a re-examination in five years' time.
"Fewer professional staff will be needed on this work. The Authority have told me that they will keep in close consultation with their staff and trade union sides in dealing with this. While I do not intend to authorise non-nuclear work for the Atomic Energy Authority solely in order to absorb surplus staff, whether at Culham or elsewhere, I shall continue to authorise such work where this is appropriate.
"In reaching the decision full account has been taken of the outstanding quality of the work being done, of the high international standing and the considerable scientific achievements of the Laboratory. The Atomic Energy Authority assure me that Britain will still maintain a leading position in this field of research. The work done at Culham has attracted international interest and respect. I am confident that it will continue to do so."
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGHMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for repeating the Statement which on the whole we must accept although the cut—virtually 50 per cent, over five years—is pretty drastic. And this at a time when France, for example, is increasing its allocation for fusion research and is setting up a new laboratory at Grenoble, while the U.S.S.R. is doing the same at Novosibirsk. However, I welcome the point made in the Statement that the 891 fast breeder reactor programme shows real promise. I was glad to hear that the Government do not intend to authorise non-nuclear work for the A.E.A. solely in order to absorb the surplus staff. I should like to endorse the outstanding quality of the work being done.
I have only three questions. First, how many projects at Culham will have to be abandoned? Secondly, was this reduction referred to the Zuckerman Central Committee? I feel that this action should not be taken in isolation but should be considered as part of the total survey of scientific and technological resources which Sir Solly has been undertaking. Thirdly, I wonder whether in the long term the noble Lord would not agree that this work would not be better placed under the Science Research Council. I think that this view was supported in our debate on these matters.
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl. It was a difficult matter, as I know he will admit. There were indeed arguments that since there was no immediate prospect of getting a fusion reactor, the work should cease altogether. I think that what has been decided is a satisfactory compromise, bearing in mind (and this I think weighs with the noble Earl as with me) the great excellence of Culham. It will continue to play a leading part, and it is very much a question of the amount of effort one thinks right to allot to it. It could be argued, in view of the decline, the fact that earlier hopes were not entirely realised, that it was set up on too big a scale. I am quite confident that we shall not in any way lose the position that we have internationally, and this will preserve it.
The noble Earl asked three questions. First, how many projects? I cannot say; indeed, I am not sure whether they are establishable as separate projects. There are many parallel researches going on and some that might be called by-products, researches in super-conductivity and other matters which are related and have arisen out of this.
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, I cannot really answer that question. This 892 is a "broad brush" decision and it will be a steady rundown. These decisions will have to be made.
Regarding the suggestions that the matter should have gone to Sir Solly Zuckerman's Committee, it so happened that there was a separate report. The Ministry of Technology have been looking at this for a long while. I think it is arguable that if that had not been under way, this is a matter which would have gone to the Central Committee. I do not dissent from the general principle, but I think that the Minister of Technology felt that he was in a position to make this decision. Again, regarding the argument about the Science Research Council, it is one of the factors that was weighed. I think there were quite powerful arguments for leaving it with the Atomic Energy Authority. These are matters of fine judgment, and my right honourable friend concluded that this was right. Nevertheless, I think that all the questions asked by the noble Earl were relevant.
§ LORD WADEMy Lords, is the noble Lord able to estimate the amount of expenditure which will have to be written off as a result of projects being abandoned?
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord's question, though well meant, is quite relevant to science research. This is research which increasingly has been seen to be pure research, and I do not think that one can ever talk about "writing off" pure research. Sometimes it comes to an end, for one reason or another. There will be a declining effort, obviously, in the field of plasma physics and fusion research, particularly. Certain of the work may have led by itself to no specific result, but that is part of the general scientific process.