§ Mr. PaiceTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how the Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton laboratories will be affected as a result of the planned changes to the research councils.
§ Mr. WaldegraveI am currently examining the future structure and organisation of the Rutherford Appleton and Daresbury laboratories, which are at present part of the Science and Engineering Research Council. From 1 April 1994, as an interim step consequent on the splitting of SERC into the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, the two laboratories will be run as a combined operation under the auspices of the new EPSRC. In the longer term I am looking to put the two laboratories on a more indepedent footing to enable them better to serve their customers and users from the research councils, universities and industry. Given the high regard in which the Rutherford Appleton and Daresbury laboratories are 493W held, both nationally and internationally, it is important that we consider carefully what changes should be made to their status as a result of the reorganisation of the research council system.
The Government have developed a standard set of tests on how Government-funded work can best be organised, known as "prior options". In the 1993 next steps review—Cm 2430—we announced new procedures to encourage those in outside organisations with innovative ideas about how such functions can best be discharged to put them forward. These procedures for "prior options" review and outside involvement apply, where appropriate, to executive non-departmental public bodies, such as the Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton laboratories.
The "prior options" tests consider whether the functions provided by the organisation continue to be needed, in whole or in part; whether responsibility for the activity needs to remain in the public sector; and whether some or all of the functions provided should be contracted out or market tested. The consultants KPMG have conducted a preliminary study of these issues. In common with the recent National Audit Office report, they found much to admire at the laboratories. They have advised that there is a need for the services which the laboratories provide, and that privatisation would not represent a sensible option. In considering this advice, I wish to take account of the widest possible range of views. I am therefore inviting organisations and individuals who may have ideas or proposals as to how the Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton laboratories should be organised in future to submit them to the Director General of the Research Councils in my Department.
The results of this review will be taken into account in the wider scrutiny of public sector research establishments which I announced to the House on 2 February, Official Report, columns 896–97.