§ Captain MACMILLANasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in arriving at the total of £4,045,000 provided in the Estimates, 1925–26, for scientific research, distinction is made between research, development, and experiment; whether he will give a detailed statement showing the different items of the total mentioned; and whether he can state the sum spent on scientific research carried on purely for the advancement of natural knowledge and made known through the usual scientific publications?
Mr. GUINNESSThe answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The items collected from the several Departments from which the total of £4,045,000 is made up are as follow:50W
£ Admiralty 983,000 War Office 495,000 Air Ministry 1,373,500 Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries 348,756 Board of Agriculture, Scotland 51,585 Fishery Board for Scotland 16,910 Forestry Commission 7,057 Mines Department 1,850 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research 380,263 Scientific Investigation 158,687 Ministry of Health 4,350 Scottish Board of Health 100 Post Office 52,000 Colonial Office 15,000 Office of Works 157,180 £4,045,233 Notes.—(1) The above figures do not include expenditure in respect of salaries etc. of administrative staff, except in the case of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
(2) In the case of the Service Departments (and to some extent of other Departments also) it is impracticable to distinguish between expenditure on pure scientific research and that on technical research and experiment. The figures given include so far as possible the provision for all such expenditure.
(3) The normal work of the Government Chemist entails a considerable though varying amount of research to which no definite proportion of the annual expenditure can be assigned, and nothing has been included in respect thereof in the above figures.
It is impossible to give the information asked for in the last part of the question, for the methods of pure and applied research are the same, the distinction between them being solely one of aim. All the research done by Government, the cost of which it is almost impossible to separate from that of experiment and development, is in its nature the same as that carried on purely for the advancement of natural knowledge.