Mr. Ted Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has taken the advice of the Council for Scientific Policy in regard to the participation by the United Kingdom in the proposed World Health Research Centre; and what is the policy of the Council towards this proposal.
§ Mr. CroslandAs my hon. Friend will know, proposals for the establishment of a World Health Research Centre provide for (i) a laboratory centre for biomedical research, (ii) research on epidemiology and (ii) research in communications science related to medicine. The Council for Scientific Policy endorsed earlier recommendations of the Medical Research Council and the former Advisory Council on Scientific Policy against the first proposal, and approved the two latter proposals in general provided that106W the activities were pursued on a reasonable scale and carried out in close association with relevant work of the World Health Organisation in Geneva. The Government have accepted this advice.