§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence to whom his Department distributes expenditure on research and development; how many staff are employed as a result; and how many research establishments(a) the Department and (b) its agencies have in each region and nation of the United Kingdom. [154360]
§ Mr. IngramThe Ministry of Defence places contracts with a wide range of organisations including
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSL), and the Meteorological Office, the two major MOD agencies which conduct research.The Medical Supplies Agency receives funding for development of Medical Countermeasures.Industry. Approximately 600 companies received payments against R&D contracts in the eight months to end November 2003.Academia.The Meteorological Office is primarily located at its new site in Exeter with a residue still at the old Bracknell sites. Figures for 2001–02, the latest date for which there are published figures showed 330 employees, to the nearest 10, were employed in research.
Dstl currently has research facilities in a number of areas in the UK. These are shown in the following table together with the number of staff employed in each region.
Region Number of employees Dorset Winfrith 103 Hampshire Alverstoke 110 Farnborough 737 Porton Down 875 Portsdown 383 Kent Fort Halstead 639 Worcestershire Malvern 226 In addition to these there are a further 170 staff working in small numbers on a further 25 sites.
Information about staff employed in industry and academia, as a result of MOD funding of research and development but not directly employed by the Department, is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.