ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

One thing is certain in the run-up to the election: there will be no
Panorama debate on science policy. Science and technology have been given
a low profile by politicians from all parties.

It makes less than half a page in the 50-page Conservative manifesto
– just enough to assert that British science, like our police force, has
an ‘unrivalled reputation’ round the world. The sharp-eyed will find research
mentioned in the Labour manifesto as five paragraphs under the subheading
‘We will modernise Britain’s industries’, and as a single paragraph in the
Liberal Democrats’ publication, Changing Britain for Good.

For none of the parties is there a distinction between science and technology,
or between pure and applied research. Science is almost always a means to
an end. Labour’s science spokesman, Jeremy Bray complained this month in
the Royal Society’s journal Science and Public Affairs of the ‘exploitative
attitude to science in the past decade’. Yet his party’s manifesto views
success as ‘transforming inventive genius into manufacturing strength’.

Though the Conservatives list ‘enriching the quality of our lives’ as
one purpose of research, their emphasis too is on R&D’s role as a ‘feedstock
of industrial innovation’. Three of the Conservatives’ four specific pledges
on R&D concern technology, including upgrading the much-derided LINK
programme for research partly funded by the government – an exercise that
Labour also proposes.

A disturbing feature of the manifestoes is the watering down of past
pledges. At the last election, Bray promised ‘a new ministry for science
and technology’. This time round he promises a minister but no ministry.
Instead, the science minister will work within the Cabinet Office, reporting
directly to the prime minister, but not in the Cabinet itself.

Other signs of the declining influence of science in the political firmament
include the strange fate of Labour’s commitment, made by Bray last summer,
to establish a permanent ‘EXPO of contemporary science, which can show what
science is today and where it is going’. But in the Labour manifesto, It’s
Time to Get Britain Working Again, the EXPO has been transformed into ‘a
Great Environment Exhibition, to publicise and to promote sales of the cleanest
British technologies’.

Even the Liberal Democrats, with little expectation of having to put
their promises into practice, are growing nervous about their more radical
proposals. Last June’s policy statement from the party promised ‘a reduction
of at least 50 per cent in real terms in spending on military R&D; the
saving to be injected into the civilian R&D’. This, more than any other
recent proposal from the main parties, could transform British science.
Military expenditure accounts for nearly half of all government R&D
spending. So the implication is of an extra 50 per cent in the government’s
budget for civil science.

The promise was repeated this month by the Liberal Democrat spokesman
Matthew Taylor, but has now evaporated. The manifesto writers merely promise:
‘We will reduce spending on military R&D’ Even so, this goes further
towards realising a peace dividend than either of the other two parties.
Labour does not elaborate on a vague pledge last year, in its science policy
statement Pushing Back the Frontiers, to ‘re-examine the relationship between
civil and military R&D in the light of changing global political circumstances’.
The Conservatives deride their rivals’ strategies but remain inscrutable
on their own policy.

Unlike their rivals, the Conservatives are sticking with past promises.
Indeed their manifesto, The Best Future for Britain, consists largely of
trumpeting the party’s record in government. A large proportion of policy
statements begin ‘we will continue . . . ‘.

Both Liberal Democrat and Labour manifestoes promise that Britain will
rejoin UNESCO, which it left in 1985 in a huff over perceived hostility
to Western nations. All three parties pledge to raise spending on overseas
aid to the 0.7 per cent of GNP recommended by the UN. However, beneath a
subheading titled ‘Our Influence for Good’, the Conservatives describe the
0.7 figure as a ‘long-term’ target and add: ‘We cannot set a timetable for
its achievement.’

Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats back a ban on tobacco advertising
and an end to nuclear power station construction (See Box). Labour and the
Conservatives promise better food labelling; the Liberal Democrats want
food standards controlled by a new Food and Drugs Commission.

In mainstream science policy, the manifestoes contain little on the
future of the research councils. Recent party statements are more helpful,
but it is far from clear what weight the new government will give to such
pledges not included in its manifesto.

Last summer, Labour argued that the research councils should ‘negotiate
their budgets directly with ministers’, implying the abolition of the Advisory
Board for the Research Councils. The loss of this tier of administration
would take crucial decisions about how the science cake is divided out of
the hands of scientists.

In Science and Public Affairs, Taylor promised that the Liberal Democrats
would turn the research councils into ‘semi-autonomous agencies with chief
executives and rolling budgets guaranteed forward for three years’. Taylor
also promised that the Liberal Democrats would increase the budget of the
Natural Environment Research Council by 10 per cent each year for the next
five years, to help fund more research into climate change. The science
minister, Alan Howarth, who also outlined his vision of science in the journal,
revealed no plans for institutional change in this area.

The humanities gain support from two parties. Labour’s Bray said that
‘without (the humanities) scientific research is more vulnerable to misshapen
ideas’, and the Liberal Democrats squeeze into their manifesto a promise
to establish a Humanities Research Council.

The parties try as usual to blind voters with statistics. The Conservatives
say the Science Budget – the money that goes to the research councils –
has grown by 24 per cent in real terms since 1978-79, and that government
spending on R&D is ‘at least as high a proportion of national income
as the Japanese or Americans’. This ignores the fact that government spending
on civil R&D fell from 0.72 per cent of GDP to 0.55 per cent during
the 1980s. Earlier this month, Bray argued that expenditure on civil R&D,
funded by government and industry, is ‘currently exceeded by Germany and
´³²¹±è²¹²Ô’.

Bray also said Labour’s target is to increase overall funding of R&D
from the present 1.8 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent. But he warned: ‘It
is not simply a matter of government pouring money into research.’ The one
clear pledge of extra money comes in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. The
party will immediately give the research councils a raise, to 0.35 per cent
of GDP.

In its manifesto, Labour calls for a ‘high-skill, high-wage, high-tech
economy’, and promises to ‘help Britain’s high-tech industries with a 25
per cent tax credit for additional investment in R&D’. Alan Howarth
recently lambasted the notion of tax credits, claiming international studies
showed they were ineffective, increasing R&D spending by only half as
much as the loss in tax revenues. ‘The surest effect,’ he said, ‘is to encourage
accountants to reclassify existing expenditure as R&D’ In place of this
scheme, Howarth has nothing to offer.

The intriguing highlight of the R&D plans of all three manifestoes
is the commitment to establish regional technology centres, modelled on
the German Fraunhofer Institutes (‘British innovation, German style’, New
ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, 21 March). The Conservatives call them ‘centres of technological
excellence linking industrial research organisations with universities and
polytechnics’. Labour describes them as Technology Trusts ‘building bridges
between industries and universities’. The Liberal Democrats rope in government
laboratories as well for what they call ‘regional technology transfer centres’.
It seems nobody can argue with the German model. It is a rare point of unanimity.