A LABOUR MP has accused the British government of reneging on a recent promise to safeguard research funding. The criticism follows a statement made last week by Ian Lang, President of the Board of Trade, that the Science Budget will not be ring-fenced Anne Campbell, a Labour member of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, called Lang鈥檚 statement part of a 鈥渟teady climbdown鈥� by the government on safeguarding science.
The government鈥檚 decision in July to move the Office of Science and Technology to Lang鈥檚 Department of Trade and Industry attracted almost universal criticism. The OST shares out the 拢1.3 billion Science Budget between the research councils, and researchers fear that money for pure science will go on other DTI projects. The DTI is seen as a hostile place for science. In the past ten years, it has cut its own funding for R&D by more than half.
To draw the sting from this criticism, the government signalled that the Science Budget would be kept safe from other DTI demands. One of the government鈥檚 industrial allies, Richard Sykes, chief executive of Glaxo-Wellcome, defended the OST鈥檚 move in the Daily Telegraph, saying: 鈥淲e are assured 鈥� that OST and the Science Budget are ring-fenced within the DTI.鈥� Ian Taylor, the junior science and technology minister, also referred to ring-fencing during a speech in July. But that message has now changed.
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鈥淲e have never said 鈥榬ing-fenced鈥�,鈥� Lang told the science and technology select committee last week. The budget would be 鈥渟eparate鈥�, but would be negotiated within the main DTI budget. The only reassurance Lang could offer Giles Shaw, the Conservative chairman of the committee, was that he is 鈥渆xtremely conscious鈥� of the importance of science. 鈥淭here will be no reduction as a consequence of change in the arrangements,鈥� he said.
But Campbell said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 very sinister indeed. It implies that the DTI can plunder the OST budget for its own ends.鈥�
The origins of this confusion are not clear, but may have stemmed from a letter to the heads of the research councils written by John Cadogan, director-general of the research councils. Cadogan promised that the OST鈥檚 鈥渇unctions will be ring-fenced from other parts of the DTI鈥�. In the same letter, however, he wrote that: 鈥淭he Science Budget will be handled as a separate head within the DTI鈥檚 larger expenditure programme.鈥�
This has left some observers such as John Mulvey of Save British Science bemused. 鈥淩ing-fencing is evidently a bit of mythology,鈥� he says. 鈥淟ang made it quite clear that in budgetary terms it doesn鈥檛 mean anything.鈥�