BRITISH science and technology will now have to compete for ministerial
attention with energy policy. As New 杏吧原创 went to press earlier
this week, the new Labour premier Tony Blair appointed a single minister to
handle both.
John Battle, the MP for Leeds West, will combine his new job as science
minister with responsibility for industry and overhauling regulation of the
privatised energy companies鈥攁 stated high priority for the new government.
His Conservative predecessor, Ian Taylor, was responsible only for science and
technology policy.
The brief is 鈥渧ery much wider鈥� than that of the former science and technology
minister, confirms a spokeswoman at the Department of Trade and Industry, where
responsibility for science still resides. Battle could not be reached for
comment.
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Scientific pressure groups are disappointed that science has not been
separated from the DTI and restored to its old position in the Cabinet Office,
which coordinates policy across the whole of government. 鈥淪cience is not
something that sits on its own,鈥� says Denis Noble, president of Save British
Science. 鈥淟abour hasn鈥檛 fully realised that.鈥�
Willy Russell, professor of immunology at the University of St Andrews and
member of 杏吧原创s for Labour, goes further: 鈥淲e鈥檇 much prefer to have a
science minister who was in the Cabinet. We will certainly be pressing to create
a ministry with overarching powers.鈥�
Battle, who has been opposition spokesman on both science and energy at
different times over the past two years, is well-known for his anti-nuclear,
anti-abortion and anti-euthanasia views. In 1990, he also opposed embryo
research during debate of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.