Science Teaching

I intend to make the briefest of contributions. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) on securing this very valuable debate and pay tribute to him for his lifetime's contribution to the world of science, which was reflected in his speech. I was delighted to be with him when the Royal Society of Chemistry presented him with the president's award for a lifetime's contribution to science. That was very well deserved. I declare an interest as a parliamentary adviser to the Royal Society of Chemistry. When I first came to this House, I thought that I had the honour of being the first Member of Parliament who was also a fireworks maker, which is rather appropriate on the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes' execution. However, I then discovered that the hon. Gentleman had beaten me to it; I understand that back in 1997 he dressed up as Guy Fawkes and blew up gunpowder in the Jubilee Room. I am not sure whether the Serjeant at Arms would let me do that, but I certainly intend to try. My plea to the Minister is, simply, let us make science fun again. It is certainly not his fault, but there has been a general decline for various reasons that I shall consider shortly. Science is not as fun as it used to be, and that has to be a crying shame. I am a lucky chap. We have discussed having chemistry sets when we were young, and my set was probably the best in the world. It was a firework factory. One of my earliest memories is as a young lad, peaking over my father's work bench to see him mixing wonderful coloured chemicals, and with a glint in his eye, he would take me with him to blow them up in the garden. We would bury them to see how big a hole we could create. My mother would be absolutely horrified when my father got slightly bored on a Friday afternoon, because he would give me the nod and we would creep out and blow holes in the garden. It was a wonderful way to start. I shall never forget doing Nuffield physics as an A-level student and being able to do practical experiments. Much of my A-level was practical, and that was the joy of Nuffield—going out into the school fields and firing tennis balls out of 3-in mortar tubes to investigate the optimum firing angle. I was very lucky, because the Lancaster household is a strange one, and all I had to do to get hold of gunpowder was to go the bread bin, where my father used to keep it. I also discovered through that practical process that although 45° was the optimum angle to send one's tennis ball across the fields, it would go just as far if one put it at 60° or 30°. If one put it at 60°, it went much higher and one could dislodge the tiles from the headmaster's roof. If one put it at 30°, one could get it under the trees and bounce it off the windows. Those are the lessons that only practical science can teach us. There are no barriers preventing such experiments in the classroom, although I always remember the advice about pipettes and burettes and not to suck too hard because it might take the enamel off one's teeth, but it is important that we educate people. That is why the Royal Society of Chemistry's publication ““Surely that's Banned”” is so valuable. I encourage the Minister to try to get it to as broad an audience as possible. There are, however, practical barriers. The hon. Members for Bolton, South-East and for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) referred to the importance of having more or better laboratories in schools, and although I recognise that the Minister will probably tell us that the Government's building schools for the future initiative may go some way to address that concern, that better schools programme will not hit my constituency until 2013. He knows that my constituency faces considerable financial challenges already, and I am delighted that he has promised to do something about it. Generally, however, more must be done sooner. I ask the Minister to recognise also that science is a changing subject. It is vital that teachers receive the opportunity constantly to retrain, which is why it is slightly disappointing to discover that science teachers are not entitled to science-related continual professional development. That is another area for the Minister to examine. Indeed, I should tie that issue to the debate last week about equivalent or lower qualifications, about which the Minister knows I feel strongly because of its impact on the Open university. I ask him to talk to his ministerial colleagues and press the point that if the Government pursue the policy of withdrawing ELQ funding, it will have a significant impact on science teaching.