UK Parliament / Open data

The Science Budget

The debate has been not only consensual but of high quality. The Chair of the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills is right to say that we are in the middle of a fourth industrial revolution founded on science and technology and that the only sensible approach is to increase R and D investment. My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), who has been such an outstanding champion for science in this place, is also right to say that, as a nation, we have a long and illustrious history of scientific endeavour and we would be foolish to take any steps that undermined the proven Haldane principle on which it is built.

Relief will have swept through the corridors of both Houses at the groundbreaking news brought to us by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) that the days of the comb-over and the unibrow are numbered. My Committee colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) was right to highlight Dowling’s recommendations—they have yet to be responded to by the Government—on simplifying the achingly complex science and innovation support system. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) joined other Committee members when she said that we need a more strategic approach to geographic allocation of capital investment, and I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their responses.

On the necessary deliberation and response to the Green Paper, and the fact that the consultation period only ended in January, I gently remind the Minister that the Government have chosen to respond to Dowling, the Nurse review and the Green Paper as one. Those reports came through before Christmas, and there has been quite a long delay for the scientific community in waiting for them.

As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central so eloquently said, we are in a golden age of British science. That is in no small part due to the championing of science by the Chancellor and successive Science Ministers, but there is no room for complacency. We must be mindful of the investment time lag, and acutely conscious that science and innovation will lie at the heart of our success as a nation. That is why I will simply restate that it is time for a step change in our investment in R and D. I call on the Government to ensure that our strategic capital investments are fully resourced so that we can sweat our assets, and I restate our key recommendation, which is the publication of a long-term road map to increase public and private R and D up to 3% of GDP. That strategic investment will create jobs, increase productivity, attract inward investment, and fund the groundbreaking discovery that is necessary to fund the great global challenges of our time.

Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
606 cc1006-7 
Session
2015-16
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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