Letters: Government and science research

From Dr Jeremy Bray, MP

Sir: The worrying thing about moving the Office of Science and Technology (OST) to the Department of Trade and Industry ("No Minister, this is not a good idea", 25 July; letter, 27 July) is not so much what it says about the Government's understanding of science, but about its lack of understanding of what has been happening in industry.

High-tech industry, present and future, is well adapted to work with the research councils directly under the OST. Pharmaceuticals is the outstanding example. Other industries need more intermediation. So Labour supported the proposal for developing the contract research and technology organisations (RTOs) into a systematic network, labelled Faraday Institutes. They would have core funding for a basic technology programme in their own field (which at present they cannot afford, so their standards are slipping) and contracts for post-graduate training, in co-operation with universities, of high-grade professionals and technicians, adding strength to their existing contract research business. The Faraday network would be the responsibility of the DTI. The Tories put forward a similar proposal, which disappeared in the fog of Heseltinism.

Science, technology and research have to be pursued in departments, with basic research, common services, and a degree of oversight and encouragement from the centre, as has been recognised since Haldane's 1918 report on The Machinery of Government. This cannot be done by the DTI. When I put forward Labour proposals for an OST before the election, we recognised that it had to be associated with other central functions in government. The form the Tories adopted has not survived.

Government needs to harness the new powers of information technology, research and analysis that have developed so rapidly in recent years. There has been a huge advance in available technique, but it is a generation since government concepts of its use were updated.

Yours sincerely,

Jeremy Bray

MP for Motherwell South (Lab)

House of Commons

London, SW1

29 July