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Kenneth Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, heaped
the blame for Britain’s science funding crisis on the research councils.
He accused them of reckless overcommitment to projects.

Speaking after a speech to the Association for Science Education in
Birmingham on Monday, Clarke said: ‘The reasearch councils do face a real
problem, but in my opinion it has more to do with reckless overcommitment
in the past than real cuts.’

Clarke singled out Britain’s largest council, the Science and Engineering
Research Council, for special criticism and said the other research councils
were wary about SERC’s claims of underfunding. The new chairman of SERC,
Sir Mark Richmond, would reconsider spending on big international projects,
said Clarke.

Contradicting the claims of research councils, the education secretary
saed this year’s science spending was the same as last year’s after allowing
for inflation.

Clarke also mounted a defence of his department’s job of controlling
science spending following a report that John Major was considering giving
science its own department. ‘The combination of education and science responsibilities
allows me to take an overview of research both in specialist institutions
and in the higher education institutions, where most basic research takes
place,’ he said.

Drawing a comparison with the Office of Arts and Libraries, Clarke said:
‘The difficulty with having a minister for science would be if he was not
a Cabinet minister, if the result was a small department outside Cabinet.’
Science benefited from being an ‘adjunct’ of the education department.

Clarke is to join the Prime Minister when he meets a delegation of scientists
led by Ian Lloyd, the backbench Conservative MP who is president of the
Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. The scientists are pressing for
a new deal for science, including a separate science department. Clarke
said that for the foreseeable future he expects arrangements to stay as
they are.