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Science is to get some extra money this year, thanks to a remarkable
turn around by Kenneth Clarke, the minister responsible for science. In
a written answer in parliament earlier this month, Clarke added an extra
£7 million to the £920-million science budget.

But the reprieve came too late for the Nuclear Structure Facility at
Daresbury, which is to close for lack of funds. Mark Richmond, chairman
of the Science and Engineering Research Council, said the SERC’s share of
the windfall, £3.2 million, was too little and too late to reverse
the closure of the NSF, which costs about £5 million a year to run.

The extra cash breaks the Treasury’s strict rules on public spending.
At the time of the original decision, the Treasury forecast inflation would
be 6 per cent by last April. It turned out to be 7 per cent. The Department
of Education and Science says the extra money makes up the difference so
that, in real terms, the science budget is the same as last year.

In January, Clarke said the research council’s problems were the result
of their own ‘reckless overcommitment’ last year and there would be no new
money. In March, he told the House of Commons the same. Then he told the
Lords’ select committee on science that there was no crisis in science,
and he refused to ‘bail out’ the councils. Now he has thrown them a lifeline.

Richmond was pleased with the SERC’s extra money, but said it was ‘not
much’. However, he expects that the council will now cut new grants this
year by only 35 per cent rather than 50 per cent.

Brian Flowers, the chairman of the Lords committee, which called for
an extra £12 million, said the new money did not end the crisis in
British science. ‘It does not solve the problem,’ he said.