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The Government is to put forward new priorities for research in Britain
in a White Paper on science and technology, William Waldegrave, the minister
for science, told MPs last week. He said the document, to be published early
next year, will probably concentrate on the organisation of research funded
by the government.

In the first government-sponsored Commons debate on science since 1985,
Waldegrave warned scientists not to expect the White Paper to produce instant
increases in funding. ‘Very considerable resources are already available,’
he said. ‘We need . . . to seek to give the country the best value we
can from those resources.’

At the end of the debate, MPs confirmed that the Parliamentary Office
of Science and Technology – set up to advise MPs – would become an official
parliamentary body, with an office at Westminster and £175 000 running
costs.

The White Paper follows the creation in April of the Office of Science
and Technology under Waldegrave. It will decide the fate of the Advisory
Board for the Research Councils, which apportions Britain’s £1 billion
Science Budget, and the Advisory Council on Science and Technology, which
reports direct to the Prime Minister.

Beyond organisational matters, Waldegrave said he hoped the White Paper
would ‘discuss ideas about the exploitation of science and the application
of technology’. If it answers some of the questions Waldegrave raised in
his speech, it could land him in hot water.

Waldegrave wondered whether the existing system was ‘tough enough in
facing down existing lobbies which may represent past priorities’. That
could lead to a reappraisal of traditional priorities, including agricultural
research and nuclear and particle physics. Attempts in 1985 to withdraw
from CERN, the European centre for particle physics in Geneva, were vetoed
by Margaret Thatcher, and the decision last year to close the Nuclear Structure
Facility at Daresbury proved painful for ministers.

Waldegrave also said he would look at ‘government leadership’ for research
which falls between basic and applied research. Right-wing Conservatives
will be unhappy if that leads the government to support the ‘near market’
research which it abandoned in 1988.

Jeremy Bray, Labour’s science spokesman, welcomed the White Paper but
said Waldegrave should extend its scope. He said it should include ‘a substantial
part of policy and strategy’. David Phillips, chairman of the ABRC, also
welcomed the White Paper. ‘We shall have to wait and see what comes of it,’
he said. ‘But we shall not be short of radical ideas.’

In a debate marked by an unusual degree of cross-party agreement, Waldegrave
raised the only cheer. ‘It is becoming fashionable again to sneer at scientists,’
he said. ‘Britain of all countries cannot afford an antiscience culture.’