House of Commons Science and Technology Committee The Government Office for Science Annual Review 2009 Oral and written evidence 27 October 2010 Professor Sir John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Adviser Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 27 October 2010 HC 546-i Published on 17 January 2011 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £4.00 The Science and Technology Committee The Science and Technology Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Government Office for Science and associated public bodies. Current membership Andrew Miller (Labour, Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Chair) Gavin Barwell (Conservative, Croydon Central) Gregg McClymont (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) Stephen Metcalfe (Conservative, South Basildon and East Thurrock) David Morris (Conservative, Morecambe and Lunesdale) Stephen Mosley (Conservative, City of Chester) Pamela Nash (Labour, Airdrie and Shotts) Jonathan Reynolds (Labour/Co-operative, Stalybridge and Hyde) Alok Sharma (Conservative, Reading West) Graham Stringer (Labour, Blackley and Broughton) Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental Select Committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No.152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at http://www.parliament.uk/science The Reports of the Committee, the formal minutes relating to that report, oral evidence taken and some or all written evidence are available in printed volume(s). Additional written evidence may be published on the internet only. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are: Glenn McKee (Clerk); Ed Beale (Second Clerk); Farrah Bhatti (Committee Specialist); Xameerah Malik (Committee Specialist); Andy Boyd (Senior Committee Assistant); Julie Storey (Committee Assistant); Pam Morris (Committee Assistant), Jim Hudson (Committee Support Assistant); and Becky Jones (Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Science and Technology Committee, Committee Office, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general inquiries is: 020 7219 2793; the Committee’s e- mail address is: [email protected] List of witness Wednesday 27 October 2010 Page Professor Sir John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Adviser Ev 1 List of written evidence 1 Letter from Professor Sir John Beddington to the Chair of the Committee Ev 10 cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [SO] Processed: [13-01-2011 09:44] Job: 007450 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/007450/007450_S&T 101027 GO-Science HC 546-i FINAL.xml Science and Technology Committee: Evidence Ev 1 Oral evidence Taken before the Science and Technology Committee on Wednesday 27 October 2010 Members present: Andrew Miller (Chair) Stephen Metcalfe Graham Stringer Stephen Mosley Roger Williams Pamela Nash ________________ Examination of Witness Witness: Professor Sir John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, gave evidence. Q1 Chair: Sir John, thank you very much for coming fairly familiar with, means that is going to extend this morning. I am sure you would have liked to be a probably into the autumn of 2011. I think that would fly on the wall at our earlier session, no doubt. be a second thing I would point to as a success and Professor Sir John Beddington: Regrettably, I importance for the Department. wasn’t, Chairman. The network of Chief Scientific Advisers has done well. As you know, and I won’t repeat it, we now Q2 Chair: We want to cover the Government Office have it in each of the main scientific Departments. for Science this morning in some detail. How effective We meet regularly. We meet every Wednesday for a do you think the Government Office has been in the breakfast meeting. Clearly, not everybody can attend past 12 months? because of diaries but we usually have a good Professor Sir John Beddington: That’s actually quite attendance. Today we had 10. The Science Minister, a difficult question because I’m a modest man. I think David Willetts, comes to these occasionally. In fact, we have done well. I think you can see the benefit of he was at the breakfast meeting this morning, so it is a a lot of the ways in which the Government Office for good way of actually getting a proper network across Science has operated in the result of the CSR. I think Government of science and engineering. That is it was absolutely essential that we were able to another thing I would point to that is an on-going and provide at the highest level to the Government continuing success. appropriate information about the importance of the The other area that has expanded, and it was started science and engineering base in the country, and the in the previous year but I think it is now working very evidence base that was produced in part by the well, is the Government’s Science and Engineering Government Office for Science but also by Adrian Community. We now have well in excess of 3,000 Smith and his team in BIS has been enormously members. We’ve had regular meetings. My job as important in achieving what I believe to be a very head of the science and engineering profession in successful settlement. If you ask me what the Government has been recognised and we are taking it successes were in the Government Office for Science, forward. We have 3,000 or so fairly active members. I would point to that one as being reasonably We have had, I think, three conferences this year. important. Another one is planned for early next year, and we There are a number of things also which are of will have an on-going programme dealing with a importance. One of them is the acceptance by the whole range of matters. The forthcoming one is Civil Service Board that I should take up a programme actually on Science in the International Domain. One of reviews of the quality of science and engineering of the ones we had last year was, for example, across all Government Departments. To an extent, I Conveying Uncertainty in Science. So that’s another inherited that from my predecessor, Sir David King, area that I am proud of. but his reviews were of a rather different type and we I could go on but I will not, I promise you. I would are actually in the process of conducting those reviews also single out the Foresight work that is going very on all Departments, including those Departments well. We will be reporting on the Foresight Study on which you wouldn’t see, prima facie, as a major user the Future of Food and Farming almost certainly early of science, in the labcoat mathematics sense. Those in January. The work is pretty much finalised but I reviews have now extended, and I think that has been think we will be reporting on that in January. We have very successful, to involve other heads of analysis and a Foresight Study on Environmental Migration concerns. For example, we did a review of the looking at issues of the major drivers of Department for Education in which we had people environmental migration. That is likely to be reporting from the statistics field and the social science field as round about this time next year. We also had reports part of the review team. Those are on-going. during the year—one on Land Use and one on Mental We have had to slightly alter the programme. The aim Capital and Wellbeing. was to finish the entire period of reviews so that every We have just started and had the first meeting of the Government Department would have had a review by Lead Expert Group for the latest study, which is March 2011. Resource constraints, which you will be sponsored by Her Majesty’s Treasury, which is cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [13-01-2011 09:44] Job: 007450 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/007450/007450_S&T 101027 GO-Science HC 546-i FINAL.xml Ev 2 Science and Technology Committee: Evidence 27 October 2010 Professor Sir John Beddington looking at the future of computer trading in financial primarily a mathematical rather than a social science markets and posing questions about the increasing use background. So that has left a bit of a gap and this is of high speed computers, high speed trading and the work in progress. It is difficult. We have two people increasing proportion of trades on many markets who are heads of the social science research which are being done by algorithms rather than human profession in Government and they are doing an traders. We are posing too, in a sense, I suppose, excellent job. But I do think we need to be thinking engineering questions about the financial system. We about it. had our first meeting at the Bank of England this The attraction of this is that we now have a new head week. So that is where the Foresight Group is going. of the ESRC, Paul Boyle, with whom I have already Next week we will be publishing some work on had conversations about trying to engage with the Horizon Scanning, looking at new technologies which social science community to deal with some of these will have the potential for a significant benefit to big issues in Government. So I singled that one out as Britain—technologies where, essentially, the one area where I think “Could do better” would be a necessary conditions are that there is some degree of reasonable comment.