UK astronomy cuts in Parliament
One of the great innovations in UK democracy was Hansard which provides edited (minus the jeering) verbatim records of things said in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Thankfully Hansard is in the digital age and you can read the comments of our elected (and non-elected) representatives online.
Yesterday various MPs tackled Ian Pearson - the Science Minister - over the £80 million of cuts to hit particle physics and astronomy with suggested closures of many facilities and huge cuts to university physics departments. Ann Winterton (Con, Congleton - constituency containing Jodrell Bank) started the ball rolling at question 4 and was joined by Dr Brian Iddon (Lab, Bolton South-East), Mr Phil Willis (LD, Harrogate and Knaresborough) and Adam Afriyie (Con, Windsor). The Science Minister Ian Pearson replied with his standard response which says how wonderful the Government is and how it has increased the science budget by 13% (over the next three years). Most agree with that statement but it isn't the issue. The issue is over a very short term funding crisis that will probably cause wide-spread and longer term damage to particle physics and astronomy in the UK. Personally I hate politicians referring to increases (or decreases) over time periods not equal to one year without specifying the time period clearly. It often seems designed to give the wrong impression. Tricksy hobbits.
The issue was re-iterated a while later by Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (Lab, Durham). Mr Denham (Secretary of State at the DIUS I think) responded by invoking the Haldane Principle "to protect the autonomy of research councils in deciding where research should take place". Of course nobody is actually asking for Government to make the decisions on what should be funded but instead to provide money so that STFC can carry out the projects it had planned to do before the problems with its budget in this financial year.
What those financial problems are nobody seems entirely clear. They are partly due to increased subscriptions to CERN, ESA and ESO which are linked to GDP rather than the Government's science budget and partly due to full economic costing that was brought in. Whatever the causes are they don't involve Diamond at all, nosiree, definitely not. I did hear a story (possibly an urban myth) that because 14% of Diamond is funded from a private partner, the whole project was landed with a VAT bill (17.5%) by the Treasury.
The sessions in Parliament are also archived on Parliament TV for the next 28 days for those with Windows Media Player. Ann Winterton's question is at 20:51 and Roberta Blackman-Woods's question is at 55:20. You even get to watch Ian Pearson accidentally elevating Dr Brian Cox to a Professor!
For all the latest news and gory details on the STFC funding crisis check out Paul Crowther's page.
Comments: UK astronomy cuts in Parliament
"Personally I hate politicians referring to increases (or decreases) over time periods not equal to one year without specifying the time period clearly. It often seems designed to give the wrong impression."
"Often seems"? You are far too kind to the type of politician who is present in this government. Gordon Brown has repeatedly given the same figures to give the impression that new money for one project or another was being released from the public purse when it wasn't. In a strict a or legal definition they may not be fraudulent but they come so close, it doesn't make much difference.
Posted by Acleron on Saturday 12th Jan 2008 (01:23 UTC)
The Diamond VAT issue is not an urban myth. It comes to £10 million.
As for the Haldane principle. I believe we may have some news pertaining to that very soon......
Posted by Anonymous physicist on Monday 14th Jan 2008 (15:00 UTC)
The VAT problem is not an urban myth - in fact, it has all the hallmarks of a classic Government stitch-up. The smoking guns are:
Wellcome Trust had too much money made off their commercial arm in the stock market, so the Govt. threatened to take it off them. Remember that the Wellcome Trust refurbished pretty much every biology lab in the country about 8 years ago, so they have a lot of clout. They wanted something in return, so they asked for a convenient place for their researchers to do bio/pharma x-ray studies. By putting in 14% of the money into DIAMOND, they got 40% of the base facility (3 out of 7 beamlines).
Meanwhile, the French want to screw up the UK (as we do them of course), so they got into a joint venture for funding. This ended up as a quid-pro-quo agreement - they put money into DIAMOND, we put the same amount into SOLEIL. Net results? Firstly, DIAMOND is delayed by 2 years (as is SOLEIL); secondly the Govt. gets to say that French researchers want the facility 'closer'. That's cr*p of course, because Daresbury is closer to airports than Rutherford, but Govt. never let facts get in the way of a good argument.
Meanwhile, a few voices in Wellcome are going around saying 'why would you want to build anything in the north? - they're cr*p up there'. One particular voice was Richard Sykes, a.k.a. Mr. Relenza, who stood to make profits from having easier access to research on DIAMOND. By the way, DIAMOND glossy brochures have 'Relenza' mentioned all over them even though they have nothing to do with each other, so we know how that one turned out.
The total effect of all this? Wellcome Trust/Glaxo gets a stitch-up so they get cheap research and a back-door into new results. Those in Govt./STFC with a 'single superlab' agenda (e.g. Andrew Taylor, who wants ESS at RAL as his swansong) get one step closer to moving EVERYTHING to RAL. Govt. gets to say that they had a 'commercial partnership' and can say the public purse didn't get stung too much. And you, dear researchers, get the ar*e end of it because the accountants found out and slapped a VAT bill on everything, c*cking it all up!
That, my dear, is how research in Britain is carried out today.
Posted by Another Anonyphys on Wednesday 16th Jan 2008 (08:48 UTC)
Some stuff that was going on before Glaxo/Wellcome got involved in DIAMOND:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_19991010/ai_n13944850
Posted by Another Anonyphys on Wednesday 16th Jan 2008 (08:52 UTC)
To quote Keith Mason from the BBC website:
'The "doom and gloom" being spread about the state of UK physics and the funding of research is unhelpful and paints an inaccurate picture, says Keith Mason. The chief executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council claims the likely fallout from its spending settlement has been exaggerated'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7200456.stm
What world are you living on - still in Holmbury St Mary perhaps?
Look at the redundancies, the high quality research grants that will be rejected, the demoralisation of your own staff in Swindon, and the appalling situation that has been allowed to develop whilst you were our representative, and the decimation that will occur in many areas of astronomy - whoops ... STFC reprioritisation ... pardon my incorrect terminology ...
It is clear that a clear that a clean out at the top of STFC is the only real way forward now
Posted by UK Physics has a brighter future on Wednesday 23rd Jan 2008 (18:39 UTC)