From JEREMY BRAY
Your editorial on the Commons debate on science policy did science a
disservice. You said, ‘Parliamentarians scattered OECD statistics around
like confetti, but carefully ducked any attempt at serious discussion of
what the statistics really mean.’ Yet I did explain carefully twice-once
in an intervention in Kenneth Clarke’s speech and once in my own.
I said, ‘Science is not measured in tonnes like steel. If scientists’
pay goes up by no more than the national average, the so-called real measure
of R&D expenditure increases proportionately to GDP, by definition.
So-called level funding means a decline in research done and a decline in
the number of scientists at the same rate at which GDP is growing.’
You asked, ‘Where was the discussion about the implications of the government’s
plans to privatise the British Technology Group?’ It was in the House of
Commons on 12 February, when Labour opposed the second reading of the bill
to privatise BTG, and it will continue on Tuesdays and Thursdays in committee
for weeks to come.
You said Labour ‘was disappointing in its reluctance to sketch out what
an alternative science policy might look like.’ I did precisely that in
my speech in the little time that I had.
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Jeremy Bray Labour spokesman on science and technology House of Commons,
London
