Orders of the Day — DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH BILL [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 June 1956.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Reginald Bevins Mr Reginald Bevins , Liverpool Toxteth 12:00, 20 June 1956

No, it will have nothing whatever to do with atomic research, which is a matter for the Atomic Energy Authority.

It may be helpful if at this point, I tried to give to hon. and right hon. Members some idea of how the new organisation will approach its task. Subject to over-riding Ministerial control, the Research Council will determine policy. It will decide the broad order of priorities in research and what resources they merit. That applies not only to the starting of new research, but also to the stopping of research which can no longer justify itself. All researches are important but some are more important than others. If a research becomes urgent and vitally important to industry then it should be developed and stepped up, even if in the process some other work has to suffer.

The Council will see that programmes are not too thinly spread and not so diffuse as to be ineffective. It may consider where to draw the line afresh between the work of the stations and the research associations; and whether perhaps certain industries ought not to shoulder more responsibility than at present.

As the Jephcott Committee envisaged it, this Council will have to act largely through committees, which will examine the various programmes of the stations with the directors of the stations, but, as now, the directors will enjoy freedom in the execution of their programmes. I can give the House a categorical assurance that there need be no fears on that score. The directors will not be cramped in their independence in carrying out the programmes at their respective stations. What we desire, and what my noble Friend believes we shall achieve as a result of this Measure and what will stem from it, is the right strategic planning at headquarters, allied to tactical latitude in the field.

My noble Friend has received a further Report from the Jephcott Committee which it is not proposed to publish. The House respects candour, and I wish to be frank about this. I have examined this matter carefully, in consultation with my noble Friend, and I hope hon. Members will agree that in the circumstances the decision not to publish is a right one. It is as well that we should understand that the Bill now before the House already gives effect to the one proposal of the Committee which requires legislation, that is the setting up of the Research Council. Moreover—and this is important—the final Report was drafted in the full knowledge that the Government were in agreement with the recommendation for a Research Council. Knowing that, the Committee liberally threw up ideas and suggestions in the express belief—I have confirmed this—that they would be treated as suggestions for the consideration of the new council, and not as hard and fast recommendations for action by the Lord President or the Department at this moment. I think it follows that it would be wrong to make these ideas public before the new council has had a chance to consider them, as indeed the Jephcott Committee intended.