Dr Jeremy Bray: Will the Chancellor give way?
Dr Jeremy Bray: The Secretary of State has accepted the difference between comprehensive plans and effective delivery. He has put forward specific proposals—such as the audit arrangements and the patients charter—to improve the quality of service. Does he agree that, with the best will in the world, long-term developments are needed in the care of the mentally ill, which cannot possibly be completed...
Dr Jeremy Bray: Does the Prime Minister exclude UK participation in any exchange rate arrangements if EMU does go ahead?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Is the Minister aware that there is a difference between consideration and advocacy? Are the Government advocating the imposition of oil sanctions? Is he further aware that the freezing of bank accounts could have an even more dramatic effect?
Dr Jeremy Bray: The right hon. Gentleman has presented an oversimplified picture. Can he give us the net figures for inward and outward investment and tell us what has happened to our net foreign assets?
Dr Jeremy Bray: The hon. Member is fair in saying that I would like greater transparency, but one consequence of that greater transparency is that we see the holes in the argument. There are some very big holes that could quite easily be filled.
Dr Jeremy Bray: I cannot greet the Budget with quite the enthusiasm that the hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir D. Mitchell) expressed. Before the Secretary of State leaves, I should like, as chairman of the all-party mental health group, to thank him for what he said about community care for the mentally ill. Obviously, the publication of the report on the health authorities is awaited with great...
Dr Jeremy Bray: Indeed they do. They require supply-side changes, but in a wider sense than is customarily used by the Government and their supporters. The Government identify the supply side merely with paying more to the wealthy and less to the poor. Income distribution is not the end of supply-side measures. We see the supply side as practical investment in education and training, plant and machinery,...
Dr Jeremy Bray: The Secretary of State is aware that any additional resources for community care for the mentally ill will be extremely welcome. He is aware that the problem is not only with the budget of the Department of Health but with the treatment of the policies of the Department of Social Security and the Department for Education and Employment. Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there will be...
Dr Jeremy Bray: In the interests of the Chinese civil servants and the overseas civil servants, is the Minister aware that a suggestion has been made recently in Hong Kong by Sir S. Y. Chung that a shadow Government should be appointed by China six months before the hand-over date to make shadow laws and to prepare a shadow budget? Does the Minister agree that that would cause great confusion in the civil...
Dr Jeremy Bray: Given the gaps in the research and development scoreboard, will the Minister examine in detail why the position is so much worse in British companies than in comparable companies overseas, in terms of their research intensity?
Dr Jeremy Bray: rose—
Dr Jeremy Bray: On the Government's claims about spending, does not the claim that research and development spending has been increased by 30 per cent. really represent a 30 per cent. increase in scientists' pay, which is rather less than the pay increase of the community generally?
Dr Jeremy Bray: This debate is timely, as are all science and technology debates, and I welcome the ready interest of the new President of the Board of Trade in coming to speak to the House so soon. We must firmly establish the ground rules within which science policy will be conducted, and it was useful to have the right hon. Gentleman's outline. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle)...
Dr Jeremy Bray: The Nobel prize for the discovery of the depletion of ozone in the upper atmosphere went to the Americans rather than to Joe Farman, the British Antarctic Survey scientist. That was perhaps partly due to the fact that Britain did not contribute any of the research infrastructure and the basic observation systems are carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to which...
Dr Jeremy Bray: My hon. Friend speaks with great authority about present Labour science policy. The President of the Board of Trade actually quoted from former Labour party policy in the manifesto at the last election, for which I was responsible. It was a highly selective quotation, in which he said that the Department of Trade and Industry was responsible for that area of industrial research. The overall...
Dr Jeremy Bray: Can the President of the Board of Trade explain the relationship between the OST and the chief scientific adviser on the one hand, and the research and development for which the rest of the Department of Trade and Industry is responsible, particularly establishments? Is the chief scientific adviser responsible for those establishments?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Specifically, in the management structure of technology and research and development within the DTI, does the chief scientific adviser come in a line with those establishments and the right hon. Gentleman?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr Jeremy Bray: Undoubtedly new legislation is needed, but this is not the Bill with which many Opposition Members would have chosen to start. However, it could be substantially improved in Committee, and I hope that when we reach that stage the Minister will be as open minded as his colleagues were in the House of Lords. The Bill is not about improving the delivery of community care services for the great...
