I would be happy to divert the debate to that subject, but it could take quite some time. To be absolutely clear again, we are committed to a multi-year ring fence for the science budget, with pretty much the same terms under which it currently operates, but we are not committed to Labour's budget. I will be happy to chat with the hon. Gentleman about precise definitions after the debate, but I want to conclude my remarks in the next two minutes so that the Minister has time to respond.

There are some vagaries in the statements that the Government and the Science Minister have made on physics funding. It makes some sense to move the space budget to a new space agency and to look at a way of creating a buffer between the STFC grants and its fixed costs, but can the Minister provide any more detail on the Government's plans for that area? The new arrangements announced by the Science Minister on 4 March are pretty vague, so will the Minister explain what the Government mean when they say that they will be

"looking at options for managing the currency risks better"?

What options is the Department looking at, and what did the current Science Minister mean when he said that

"the Department expects to continue to provide STFC with a level of protection similar to that which has been provided this year"?

Why did he use the words "similar to", rather than giving a definitive statement? Has the Department budgeted to compensate the STFC for those exchange rate fluctuations? It is a straightforward question. Are the Government planning to compensate fully or are they not?

What assessment has the Department made of the likely cost to the STFC of future exchange rate fluctuations? Is there an estimate of what the effect might be? Physicists and the STFC will want to know the answer, as will the science community overall, and vague language only adds to uncertainty, so the debate provides a good opportunity to tidy that up. Finally, will the Minister now admit that the Government to a certain degree botched the creation of the STFC in 2007? Ministers decided to merge the other two research councils to create the STFC, so will he admit that the structural changes announced by the Science Minister on 4 March will return us to the pre-2007 arrangements?

Britain can be proud of its reputation for world-class physics, astronomy and space science, and we can be optimistic that British physicists are working today to generate new ideas and inventions to fuel a high-tech recovery for the future, but we must face up to the reality of the current difficulties if we are to secure a stable climate for investment for the future. Labour's debt crisis is the single biggest threat to physics over the next decade. I hope that the Minister will agree with me that the future of physics is at serous risk if the Chancellor refuses to tackle the deficit seriously in tomorrow's Budget.