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The Rt. Hon. Patricia HewittRoyal Society of Chemistry Parliamentary Links Day |
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| Thank you every so much for that introduction. I really am delighted to be here today. And the first Secretary of State to ever address one of your hugely successful "Parliamentary Links Days" - bringing Parliament and the scientific community even closer together.
It's great to so many science and engineering organizations here – the event is all the stronger for being so broadly based. I am only sorry I can't stay for the whole day. Just under forty years ago On 1st October 1963, Harold Wilson said to Labour Party Conference: "We are redefining and we are restating our socialism in terms of the scientific revolution… The Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or outdated methods on either side of industry." It was Stephen's father, Tony, one of my predecessors in this post, (here today), who penned much of Harold Wilson's "white heat of technology" rhetoric, as Harold Wilson's first speechwriter after the 1964 election. Tony has shown extraordinary enthusiasm for science – particularly during his time as Minister for Technology – culminating in the first flight of Concorde in 1969. I am also delighted to see Tam Dalyell here, the Father of the House, who has worked tirelessly since the early 60s to improve links between politics and science. You will have seen the messages of support for today's event from the Speaker and Tony Blair, who gave an excellent speech to the Royal Society just a couple of weeks ago. From today's turnout of Members from both sides of the House, we can see the truly cross party support that exists for Science. Science Matters… In my speech today, I want to set out my own views on science - and to place my commitment firmly on the record. As one who sees science as a vital means to achieving Government goals. A healthier and cleaner society. A strong economy with prosperity for all. And how we have to work even closer together to build better links between the science base and industry. Making sure we reach our full potential. And using our relationships to build better public understanding of the benefits of science. A difficult challenge. When I arrived at the Treasury, on my induction one of the first things that was explained to me was how 50% of people don't even understand what 50% means. To Business The ability to innovate in products and processes is crucial to economic success (Porter). In the last decade, we have seen the digital revolution. Today we are on the verge, if not the midst, of a revolution in manufacturing. I saw as E Commerce Minister a lot of the hot air that was being said about how manufacturing was on the way out. Whereas, as we see now, the key is about harnessing new technologies in the older industries. And advanced manufacturing is increasingly operating at the leading edge of technology. As I set out in our Manufacturing Strategy, the most rapidly growing sectors tend to have the highest levels of innovation. Effective exploitation of innovation and science is critical to the long term prosperity of manufacturing. Look at nanotechnology - a radically new approach to making things - promising more for less: smaller, lighter, cheaper and faster devices with greater functionality, using less raw material, less energy, less pollution. And we're determined to put more investment into this. I am today publishing the report of the Advisory Group on Nanotechnology Applications, set up by Lord Sainsbury and chaired by John Taylor. This excellent report has evaluated our national capabilities in nanotechnology and proposes ways to accelerate and support industrial development of its applications. I was recently hearing about a firm in Bristol – Nanomagnetics, a spin out from Bristol University, which received a SMART award of £160,000. Nanomagentics has found a way of packing information onto a computer hard disk using nano—materials. It recently achieved the world record for the density of information storage in this way and is expecting to improve on that by a factor of five in the next 6 months. Which really shows the speed of innovation. And E-Science – which we've invested £118 million into over the SR2000 period - providing new ways to share knowledge in areas such as health and medicine, genomics, engineering design, astronomy and climatology. It is now possible to do a huge amount of scientific research on computers rather than by traditional means. As I saw when I visited the University of Durham and saw literally the whole universe being recreated in just a few minutes on one computer. To our lives As well as boosting our economy, science improves our health and quality of life. In Shakespeare's day, life expectancy in Britain was only 30 years. Today, many of us can expect to live healthily into our eighties, nineties and even hundreds. And with advances in genomics, we could soon see breakthroughs against diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer. Nanotechnology will also allow non invasive surgery – so we can create extremely tiny devices that can be placed in the body either for diagnostic purposes, to deliver drugs or to undertake minor localised surgery. In the past, science was seen by some as a threat to the environment. Now it is seen as the solution. David King will talk to you later about how we can tackle climate change. Excellent new work is also being conducted to tackle the dig and dump approach to pollution using advances in biotechnology and soil remediation. British Scientific Excellence Britain has a proud scientific record. With 1% of the world's population, we fund 5% of the world's science; produce 8% of all the world's scientific papers; and get 9% of scientific citations. One of our UK Nobel Laureates – Sir Harry Kroto – assumes the Presidency of the Royal Society of Chemistry next month. I look forward to working with him. But, though we've produced 44 Nobel Laureates in the last 50 years – only 8 of those have been in the last 20 years. And though many of the world's greatest inventions have been British – computer, television, telephone – we have been less good at turning these into products that are produced in Britain. Government aims – maximising scientific excellence and use Government's aim is two-fold.
How are we meeting our aims? Macro-economic stability (1st term) One of the first things we did was ensure economic stability, giving business the confidence to invest in science and innovation. Building on this platform of stability, we are improving the fiscal framework and reversing years of under-investment in the science base. Driving up productivity and competitiveness. Investment By 2004, Govt investment in the science base will have risen by over a billion pounds from 1997 – and is today rising at 7% a year in real terms. We are particularly keen to promote collaboration – not just across the science base; but between the science base and industry; and between science and industry and government. Science/Science Collaboration We need to get the UK science research infrastructure right – which we are, through our £1.75 billion investment in partnership with the Wellcome Trust. And last month I was delighted to launch John Taylor's new Research Councils UK body. Helping Research Councils work together on cross-cutting issues. The talk is no longer about the "brain drain", rather "brain gain". Sir Gareth Roberts's report for 2002 estimated a net inflow of scientists and engineers to the UK. Science/Industry Collaboration Scientific excellence on its own is not enough. This needs to be translated into economic success - increasing links between our science base and industry. We are achieving this through University Challenge and the Higher Education Innovation Fund And our investment in knowledge transfer and exploitation is paying off – 199 spin-outs were created in 1999-2000, compared to just 26 in 1997. And Faraday Partnerships – bringing researchers and research users closer together. I am today publishing the first Annual Report of the Faraday Partnerships. This shows the extraordinary progress they are making. We now have 18 Partnerships, including CRYSTAL, which comprises the RSC, CIA and IChemE. CRYSTAL is doing some excellent visionary work on "green chemistry", highlighting new cutting edge technologies and devising new processes – to help chemical firms achieve greater profitability but with a lower environmental load. Its great to see some of our best professional and trade associations taking this sort of lead. We expect 6 more Partnerships to be set up over the Summer. We are also strengthening innovation in the regions. We have made over £150 million available to the RDAs to support business incubation, clusters and economic development. The Royal Society of Chemistry is working closely with the RDAs, in co-operation with the Department. Their innovative "technology car boot sales" bring together academics and industrialists to foster innovation. Science/Industry/Government Collaboration If I could finish today by saying something about what we in Government are doing to make sure that we are also properly plugged in to you – our partners. When I arrived at the Department, I, together with my Permanent Secretary, Robin Young, conducted a review of my Department. Which has now transformed the way we work – reaching out to our partners, reaching out to industry and the science base – making sure we understand and respond better to your concerns. The Review also resulted in our creating a new Innovation Group in the Department – to bring about greater coherence to our activities. A new innovation strategy will mean we use resources to achieve maximum impact. We intend to build up an unrivalled understanding of innovation – from company to national level – and use this to encourage greater innovation. Thank you again for inviting me here today. Science is crucial to our economic success – creating the high value added, high skills, high technology companies of tomorrow. As Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Cabinet Minister responsible for Science, I will continue to champion you in Government – and make sure we invest the right amount in the science base and industry – so we can keep Britain the best. Thank you. |
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Other speeches by The Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt
(the following are available from the archive) |
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