An interview with Greg Clark MP, new Chair of the Science and Technology Committee

News and Views

Tom Addison, Policy Manager, The Physiological Society

---

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.118.16

Select Committees play an important role in both Houses of Parliament by reporting on and scrutinising areas of Government. In the House of Commons they are comprised of a minimum of 11 MPs and are able to call in ministers, officials and experts for questioning. Select Committees publish their findings in a report and the Government is expected to respond to any recommendations that are made. The Science and Technology Committee (S&TC) in the previous Parliament carried out inquiries into areas such as e-cigarettes, immigration policy for scientists, and the effectiveness of research and innovation spending.

Following the General Election in December last year, a new Parliament means new Chairs and Members for the House of Commons’ 28 Select Committees. The Select Committees are responsible for scrutinising and reporting on the work of Government departments. The Physiological Society’s Policy Manager, Tom Addison, met with the new Chair of the Commons’ Science and Technology Committee, Greg Clark MP.

Greg has been the Member of Parliament for Tunbridge Wells since 2005 and has previously served in several ministerial roles including Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Minister for Universities, Science and Cities and Financial Secretary to the Treasury. During his time as Secretary of State for BEIS, Greg was responsible for the development of the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy and establishing its four Grand Challenges including the Ageing Society target, which is the focus of The Physiological Society’s report Growing Older, Better.

What are your priorities as Chair of the Committee?

This is an incredibly important and exciting time for science and technology. The changes and discoveries that are taking place and their rollout throughout the world, means that there are big questions for policymakers about how we can maximise the opportunities and impact while dealing with the regulatory questions that arise. So I really want to build up the influence of the Committee given the importance of the subject matter.

How does the science community contribute to policymaking?

The scientific community has a significant role to play in science policymaking. I am not one of those people who believes that we have had too much of experts! It would be paradoxical for my Committee not to be heavily influenced by the expertise that we are fortunate enough to have in this country. This happens through the written evidence the Committee receives and the oral evidence sessions we will hold. I would also hope, however, that I can deepen the existing informal links that I have developed. During my time as both Science Minister and Secretary of State [for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy], I was lucky enough to engage with members of the scientific community, so this is an opportunity for me, and I hope other committee members, to be on pretty close terms with those that we need to be hearing from.

Can you explain the role of the Commons Science and Technology Committee and its relationship with its Lords’ equivalent and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST)?

The Science and Technology Committee is unique in that it doesn’t monitor a single Government department. Science and technology recognise hardly any boundaries and the work of the Committee should be pretty free-ranging across all of the work of Government, the country and world at large. There is a strict procedural link to the Government Office for Science where the Committee is anchored [based itself within BEIS] but I think everyone would expect this to be interpreted quite broadly.

In terms of our relationship with the House of Lords, I think again uniquely, we have an equivalent committee, chaired by Lord Patel. I want to have a close relationship with the Lords’ committee so we can be complimentary in terms of our inquiries.

We are very lucky to have POST [the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology is the Parliament’s in-house source of independent, balanced and accessible analysis of public policy issues related to science and technology], which adds to the work of the Commons’ and Lords’ libraries in giving specialist, expert and highly-respected research and analysis to help inform the work of the Committee and Parliament more generally.

As a former Secretary of State whose department included science, how does this help inform your new role as committee Chair?

Having been in Government, in a number of different posts, knowing how things are done in Government at every level supports the scrutiny function of my committee. I have also had some experience of appearing before select committees (including the one I now Chair!), so I may be wise to some of the attempts to avoid some of the difficult questions by some colleagues appearing in front of the committee!

More generally though, the scrutiny from Select Committees is something that I championed while in Government. Scrutinising Government is not only about challenge and due process, it is also about encouragement and shedding a spotlight on a shared endeavour – advancing and promoting science in our country and in our world.

How do you work with your Committee and how are topics for inquiries decided?

We are still waiting for the rest of the Committee to be appointed but it is worth remembering that I am its Chair, not the person responsible for dictating its agenda or content.

One of the things I want to do once the Committee is formed is to take the views of my colleagues on the Committee, all of whom will have the same motivation as I have – inquiring into the most important topics that relate to science and technology – to put together a work programme for the year ahead and beyond which is a combination of the most topical questions of the day but also more fundamental topics that require deeper, long-term analysis.

How can physiologists get involved in your work on the Committee?

Physiologists and other life science researchers work in a particularly exciting time. Of all of the breakthroughs that are taking place, in terms of discovery and access, physiology and the life sciences more generally are replete with some of the country’s best researchers.

In addition, these scientific discoveries bring with them important public policy questions, from how much public funding supports this research, the circumstances and conditions under which this funding is granted, through to the ethics and regulations of research and their experiments. I would hope that through The Physiological Society and its journals, there will be a pretty close dialogue between Members and all the members of my Committee, so that we are well informed and we can be asking the questions and giving the push in areas of interest to your membership.

How did you interact with Select Committees in previous roles?

My view of select committees was often seen as pretty subversive during my time in Government! Typically, the pattern in Government was to be rather resistant to the advice of Select Committees. In fact, where constructive recommendations were made, there were times that we would pretend we were already doing the things that were suggested! I always found this to be nonsensical. When you have a group of expert and motivated people like a Select Committee, taking evidence from people with even greater expertise, and coming up with recommendations and advice, you should fall on it with enthusiasm rather than try to resist it.

As such, during my time in various Government roles, I encouraged certain inquiries and always tried to adopt as many recommendations from Select Committees as possible as Government policy. I would hope that the ministers that appear before my committee might take the same view!

It is very important that any recommendations that come from the committee are well-informed, rigorous and evidence-based. That is foundational. I also think the strength of a Commons Select Committee is that it is drawn from elected parliamentarians of different political parties and different parts of the country. Public policy is not identical to scientific advice – the two need to come together to be effective and a good committee will help to bring together evidence-based expertise and deliverability that will make a difference to the people in the country that elect us.

How can the S&TC work to hold the Government to account over cross-departmental priorities and challenges?

The great thing about my committee is that by its nature, science and technology cross every department in Whitehall. For example, every department will have a Chief Scientific Adviser. It makes sense, therefore, for the committee to have a broad coverage.

Just as in academic life, some of the most interesting areas of inquiry are at the interstitials of disciplines. Silos are being busted apart in public policy, as in academia, so I have already had conversations with other committee Chairs, such as Environmental Audit [Philip Dunne MP] with common interests such as climate change, and the contribution of science and technology to tackling it, to try and scrutinise the whole of Government and that my committee will work closely and jointly to advance important causes.

What do you see as challenges to raising the profile of Science and Technology in Westminster?

One of the reasons I think the profile of science and technology, while reasonably high given the strengths we have in the UK, is that Parliament has been dominated by Brexit over the past 3 years. This has crowded out the problems that areas such as science and technology have. We have now formally left the European Union and while there are still negotiations about the future relationship to be concluded, in which scientists have an important stake, I hope this will be a time in which the potential, possibilities and innovations of the scientific community are a bigger topic of conversation in Parliament and beyond than perhaps they have been in the past 3 years.

How can the innovations in physiology be translated into the evidence that is presented to the Committee and, by extension, Government policy?

It is really important that the S&TC should benefit from the best expertise, whether that comes from The Society or its journals, we need to be able to access the insights and breakthroughs that are being made so I am very keen that the Committee and its members, in taking evidence, have a close relationship with The Physiological Society, that we are well informed of what is breaking in the journals so that evidence can strengthen the recommendations we make for public policy.