CEH Banchory: Death by a thousand cuts
In 2005 the Natural Environment Research Council proposed to close half the research stations of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology including CEH Banchory, and cut UK CEH staff by a third. Out of 1325 consultation responses, 98% opposed this.
My wife, Councillor Jenny Watson, requested Aberdeenshire Council to ask NERC to cancel the cuts, and, if they refused, to call on the Westminster and Scottish governments to safeguard CEH in Scotland and the Scottish part of the Geological Survey by transferring control to Scotland. She noted two precedents for such devolution, Scottish Natural Heritage and Scottish Universities. Her motion was agreed unanimously.
I sent a copy of the motion and press publicity about it to Prof. Anne Glover of Aberdeen University, then a NERC board member, and enclosed my own submission to the consultation. She did not even bother to acknowledge this.
Then North-East MSPs visited CEH Banchory. All opposed closure – Conservative, Green, Labour, LibDem, SNP. But only Labour and LibDem had power to end closure, for only they were in government. The UK Labour government and Scottish Labour/ LibDem government ignored the council’s motion and the North-East MSPs.
In March 2006 the 21-strong NERC board (19 south of a line from Birmingham to Norwich, only one north of York) went ahead. CEH Banchory will shut on 30 November. Only eight scientists consider a move to CEH at Penicuik, and 30 face redundancy.
Now Lord Sainsbury. He gave the biggest donation in the Labour Party’s history in September 1997. Days later on 3 October, Tony Blair made him a Life Peer, and a year after Science Minister. By 2003, Sainsbury had donated £11 million to Labour, and later failed to declare a £2 million loan.
When MPs on the Science and Technology Committee criticised CEH cuts, he rightly said this was not a matter for ministers. But then he asserted that we would see more research stations closed, and it was to NERC’s credit that it was grasping the issue.
This was totally inappropriate bias for a government minister.
He has long had a big financial stake in biotechnology companies and genetic modification, yet advised the Blair government about GM. When trials of GM crops took place, CEH Monkswood near Huntingdon did the main work.
The conclusion was that one of the two crop-types had adverse environmental effects – unwelcome news to GM companies and doubtless to Sainsbury. CEH Monkswood, internationally famed for research on agricultural pollutants, was later picked for closure.
Subsequently the Metropolitan Police investigated cash for honours after 2001. I was put in contact with them and had a good response. I suggested they start with 1997. I do not know whether they did, but they interviewed Sainsbury, who was reported to look ‘visibly shaken’ after interview.
In spring 2006 the Scottish Executive appointed Prof. Glover as science advisor to Labour-LibDem ministers. In summer she backed GM publicly, and was criticised in the press for inappropriate bias, departing from the impartial stance expected of advisors.
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown say climate change is the greatest threat to man and the planet, and there is widespread concern about pollution. Yet CEH stations facing closure are internationally known for work on both subjects.
In April, Brown acclaimed the strength of Scottish science, due to the union with its UK research councils. Exposing this as yet more spin is an e-petition to 10 Downing Street on 26 April, started by a member of the public in England, asking the Prime Minister to cancel CEH closures imposed by the UK Natural Environment Research Council.
Also in April, Westminster’s DEFRA cut funds for the Scottish Agricultural College, to offset costs down south. Scottish science is evidently unsafe under Westminster. So is English science, with closure of three English CEH stations. Even the Meteorological Office’s renowned centre for climate study, in Devon, faces Westminster cuts.
Electioneering recently, Labour First Minister Jack McConnell and LibDem Deputy First Minister Nicol Stephen proclaimed Scottish science as important, promised funds for Scotland as a ‘science nation’, and stressed climate change. This was hypocrisy, given their Lab-LibDem coalition’s inaction on CEH cuts and on Aberdeenshire’s motion.
The e-petition to 10 Downing Street is at
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/cehclosure/
Adam Watson,
Crathes.
Editor’s note: Dr Watson BSc, PhD, DSc, DUniv, CBiol, FCEH, FIBiol, F Arctic Institute of North America, FRSE, retired in 1990 and is an emeritus scientist (unpaid) at CEH Banchory.