Department of Trade and Industry

I welcome the Minister to his new role. I shall endeavour to keep my comments brief, as I represent a rural constituency and the next debate will be of great importance to my constituents. I very much enjoyed listening to hon. Members’ measured tones, and I especially enjoyed the introduction of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). I also welcome the report. I am especially grateful for the inclusion of this sentence:"““We have argued that the phrase ‘evidence based policy’ is misleading and that the Government should therefore desist from seeking to claim that all its policies are evidence based.””" That is absolutely right, and I am delighted to see it in the report. I am sure that the new Minister will try to ensure that the Government take that advice. It has certainly been my experience that when a change in policy has been science based, the Opposition have not accused the Government of a U-turn. The example I have in mind is the decision that the Minister for the South West, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), took as an environment Minister to stop the reactive culling of badgers with tuberculosis, because the independent scientific group research showed that it was making the situation worse. Nobody criticised that decision: indeed, we welcomed it and it was the right thing to do, given the scientific evidence. Unfortunately the ISG did not go on to give the science-based evidence that Ministers need to make a decision on that biological problem, but it illustrates my point that Opposition parties will not jump on the bandwagon when the Government make a correct decision.