Science and Discovery Centres (Funding)

I thank my hon. Friend. I will go even further and say that many of the societies—the Royal Society of Chemistry, with which he is affiliated, the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Biology and others—have put in a lot of effort, too. Working together, they could be part of an amalgam of people who are interested in this area. They just need to get into the same room and talk about such things, and see how much they will cost. I want to say something about cost. The report said that £750,000 was given to Ecsite-uk. As Members will know, I am hot on statistics these days and I am keen to find out how they are gathered. We really need an inquiry into how Government Departments use, or do not use, statistics. In this case, however, the first question is whether £750,000 is a big sum of money. It sounds like a lot to the paupers in the House of Commons, but, at the end of the day, when I consider the 100 centres that have a turnover of £100,000 to £200,000 a year, and the £43 million contributed by the Wellcome Trust, I start to wonder whether £750,000 really is big beer. Many centres fend for themselves much of the time. They do not have business expertise—I absolutely acknowledge that—because of the nature of their work. They need a lot of expertise and help. I do not want to go into all the stuff about business plans, dynamism and so on, but we all know that places can be turned around if the right people move in. There is expertise in the country, and the Government may have to think about how to keep such places going. We heard a bit about the Scottish model. Actually, I am getting bored with Scotland. Everything seems to be better there these days, and I am down here. Mesothelioma is better treated in Scotland, I am told, and care for the elderly is better, but then I am told that that is because the English give Scotland so much money and that we will have to take some back because things are done better there. I have never heard such nonsense in my life. There is a different attitude in those places and in centres to handling some of the problems with drugs and so on in the health arena. I and, I am sure, members of the Select Committee have looked at the position around the world. It is absolutely amazing how some of the centres in the United States get money together with some local help and, of course, help from private sources. One that I have looked into in detail is in Birmingham, Alabama. The US seems to have centres everywhere. I do not know whether there is a correlation with the excellence of their research, but I would bet that many young people who eventually end up doing research, making discoveries and running businesses started off by getting that first touch of interest and enthusiasm by going around centres such as that one, which happens to specialise in dinosaurs. Dinosaurs seem to fascinate young people—we have the Natural History Museum, which is also full of them. We could have such centres if we had support from individuals and organisations right across the country. I am not too happy with the Government's attitude, which suggests that science centres are not as important as museums or galleries, that they are separate and that we really should not support them. They refuse to have a Department with responsibility for them. I think that we should have a Minister with responsibility for science and discovery centres, in the same way that we have Ministers for museums, charities and so on. Ministers are always fighting about getting out of one part of Whitehall and into another. We need to grasp the nettle and start pushing for a Minister with the power to ensure that we get a national science centre. Science centres fit into the Government strategy, and we should make a louder noise about them. I hope that the Government will recognise that there is a strong case for their being part of the education process. This is where it starts, and where it finishes will depend on how well we start.