Interview with Andrew Miller MP

Andrew Miller is a Labour MP and the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee. He has a long history of involvement with science in Parliament, having served on the Science and Technology Committee from 1992 to 1997 and as a member of the Board of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology from 1993 to 1997, which he rejoined in 2010. He is Chair of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, a group that enables liaison between Parliamentarians, scientific bodies, science-based industry and the academic world.

When you were elected in June last year as Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, you stated that you would like to see the Committee focusing attention on improving public understanding of some of the challenging scientific issues facing us today. What are some of the challenges that you are facing?

“My real concern has been the lack of ownership over this important issue. Since I was elected, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to the different people involved, in Government, academia, the science industry, the learned societies and the trade bodies. I’ve been trying to get everyone to realise that this is not just Government’s problem – it’s their problem as well. In fact, it’s society’s problem.

“In order to get more people involved in science and informed about science, we need to be working together – a lot of problems could be solved this way. For example, I was really worried about the risks to the National Schools’ Observatory extending out of the decision of the Science and Technology Facilities Council to cut back its funding of telescopes, one of which is made accessible to school students. These are facilities that have inspired thousands of young people at primary and secondary level, and they are immensely important.

“Similarly, the Catalyst Science Discovery Centre is at risk as we speak. It was set up by industry to help improve young peoples’ understanding. It has public money through the regional development agency and the local authority – neither of which can continue funding it. Now, industry is not doing enough to save it. Again, this is an issue of ownership and working together – the left hand not talking to the right hand. I was pleased recently that Unilever wrote a small cheque, but if all of the other companies did the same thing, the problem would disappear. This shouldn’t be difficult – these amounts of money make a massive difference to the facilities, but are petty cash for some of these companies.

“What we need is a strategy for supporting these kinds of facilities.”

Why is public understanding of science important in public involvement and dialogue about science?

“Firstly, the public are entitled to be involved – that’s their right. As is true in any subject, the more informed people are, the more they want to be involved. They are aware of the issues and more confident about their own views.

“However, if you’re dealing with some of the complex issues that engender a public response – say, nuclear safety or the ethics of stem-cell research – it’s essential that they are discussed at an informed level rather than at tabloid level, which we so often see.

“Public understanding doesn’t need to be a barrier and it’s certainly no excuse for not engaging with the public. These are not issues that are so esoteric that people can’t be helped to understand them. For example, there’s been some excellent physics-based programmes, such as those by Brian Cox, which have grappled with things that are on the boundaries of science and philosophy, and yet it’s communicated in a way that a lay person who wants to, can understand it. With this kind of understanding we can start to have some of those really important public debates, not only about science ethics but also about science funding.”

The Big Society and the Localism agendas both suggest devolving some decisions to local government and local people. What do you see as the challenges and opportunities for science engagement?

“As I understand it, the Big Society is about people having more control over things that are closer to them and impact their lives. When it comes to science, this will only work if the first level of the process happens – public understanding and conversation. Otherwise you’ll end up with a series of ‘nimby’ reactions, particularly when it comes to local developments in science and technology. People will just say ‘I’m not having that here because it might be dangerous.’

“In my constituency, I have seen exactly this happening in the case of planning applications for a waste management plant. The power is to be generated on the plant by burning the final waste stream, but because the developer unfortunately called this an incinerator in the planning application it created a massive public reaction. I had almost 500 letters about it, which is an enormous number, just because a handful of people ran a story that it might be bad for their health. Now, if the Big Society results in knee-jerk reactions affecting planning, it isn’t going to work. This is particularly true given stronger local control over planning in the Localism Bill.”

Who are the partners needed to drive forward science communication and engagement?

“Science-based companies need to be an important player and I think could be doing a lot more. It’s in their interests to promote engagement in science and further public understanding. Whenever an issue arises in my own constituency, such as public concern over air quality, I tell the chemical companies involved ‘don’t just whinge that the public don’t understand the issues involved, get out there and talk to them. Invite people to the site to see what it is you do and why it’s important.’

“Every science-based company should ensure that the public understands the relevance of what they’re doing as part of their corporate social responsibility.

“There’s also a role for academic institutions. Some institutions used to take the view that ‘our job is to improve the knowledge of future scientists, not the riff raff outside.’ I think that’s a dated position and it’s organisations like Sciencewise-ERC that have helped to make that unacceptable.

“In my constituency we’ve got a network of very successful liaison committees with local chemical plants – these are hugely important and that kind of thing needs developing. I would actually make it a requirement of every research grant that the researcher should seek to communicate to the broader public the relevance of the work he or she is undertaking, both at school and at adult level. “There has been a positive move in recent years to accept that. There are very few science courses now that have no element of public engagement and that’s a great success.

“Although all these actors need to take responsibility, Government also has a big role. Importantly, when allocating resources, it needs to make sure resources are available for the fundamental job of science and the parallel one of communicating and engaging people.”

What do you think the challenges will be for science communication and engagement over the next 5 years?

“The biggest one will remain the justification for some of the big science projects. People get ever so excited, and justifiably so, about the outcomes of projects like space missions, but if you say to the public ‘would you like us to build a rocket or build this hospital’, you know what the answer will be.

“But you can’t run a sophisticated country without making those investments. It’s hugely important that, in engaging with the public, we talk about the relevance, particularly of blue-sky research – people see so much money going into things like CERN and of course they ask why. There’s an intellectual argument in the favour of the advancement of knowledge, but also one expects other spin offs from projects like this that, ultimately, will improve our quality of life.

“Another challenge is going to be that, as more and more of those big projects are internationalised, different countries will be dipping their hand deeper in their pockets than others. And, proportionally, we’ll be contributing quite a lot – that’s going to be a hard conversation to have with the public.

“The reason is that Britain’s future is going to be driven economically by working close to the leading edge. And you only succeed in that if you invest in the leading edge - both within academia and within industry. Helping people (and, indeed politicians!) understand this is going to remain enormously important over the next years.”