Tories start to fill in the blanks in science policy

Adam Afriyie started to put some meat on the bones of Conservative science policy at the third debate between the main parties' science spokesmen last night.

He made a “personal commitment” to researchers that they would “get the resources you need”, though he added that the first priority of a Conservative government would be to fix the economy. “Until the deficit is under control, all public spending will be constrained,” he said.

Afriyie promised that the Tories would offer stable funding with a “multi-year” ring-fenced science budget. He did not say how many years it would be, but told me afterwards that it could be longer than the three years offered by the Labour government's comprehensive spending reviews. Afriyie also attacked the government's decision not to hold a CSR ahead of the election to set out its spending plans beyond 2011.

Both Paul Drayson, the science minister, and Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat science spokesman, said cuts to public spending – including the science budget – this year would be dangerous and risk a double dip recession. George Osborne, the Conservative shadow chancellor, plans to introduce an emergency budget within 50 days of the election, which would likely include deep cuts.

All three agreed that Labour had been generally good for science and research over the past decade, but Harris pointed out that talk of a doubling of the science budget was misleading. While the budget may have doubled, spending in real terms was only up 40 per cent, and was stuck at 1.8 per cent of GDP. “Science has only got its fair share,” he said.

Drayson called the upcoming election the most important choice the country had faced in a generation. Political exaggeration? Perhaps. But judging by the standing room only audience – many of them young scientists and first-time voters – it is an idea that at least the scientific community has taken to heart.