Another day, another drama. This time Sir Patrick Vallance is in the limelight, after attacking Brexit on the BBC. The new science minister – and former scientific adviser to the government – has given a rather curious interview this afternoon in which he has slammed the decision to leave the EU and refuses to rule out free movement. Golly.
Speaking to the Beeb today, the new peer started by telling his interviewer he was ‘surprised’ but ‘honoured’ to be asked to be the science minister by Sir Keir Starmer. The conversation then took a rather, um, bizarre turn.
Turning to the ‘problem’ of Brexit, Vallance said that visa rules should be eased for researchers, and added that UK needs to be part of an ‘international’ science community. Sarah Montague quizzed the new minister on the upcoming G7 science meeting in Bologna. ‘How do you think that the United Kingdom is faring relative to other countries?’ she asked.
PV: Well we’re really good at science but we need to be part of an international science community. People need to know the UK is open for science partnerships.
SM: How much did Brexit set us back then?
PV: Brexit was definitely a problem for science. We were part of a very successful European funding scheme with very large collaborations, right the way across Europe which took a setback. And we had to leave that scheme and getting back into it has been a big achievement and I’m really pleased we are back in it.
SM: So would you be pushing the Prime Minister to make a much closer relationship with other EU countries, even if it comes at the cost of perhaps making concessions on free movement?
PV: You can’t do the type of science that everyone’s trying to do and make progress in isolation. You need brains that come with other backgrounds, other thought processes, other training.
SM: And do you need a more benign visa regime? All the rules have just been tightened, that’s the direction of travel. Is UK science going to suffer as a result of that?
PV: We know there’s an impact of the difficulty of some of those schemes so that means that there is an opportunity there to make this easier again for people who do come into do contributions to scientific knowledge creation and indeed companies. We’ve just got to be realistic about how we do that. We need to be as competitive as other countries in terms of attracting that talent.
Oo er. Mr S isn’t quite sure that’s the line the Labour lot would have signed off on…
Listen to the clip here:
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