Burnham ally urges chancellor to reverse physics cuts

High-profile scientist Brian Cox and Steve Rotheram, a close ally of prime minister Andy Burnham, have backed a call to urge the chancellor to reverse swingeing funding cuts to UK physics and astronomy facilities ahead of the latest Budget.

Rotheram, Liverpool City Region mayor, and Cox, a professor at the University of Manchester, have signed a letter imploring the chancellor to use the Budget on 28 October to “provide the funding necessary to avert these cuts”.

The letter, coordinated by the trade union Prospect, warns that if they go ahead as planned, the cuts will cause “lasting and potentially irreparable damage to the UK’s science capability”.

The cuts, implemented to deal with spiralling costs at the Science and Technology Facilities Council, should be averted “pending a full economic impact assessment, so that this issue can be reassessed in the next Spending Review,” the letter says. 

Prospect warns that the cuts to the STFC – and cuts more widely across environmental science funded by UK Research and Innovation – are incompatible with Burnham’s aim for the UK to become an “innovation nation”.

Sue Ferns, senior deputy general secretary of Prospect, which represents STFC and UKRI staff, said: “The chancellor and prime minister have set an admirable ambition to be an innovation nation but seem to have completely overlooked the catastrophic damage these proposed cuts will [do] to our capability in this area.”

Cuts at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire are “the tip of the iceberg” Prospect writes.

Many of the facilities most at risk, such as Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, Boulby Mine in Yorkshire and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Diamond Light Source in Harwell, are key local employers and support cutting-edge research and innovation in their local economies, the letter says. 

Rotheram worked closely with former Manchester mayor Burnham when they were both in charge of big cities in the north-west. The pair recently appeared together on the hit Channel 4 show Gogglebox, prompting mixed reviews.

Catherine Heymans, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and Jim Wild, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, also backed the letter.

The “potentially irreparable damage” has started with UKRI’s decision to pull funding for the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements, Prospect warns.

Ferns said: “These cuts were announced under the previous prime minister with no economic impact assessment and will be a clear barrier to growth, research capability, and our intellectual standing in the world which is already being questioned”

She added that “as well as seeking growth, the Budget is a clear chance to show that this country is still serious about leading the world in science.”

frances.jones@timeshighereducation