PROPOSED CLOSURE OF THE NUCLEAR STRUCTURE FACILITY, DARESBURY

That this House notes with deep concern reports of the possible closure of Britain's experimental Nuclear Structure Facility at Daresbury, Warrington, with the loss of 150 jobs, because of a funding crisis at the Science and Engineering Research Council; agrees with the many leading universities who have protested against this move that the closure of the Nuclear Structure Facility would be a serious blow to British science, leaving much vital research work unfinished, terminating important collaborative research projects, damaging the reputation of British science abroad and leading to the premature termination of work on one of the world's most successful particle accelerators; supports the view of the former Prime Minister, the Right honourable Member for Finchley, who wrote last July that the Facility `. .. is at the frontiers of research in several fundamental areas' through `exciting projects' like the Anglo-French Eurogam programme, which is now threatened; calls upon the Science and Engineering Research Council not to take any irrevocable action until all available scientific and financial options have been fully examined; and asks the Secretary of State for Education and Science to intervene to save the Facility by providing extra funding as required.