Fighting to retain PHE at Porton Down

During the next six weeks, I look forward to spending more time in the constituency, meeting constituents and preparing for a course I will be starting at the Royal College of Defence Studies in September – alongside officers who are due to move into the most senior ranks of the armed services.

I will also be working on the draft report of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hunger and Food Poverty which will come out later this year.

However, before heading back to Wiltshire, I had to deal with the latest episode in the debate over the future of Public Health England (PHE) at Porton Down.

Despite “bobbing” throughout Prime Minister’s Question Time for the past two weeks I was not called.

The issue I did raise later with the Secretary of State for Health was whether the business case that the PHE Board wish Ministers to sign off on – to move most of the facilities at Porton to a new “single science hub” in Harlow – is in the best interests of the life sciences sector in the UK as well as the right decision for PHE.

I have been engaged in conversations with the board for four years and I am highly suspicious the business case they are presenting was written to justify an intention they had from the outset – that is why the project was renamed the Single Science Hub project two years ago – from Project Chrysalis – an evaluation of how to upgrade the Porton facilities.

I look forward to continuing to lobby ministers and have been working closely with Alex Tregellas – the chairman of the Salisbury Vision board – to convey concerns over the disruption to the Wessex Life Sciences Hub that is rapidly gaining traction in this region.

It is not logical to me – how can the Government say Porton deserves taxpayers’ investment to help propagate a science park to bring new jobs to the region one day and then the next day, in another Whitehall department, conclude that Porton is not the best place to conduct trans-lational research? I look forward to getting an answer soon.