The basic aim of our Science and Technology policy is to encourage and promote research, development and application of science and technology which will:

• Increase knowledge and understanding
• Help to understand and address the major environmental threats such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity losses.
• Contribute to a better quality of life for all the peoples of the world.

So now reads the introduction to the Green Party of England and Wales’ science and technology policy.

At Spring conference last year we re-worked much of our health policy, removing references to homoeopathy and other ‘alternative medicines’, reversing the, frankly bizarre, opposition to embryonic stem-cell research and supporting an evidence-based approach to funding for treatments on the NHS. Somewhat under the radar, perhaps, we also required all medicines (real or imaginary) to clearly state their effects and ingredients. So that’ll be homoeopathy – ingredients: water. And, of course, we supported a free and properly funded national health service, publicly owned and publicly provided.

This year it was the turn of our science and technology policy section to face review and we made some, really quite substantial, progress, stripping out unnecessary detail and bluster and adding in policy which I think will actually attract us votes from the scientific community.

Long sections of policy on environmental and technology commissions were scrapped where those sections were felt to be too constraining and of too much detail to be of much use to use at this time. Similarly, specific lists of areas of research we support and the working of ethics boards were stripped back revealing a much clearer and leaner explanation of our beliefs. Much of the problem with the old policy was a tendency to give specific details that were often impractical and unnecessary, when the PSS (Policies for a Sustainable Society) should carry principles. (When we enter government we will have civil servants and advice from professional bodies to guide how best to formulate the precise structure of how those principles can be implemented, trying to pre-empt that process is often simply counter-productive.)

The tone of our policy has changed too, focussing on the positive things we belief science adds to our society and the ways government policy can help, rather than the constraints we need on put on the misuse of science, that we previously emphasised.

We recognise the value of science to society, and not just in terms of the narrow economic viewpoint that some other politicians seem to view it.

Research is a worthwhile activity in its own right. Scientific study must not be restricted to only that which is deemed likely to result in narrow short term economic benefit.
We value basic research and will ensure it is properly funded.
We will increase public spending on R&D to at least 1% of GDP.

Funding for science R&D is shockingly low in this country. We spend around .5% of GDP on public research and around 1.8% in total spending. Our total spending is 15th globally and well below both the government’s target of 2.5% and the EU target of 3%. Yet while other countries are investing in science we’re actually going backwards with cuts to revenue and capital spending. If anyone doubted that we are a party that values science and recognises its importance, I think our commitment to nearly double public spending should reassure them where we stand.

In fact, so committed to the importance of scientific knowledge are we, we’re passing policy to free that knowledge and make it available to as wide an audience as possible. Privately funded research at public institutions should be subject to freedom of information just as publicly funded research already is and we’ll encourage publicly funded research to be published in open access journals and offer additional funding to cover any additional costs to do so, so everyone has access to the latest research, not just those at institutions that can afford the subscriptions for the journals in which it is published.

On a similar theme, we’ll require professional bodies to put in place programmes to ensure equal participation from under-represented groups and a correction of any imbalances in their make-up. But unlike before, we no longer talk about “male-dominated hierarchies” and “closed sub-cultures”, taking a more open and positive approach. We’ll encourage the development of educational or promotional resources and activities for young people, and accept that current imbalances, however damaging, cannot be immediately altered by diktat. In the tutorials I teach (in physics), for example, it is normal for only around 30% of the class to be female, until that improves we cannot expect equal gender balance in staff and management.

Finally, we affirmed our support for the Haldane principle (that government can set strategic objectives but should leave which projects are funded to qualified research councils) and independent scientific advice. “We will ensure that scientific advisors to the government work in an environment of academic freedom and are able to always make recommendations free of political interference.” Not for us would be sacking academics because they didn’t tell us what we wanted to hear about drug policy, for example.

Our policy has come a long way, but there are still improvements we can make. Amazingly we have no policy on libel reform anywhere in our policy documents, clearly an oversight which needs addressing. Sadly it was felt that policy proposed to conference this year was not sufficiently clear or well enough written and it was referred back to policy committee for improvement prior to adoption. Hopefully that will be addressed at our next conference in the Autumn.

Policy continues to support “a moratorium on the release of GMOs into the environment and on importation of food and feed containing GMOs” pending further research into the effects on the environment, health and animal welfare. Green party policy does not, however, oppose the use of GM technology in principle or ban lab based research and development. Indeed policy explicitly states that “genetic engineering may be benign and may lead to enhanced quality of life”. While an amendment removing our call for a blanket moratorium on field trials did not pass, our current policy is actually more considered than is sometimes recognised and I’m sure this is a section of policy that will be revisited in future.

But overall, I think we’ve turned a corner, we now have a science policy I’m not scared to show to my friends. In fact it’s yet another area of policy I’ll be actively advertising to them come the next election.

Our Fringe
OK so I said it wasn’t just about us having our own fringe, but I really do think it’s going to be a good one. Where we see ourselves within the anti-cuts movement and how we can best oppose the extreme right-wing policies currently being imposed on the UK really are the most important questions we face today. I think we’ve got a great panel of speakers to debate our answers to those questions, and we’ll hopefully be providing some form of refreshments too.

Young Greens
The Young Greens have had a great year so far, increasing their membership by 40% in just two months!. This conference they’ll be hosting two sessions: one debating our internal structure that might be more for insiders and a second on “Culling the Cuts Doctrine”, which, I believe, will focus more on practical action to oppose cuts, where our own fringe might take a rather broader view. Both the YG fringe the the BG one should be good, and hopefully they’ll complement each other, there’s certainly a lot to discuss.

Science Policy Paper
In policy terms the big news at this conference is the review of the science and technology section of the PSS (Policies for a Sustainable Society – the party’s democratically decided policy document). We’ve faced criticism in the past for some of policies that have appeared ‘anti-science’, I think we’ve come a long way in the last year or two though, and I’m confident that come May we’ll have a set of policies which will not only stand up to external scrutiny but actually attack us a lot of votes.

Last spring conference we fixed our health policy to remove support for homoeopathy and to back evidence supported treatments (and defend a publicly funded and publicly provided NHS). This year we’ll hopefully back higher public funding for science and technology R&D, protecting jobs in universities and undercutting corporate control at the same time. We’ll ensure funding is long-term and that there is money both to build facilities and to run them, so we don’t see the ridiculous situation we’ve faced recently where newly completed projects are threatened before they’ve even been used. We’ll support open access research and freedom of information making science more accessible and available to everyone. We’ll support the Haldane principle that government can set strategic priorities but shouldn’t try to micro-manage which individual projects to fund and back complete independence for scientific advice; government needs good quality advice from scientists and academics always need to be free to speak their minds without fear of reprisal.

This conference is where our science policy goes from being something many of us try to avoid talking about and becomes something that attracts votes from the thousands of people across the country disappointed and angry at the Lib Dem, Labour and Tory attacks on education and scientific advice.

Jim’s panel
Fellow Green blogger Jim Jepps is also running a session at conference, though rather more prestigious than our own. He has his own panel session on “The Economic situation in the UK” on Sunday afternoon. Conference programme doesn’t say if anyone else is on that panel so maybe it’s just Jim lecturing us for an hour and a half on economics, I certainly hope so.

Neal Lawson, John Harris and Richard Grayson
And on those still around on Monday we have what, for me, looks like the possibly the best session of conference. Neal Lawson, chair of Compass, John Harris, of the Guardian, and Professor Richard Grayson, head of the politics department at Goldsmiths, former Director of Policy of the Liberal Democrats and former Director of the Centre for Reform will be joining Rupert Read, Green Party councillor in Norwich and reader in philosophy at UEA to discuss “The Challenge of Political Plurality”. It should be fascinating.

I’m sure there are going to be lots of other great sessions throughout the weekend and of course today we have the Leaders’ speeches from Caroline and Jake. I can’t wait.

First of all, science. This is one area where, as has been well pointed out, a lot of people who might otherwise support us have a real problem, myself included. Fortunately, it looks like this might soon be changing. This conference we’ll be voting to begin a full review of our science policy and, in a separate motion, to remove the embarrassing and patronising policy we currently have requiring all scientists and technologists to take an oath to respect the Earth.

As was pointed out during the workshop before the vote, we don’t require bankers to pledge not to ruin the economy, or politicians, or, indeed, any other profession. Singling our scientists and technologists in this way, which would not, in fact, have any real effect in reducing harmful practices, makes us look anti-science, it undermines our efforts to promote understanding of and defend climate science and it puts people off. At a time when the other parties are attacking academic research, through cuts and the IMPACT agenda, when the top ten Tory bloggers don’t believe in man made climate change, we should be the natural home of scientists. But one or two policies put people off, they give a misleading impression of our attitude to science and offer the media and our opponents an easy stick with which to beat us.

Fortunately, as I write this, we’ve just voted overwhelmingly to remove that pledge. It’s a good start. We voted without any opposition to begin the review of science policy too and hopefully we’ll bring something more consistent, more sensible and more appealing to the science community to conference in the Autumn or next Spring. And hopefully it’ll pass just as easily as the two motions this conference.

Of course, science isn’t the only area of policy we’re looking at this year. Yesterday we also voted to pass a maximum wage. No person could earn more than ten times that of the lowest paid employee (pro rata) in any company. We’d also ban bonuses larger than the yearly pay of the lowest paid in the company. A factor of 10 seems a reasonable differential to me. One concern, however, raised during the debate as a reason to refer the motion back for further work, might be that if implemented at a company level lower paid workers could simply be contracted out, or a company even split into two, one for the workers and one for the management. A national maximum wage, calculated against the national median or mean wage, might, therefore, be more sensible. That view didn’t prevail though. Darren Johnson, London AM, told us he hadn’t supported previous proposals for a national 100% income tax rate at some level but did, enthusiastically, support this motion. He told us we don’t need all the technical details in the MFSS (the English and Welsh party’s policy reference document), just broad principles. And, as Caroline Lucus told us in her speech this morning, the top 10% of the country are now have 100x the wealth of the bottom 10%. A maximum wage could go someway to reducing this inequality and might well prove popular in the current climate.

Emergency Motions!
Just the two emergency motions yesterday. Conference unanimously backed Billy Bragg’s campaign against bonuses at state-owned bank RBS and the BMA’s campaign against the commercialisation of our health service. As an amendment to that it was also noted that the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) have a similar campaign too.

So an exciting day one. Lots more motions today. I’ll try to keep you all up-to-date with what’s going on with those.