Committee to warn that vital research is suffering after funding freeze, sending it below that of industrial competitors

George Osborne will get a reprimand this week from an all-party committee over his handling of the country’s funding of science.

Britain’s £4.7bn science budget has been frozen in cash terms for the past five years and has slumped to a level well below that of most of our industrial competitors, including Germany and the US, MPs will warn.

The report, The Science Budget, by the Commons science and technology committee, is expected to argue that the erosion in funding is putting productivity and employment in the UK at serious risk.

First-class research is critical to innovation and industry in the UK and the chancellor should reverse the trend in current funding as a matter of urgency, the committee will argue.

At a time when Osborne is preparing to publish his comprehensive spending review, which could slash some departments’ funding by 40%, it is clear that he is on a collision course with many of his party’s MPs over his programme of proposed cutbacks.

Details of the committee’s report have yet to be published, but analysis of transcripts of its hearings by the Campaign for Science and Engineering (Case) make clear its members have become seriously alarmed about the state of science funding.

This point was recently stressed by Nicola Blackwood, a Conservative MP and the committee’s chairwoman, who said that during the hearings “many witnesses have expressed concern that total investment in research and development in the UK is historically low and falling”.

Blackwood pressed Jo Johnson, the minister for universities and science, to admit that this trend should be reversed and budgets increased. “That would ensure we retained our competitiveness internationally,” she added.

The science budget means that the UK spends only 1.7% of its gross domestic product on research. The OECD average is 2.4%, while the figure is 2.8% in the US and 2.9% in Germany. Only by restoring the science budget to the levels of the US and Germany the UK be prevented from losing competitiveness, the report is likely to warn.

However, such a move would require a fairly substantial rise in the science budget. Most observers expect that the deep cuts to be imposed elsewhere mean the best that scientists can hope for is another freeze.

That would be a disaster, said the physicist and science populariser Brian Cox. “If there is another flat cash settlement, realistically it is dire. That is not my opinion; it seems to be the unanimous opinion of the research councils,” Cox told MPs.

“Certainly, in my area, it is an absolute disaster. I would be extremely pessimistic if that happened.”

The budget is divided between research councils responsible for funding work in biotechnology, environmental studies, social policy, physics, astronomy and many other topics.

Much of the work is among the best in the world and Britain has won more Nobel prizes than any other nation, with the exception of the US. As Blackwood told MPs last month: “We are a science superpower.”

Robert Massey, deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society, said: “On 15 December, just after the spending review, Tim Peake, the UK’s first official astronaut, will fly into space for a six-month stint on the International Space Station.

Peake has been an enthusiastic ambassador for science and technology, working tirelessly with the UK Space Agency to take his message to UK schools and the public at large. But if the government does slash the science budget, how will this be received?”

Acting director of Case Naomi Weir agreed, saying: “Calling on the chancellor to increase investment in science isn’t special pleading by scientists, but is in the best interests of Britain.

“The spending review is this government’s opportunity to back warm words for science with real investment. Failing to do so would not only damage UK science, but be a missed opportunity to invest in the UK’s future.”