Westminster diary

摘要

Talk of a national energy research centre is in the air again. So I asked Prime Minister Tony Blair about the proposals, which I hear he and David King, the government's Chief Scientific Adviser, set great store by. Blair said the Department for Trade and Industry leads the field on this matter. Establishing such a centre was a key recommendation in last autumn's review - led by King - of government support for energy research. Like all recommendations in that review it was incorporated into a wider review of energy policy and published on 14 February by the Performance and Innovation Unit, which analyses major policy issues for government departments and designs strategic solutions. The government will set out its response to that report in a White Paper later in the year, said the Prime Minister.