Science has been reduced to a “political bargaining chip” in government, according to MPs (Telegraph, BBC News).

In a report by the House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills (IUSS) committee, MPs say science should be at the heart of government, with a permanent home in the Cabinet Office, where it would be able to influence policymaking in all government departments. Instead science is “shuffled” between different departments, reports the Telegraph.

The committee, chaired by Liberal Democrat MP, Phil Willis, adds that the role of scientific advice should be strengthened in Whitehall and recommendations made through this process should be available to the public.

“Scrutiny of policy must be strengthened,” says Willis (BBC News).

The long-standing principle that decisions about how to spend research funds should be made by researchers rather than politicians is “dead and out of date”, Willis adds (Times Higher Education).

The Times Higher Education reports Willis saying that the Haldane principle is not “set in a tablet of stone”, and that the government should make its rational for funding decisions more “open and transparent”.