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Britain's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), currently planning to close its food research laboratory in Norwich, decided 16 months ago that such a move would be detrimental to its scientific activities, according to an internal document released by a member of parliament.

That decision, concerning the Norwich branch of MAFF's Central Science Laboratory, was made in December 1996 following the ‘prior options’ review of the government's ownership and management of its laboratories.

A document dated February 1997 describing the decision was released this month by Charles Clarke, Labour Member of Parliament for Norwich South as part of a campaign to thwart renewed plans to close the Norwich laboratory and ‘rationalize’ MAFF's food research at a single complex in York (see Nature 392, 319; 1998).

Clarke argues that the government will be contradicting its own conclusions if it goes ahead with the closure. A MAFF spokesman declines to comment on the statement as the document was written “before our time”. But he says that no formal decision has been taken on whether the laboratory will close.

Clarke quotes from the statement in an 18-page letter to the agriculture secretary, Jack Cunningham, urging him not to relocate the 137 staff at the laboratory to a new £133 million (US$222 million) research complex in York.

Clarke has asked more than 50 questions in parliament in the past few weeks, partly in an attempt to draw public and political attention to the issue.

Richard Packer, MAFF's permanent secretary — its senior civil servant — is proposing the move to help fill unused space at York, as the ministry has to pay for unused space under a new government accounting system. In his letter, Clarke says Packer's advice appears rooted in “a desire to justify retrospectively the decision to build the [York] laboratories, rather than a desire to increase the quality and integrity of food research”.

The 1997 statement says that, despite potential cost savings, the laboratory should stay in Norwich to retain its research contracts and sustain its cooperation with the Institute of Food Research, operated by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Both laboratories are based in the Norwich Research Park, along with the John Innes Centre.

The Norwich food research laboratories account jointly for around one-third of Britain's food research funding — three times more than the next largest recipient. According to unofficial estimates, fewer than half of Norwich's 109 scientists are likely to relocate to York should the move take place.

But the proposed move has put the main researchers' trade union, the Institute for Professionals, Managers and Scientists, in a difficult position. The institute represents scientists at both York and Norwich. One union member says it intends to keep a low profile as “we do not want to pitch scientist against scientist”.