Fera deal informed by failure of Forensic Science Service closure, MPs told

The UK government used its experience of lab privatisation and closure failings in drawing up the part-privatisation of the Food and Environment Research Agency, a junior minister has said. The venture will hire some 50 additional scientists but may cut back-office staff, he added.

Rupert Ponsonby, the parliamentary undersecretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), told a meeting of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on 25 February that the government was “conscious of the failure” of the closure of the Forensic Science Service, and that this informed its efforts to part-privatise Fera. 

Stephen Metcalfe, the Conservative MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock and a member of the committee, said there had been no strategy behind the closure of the FSS by the government in 2012, as highlighted in a report by the National Audit Office in January.