This issue looks forward to some of the subjects parliamentarians will be dealing with when they come back from their holidays in October.

Following the publication of the energy review, the white paper is expected around the turn of the year. Vanessa Spedding delineates the battle lines between the nuclear and renewables camps, while Colin Axon and his colleagues point to a little-remarked infrastructure problem. The UK grid was designed for a relatively small number of large power sources, not a large number of small distributed ones, they write, so it is not a straightforward matter to bring on-line large quantities of district- and domestic-scale generators. Nobody knows, they warn, how the grid will behave under those conditions.

Parliamentarians need scientific advice to legislate on these and other technical questions. November will see the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee publish its report, Scientific advice, risk and evidence: how government handles them. Already, the Committee has published the case studies on which the final report will be based. On drugs policy, Committee Chairman Phil Willis is highly critical of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, whose behaviour has ‘created fertile ground for suspicion and conspiracy theories’, as well as hindering public understanding of its role. Our new columnist, Tracey Brown, expands on the same theme, asking what constitutes scientific evidence in the first place. She argues that the status of scientific evidence is as important as its conclusions.

The problems parliamentarians face when they are advised by scientists are laid bare by John Bowis MEP.  He took part in a Royal Society-sponsored scheme for MEPs and scientists to visit and observe each other at work. By chance, he visited Mark Enright on the day when the MRSA deaths at Stoke Mandeville were hitting the headlines – an issue bang on Enright’s expertise. Reflecting on scientific advice, Bowis explains how the precautionary principle has won out over the idea of proportionality of risk. If a parliamentary committee has accepted advice from a scientific advisory body, but some other scientist questions the advice, the parliamentarians will, he says, ‘second guess the advice we have received and to go for tougher standards or restrictions than may be necessary.’

The UK is about to have a new body to see what is happening in science, engineering and technology, what might happen and how the political process should handle it. Ian Gibson outlines plans for his new think-tank, called Newton’s Apple. And amidst all this science and politics, the Conservative Party is re-thinking its science strategy, as Ian Taylor relates.

The SPATalk argues out the merits and demerits of nutrigenomics, the effect of the whole diet on our genes, proteins and metabolism. Its enthusiasts hope it will lead to personalised nutrition, while its detractors maintain it will do nothing to help poorer people who are at higher risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Wendy Barnaby, Editor

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