Decision on £3bn research centre due 'in weeks' - minister

Artist's impressions of how the public health labs planned for Harlow would look have been drawn up

There are calls for a serious review into plans to spend £3bn moving a research centre almost 90 miles (144 km) across England.

John Glen, Conservative MP for Salisbury, said plans to move the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) campus to Harlow, in Essex, rather than using its existing Porton Down site in Wiltshire was a "redundant" plan.

More than £39m has already been spent on proposals for Public Health England's new site, where scientists would study deadly pathogens, which are disease-causing microorganisms.

Health minister Ashley Dalton said the government would announce its decision "in a matter of weeks", with a commitment "to sorting this issue out once and for all".

Mr Glen, whose Salisbury constituency is home to Porton Down, told the Commons that "Porton has remained instrumental in delivering translational health research for our nation".

The UKHSA's £27m Robinson Building opened in Wiltshire in 2022, one of two facilities that made up a new £65m vaccine evaluation centre during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Glen said this decision "reinforced" his point and asked why such a "significant" capital investment was made if the centre was to be moved to Harlow.

He called for a "serious review of what is going on here" and continued: "Effectively what we're doing is clinging, I think, to a redundant plan."

In 2015, HM Treasury approved Public Health England's outline business case for a new £530m national integrated hub for public health science.

Funding for the programme was used to purchase the Harlow site in 2017 and it was planned that both the laboratories and workforce from Porton Down and Colindale in London would be relocated there.

Thousands of new laboratory jobs were promised for Harlow by 2024 - but it is now anticipated competition of the site could take a decade

But the Commons Public Accounts Committee, which looks at whether Government schemes provide value for money, warned of "spiralling" costs, which had risen by more than 500% since 2015 - putting the price tag at more than £3bn.

Dame Meg Hillier, the committee chairwoman, said as time passes with no decision made, a "risk" of a gap in service for the UK's high containment public health laboratories service grows.

A report by the National Audit Office, in February, found failings to establish the new site had "undermined" the UK's future resilience to dangerous diseases.

'Over a decade'

Intervening in Mr Glen's speech, Chris Vince, Labour MP for Harlow, said: "We really want a decision on this particular, whether it's a move or not, because actually both our constituents are currently in limbo."

Responding, Ms Dalton told MPs that if the Harlow project continues "things will not happen overnight" due to rigorous scientific requirements.

She said: "[This] means that completion will take over a decade, and that's why we continue to invest in maintaining our current site and facilities at Porton Down."