Dr Danny Chambers

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden) on securing the debate. His absolutely fantastic speech got everyone really enthusiastic, riled up and excited about supporting science. One reason I am here is that the Winchester Science Centre is not just the biggest indoor attraction in Hampshire, but the UK’s largest stand-alone planetarium, and it has 185,000 visitors a year. I am so pleased to have it in my constituency, because science has given me the most wonderful career. I look back on the amazing things I have done because I studied science at school and took science A-levels. I have worked in Africa studying how to improve cattle production by making them more resistant to a protozoan parasite spread by the tsetse fly called trypanosomiasis, trying to create more cattle genetically resistant to that disease. I have worked in Iraq, India, all over the UK and New Zealand, simply because I studied science at school. It is the most exciting, enabling subject to study. Growing up on a farm, loving animals and loving science at school, I naturally went down the veterinary route, but my first love in science was astronomy. On the farm in Devon where I grew up there was little light pollution and the stars were incredible. I could name every constellation from the age of eight. The reason I am so moved to speak about this subject today is that the single most exciting trip we made when I was at primary school was to a planetarium. That fired up my love of science, and then watching “Star Trek” and nature documentaries while growing up on a farm shaped my world view and career trajectory. When I was a teenager, I had a favourite magazine. [Laughter.] I should probably clarify that it was New Scientist. To be asked a few years ago to write a few articles from a veterinary perspective for New Scientist was an ambition fulfilled. When I look back on those visits to science centres and planetariums, I wonder how many people got into science because of stars and dinosaurs. It sounds like a cliché, but they bring science to life for everyone, especially children. They help them realise what an exciting subject science can be, opening their eyes not only to studying science for a career, but to better understanding our place in the world and the importance of conservation.