Blake Stephenson, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire joined world-leading researchers in Parliament to receive rapid-fire briefings on pressing policy issues, including AI, climate change, the environment and healthcare.
Blake spoke to researchers from Sense about Science on effective risk communication strategies for flood alerts and to researchers from Rothamsted Research on the consequences of flooding in agricultural fields, because of its importance in Mid Bedfordshire.
Evidence Week in Parliament brings together MPs, researchers, and the public to discuss how evidence is used to make policy decisions, and how it is scrutinised by parliament.
Blake Stephenson, MP for Mid Bedfordshire said: "Flooding has devastated communities in Mid Bedfordshire and that's why I've been working hard locally and in Parliament to push for more work to be done to prevent flooding and ensure a better response to flooding tin the future.
"Attending Evidence Week to hear from world-leading researchers on the latest research into flooding was a really welcome opportunity to continue that work and understand more about the issues impacting flooding."
Westminster’s annual Evidence Week is organised by the charity Sense about Science and the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST) and sees MPs meet with leading scientists to get the latest insights on pressing issues covering topics as varied as housing, food supplies, energy, health and inequality. It opened on 20 January with a ‘reverse’ hearing livestreamed from Parliament, with voters from across the country getting to ask the chairs of parliamentary Select Committees about the evidence behind legislation that affects them.
Tracey Brown, Director of Sense about Science, said: “Evidence matters to people, so Blake Stephenson‘s public commitment to evidence informed policy making will no doubt be welcome by the people of Mid Bedfordshire. The decisions made by parliament affect all aspects of our lives, so people rightly expect their MP to scrutinise policies and the evidence behind them – it is reassuring to see how many MPs have taken time to get up to speed on the latest research on the pressing issues of the day, from dealing with flooding to the implications of AI.”
A recent survey by Sense about Science and Ipsos found that:
- The public are not confident that MPs are equipped to question the government about evidence on polices, including the use of AI (66%), Climate change (64%), Healthcare (61%), Energy policy (59%) and the economy (58%) (proportion not very confident or not at all confident).
- 74% think it is important the government shows all the evidence used to make important policy decisions (up from 66% in 2023 and 61% in 2022).
- Most people think politicians pay too little attention to evidence (62%, up from 51% in 2023 and 53% in 2022).
The week also includes training sessions for parliamentary staff to better handle research evidence and data, provided by ONS, Ipsos, OSR and FullFact. Now in its 7th year, Evidence Week was launched in response to the public’s interest in policy evidence, with community groups and individuals wanting to know the justification for everything from rules on standing at football matches to which green technologies are subsidised. It builds on established research and information work in Parliament by POST and the Commons and Lords Libraries to support greater use of evidence by parliamentarians, and has since been emulated in other Parliaments including the EU.
See https://senseaboutscience.org/evidence-week/ or download the full programme.
