Scientists have dismissed the government's latest cash boost for the sector.

They pointed out that the £10 billion in funding announced yesterday will be spread over three years and had been announced last July.

However, Robert Jackson, the former Tory science minister who defected to Labour in January, claimed yesterday that his old party still saw science as "just another lobby".

"The basic problem with the Conservative approach is a philosophical one, the failure to understand the critical importance of science, of university research and development, to a modern knowledge-based economy," he said.