Whilst I recognise that Cardiff University must be free to choose which areas of research they should concentrate on, I fear that this decision to dismantle the Wales Heart Research Institute is a public relations disaster. Those who responded to the Have a Heart campaign had every right to assume that their modest contribution would be permanently strengthening and understanding an effective treatment of heart disease, which remains, as Julie Morgan has outlined, one of the primary causes of premature death in this country, if not the cause. I have many eminent cardiologists amongst my constituents, and I pay tribute to their work helping to save the lives of people struck down by heart disease.

I fear that the death of the WHRI may be a casualty of the research excellence framework, the process by which all universities’ research output is judged at the moment. This has led to the industrial production of research papers, many of them read by no-one, and of no value whatsoever in terms of the impact on human knowledge or measurable outcomes. This is something that we probably ought to come to in a much larger debate. Cardiff is not alone in this rating chasing, but I fear that this medic-forward exercise may have had the opposite effect.

I note that the British Heart Foundation briefing that was prepared for this debate talks about the drop in university ratings, as the attraction of students and clinical academics to Cardiff is reduced, and potential BHF-funded posts cannot be accepted because the university has decided not to support cardiology. I do not know whether it is possible to rectify this mistake, but it is certainly something that the Cardiff University leadership needs to consider.