Any lingering hopes scientists may have had that the Office of Science and Technology would make a hasty move from the Department of Trade and Industry to a more central role under Labour were crushed this week as Lord Simon of Highbury, minister of state in the DTI, said the government had no plans to relocate the OST. Perhaps the Commons Science and Technology Committee's soon-to-start inquiry into the government's scientific advisory system, and particularly into whether the structure is the best way of getting scientific advice to government, may not see it quite that way.