Kew Gardens' £5m funding gap will be put in the spotlight at a special meeting of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.

The one-off evidence session will address announcements made by the Royal Botanic Gardens about the handling of its funding cut.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) previously announced it would cut £1.5m of funding to Kew Gardens which, combined with other financial pressures, would have left a £5m hole in its budget.

But in September, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg announced Defra would maintain its current level of funding until the end of the 2014/15 financial year. Funding beyond this date is currently unclear.

Managers at the Royal Botanic Garden, which welcomes about 2m visitors each year, previously said the hole in the budget could not be filled without losing a sixth of their staff.

The ability of Kew Gardens to maintain its reputation as an institution at the forefront of botany in the face of such cuts has been called into question by Paul Grafton, from the GMB union.

Mr Grafton said Kew faced "a significant threat to its future", with many of the projected job losses expected to be in the science directorate.

Andrew Miller MP, chairman of the science and technology committee, said: "Kew Gardens is a World Heritage Site and a world renowned centre for botanical research and like many government sponsored bodies is being asked to justify its funding and to look for possible cuts.

"We intend to look at the evidence behind Defra’s budget cuts, Kew’s response to that and the potential impact of both on Kew Gardens’ future as a research and education facility."

At the meeting, the committee will consider what makes Kew Gardens a pioneering institution in its field, whether the Government is failing in its duty to adequately resource a national heritage site and what Kew is doing to increase its commercial success and keep operational costs low.

Consideration will also be given to whether the reduction in funding from Defra was evidence based and focused on Kew's world class research status.

Richard Deverell, director of Kew Gardens, and Defra minister Lord de Mauley are both expected to attend the meeting on Wednesday, December 17.

The committee is not formally requesting written submissions, but people interested can email their views to scitechcom@parliament.uk.