Health: Brain Tumours

Lord O'Shaughnessy Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I have had three meetings, particularly with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, which has been extremely constructive and brought with it clinical expertise, patient groups and policymakers. Together we have worked on a plan, which I articulated in my opening remarks. It has emerged that it is not a question of the quality of the research applications. The quality of research in this area is fantastic. The problem is that we need to have better basic science at the very early stage of the pipeline in order to guide the later operable research suggestions. That is why we have organised the workshops, are feeding back to the applicants in the previous round of research and are actively engaged in this area.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a patron of the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission. I thank my noble friend for his sincere engagement with the challenge of improving the quality of brain cancer research since my Oral Question last year. He has taken the bull by the horns and I think we have a plan that is going to make a difference. I wonder if he might also comment on the difficulties that medical charities, which are such an important part of the funding landscape, are having at the moment because of the Covid crisis. This particularly affects hard-to-treat cancers such as brain tumours. Are the Government willing to give more support to these charities to ride out the difficult times they face at the moment?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend alludes to a situation that is grave and concerning. Hundreds of millions of pounds have disappeared from medical research charity income, particularly through the closure of second-hand clothes shops, which provide an enormous amount of income for British medical research. I pay tribute to the massive contribution of medical research charities in trying to move forward the science of medical research. This is an area we are deeply concerned about, and colleagues at BEIS and the Treasury are actively engaged with it. My noble friend is right that this a knotty situation to solve that we need to look at very carefully indeed.