Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much funding his Department has made available to research the causes of child death in each of the last five financial years.

The information requested is not available. The Department funds research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the Department’s Policy Research Programme (PRP). Spend on research funded directly by the NIHR is categorised by Health Research Classification System (HRCS) health categories. There are no HRCS health sub-categories, and no category or sub-category for causes of child death.

The PRP is investing £7.9 million from April 2010 to December 2017 in the Policy Research Unit in Maternal Health and Care, which is based in the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford. The investment is funding a programme of research that includes research on infant deaths.