Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much he has committed to spend on dementia research this year; and what steps his Department is taking to increase spending on dementia research.

The Government has committed to invest £375 million in neurodegenerative disease research over the next five years to fund projects into a range of diseases, including dementia. The usual practice of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is not to ring-fence funds for expenditure on particular topics. The NIHR and UK Research and Innovation rely on researchers submitting high-quality applications to access funding, therefore details of allocations in specific years are not currently available.

We will set out our ambitions for dementia research in the forthcoming dementia strategy. The strategy will set out our future plans for dementia in England and will be published later this year.