Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press release entitled PM to announce new research and funding in drive to fight prostate cancer, published by the Prime Minister's Office on 10 April 2018, whether the £75 million for prostate cancer research funding will be ring-fenced and spent only on prostate cancer research; and whether there are plans to invite bids for research funding restricted to prostate cancer.

The £75 million announced in April for prostate cancer research will be spent through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) over the next five years. This investment will continue to fund and support innovative new research within the NIHR’s research infrastructure, particularly the NIHR Biomedical Research Centres. It will also fund the NIHR Clinical Research Network to support delivery and recruitment into prostate cancer research and trials funded by partner research funders including charities; and fund prostate cancer research projects and trials under the NIHR research programmes such as the Health Technology Assessment programme.

High-quality research proposals on prostate cancer are welcome across all relevant NIHR funding streams. We anticipate that researchers will continue to submit such proposals. As with other Government funders of health research, the NIHR does not allocate funding for specific disease areas. The level of research spend in a particular area, such as prostate cancer, is driven by factors including scientific potential and the number and scale of successful funding applications.