Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to tackle inequalities in research funding allocated to different forms of cancer.
As with other Government funders of health research, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) does not allocate funding for specific disease areas. The level of research spend in a particular area, is driven by factors including scientific potential and the number and scale of successful funding applications.
The NIHR’s cancer research expenditure has risen from £101 million in 2010/11 to £132 million in 2018/19. This constitutes the largest investment in a disease area.