Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the findings of Asthma and Lung UK's report entitled Saving your breath, published in September 2023, if he will make it his policy to increase funding for respiratory research to £141 million per year by 2030.

The Department funds respiratory research through the National Institute for Health and care Research (NIHR). It is not usual practice for the NIHR to ring-fence a proportion of its budget for research into particular topics or conditions. The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including into respiratory conditions. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality. In all disease areas, the amount of NIHR funding depends on the volume and quality of scientific activity.