Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how the National Institute for Health Research will identify patients with severe intractable epilepsy to use as a placebo in research into the safety and clinical efficacy and effectiveness of cannabis-based products for medical use in humans.

To stimulate research proposals, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has issued two calls for research into cannabis-based products for medicinal use and has taken steps to advertise the call to all manufacturers interested in supplying the United Kingdom market.

The NIHR also remain open to the submission of proposals outside of these specific calls. Proposals made to NIHR are assessed for scientific rigour, which will include the design of the trials, before funding is allocated to the applicants.

The process for selecting people for inclusion in any trials will be determined by the researchers and will be dependent on the study design used in the trial.