Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will increase funding for research into brain tumours.

The Department funds the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to increase the volume of applied health research for the benefit of patients and the public, drive faster translation of basic science discoveries into tangible benefits for patients and the economy, and develop and support the people who conduct and contribute to applied health research. NIHR cancer research expenditure has risen from £101 million in 2010/11 to £135 million in 2014/15 (the latest available figure). Most of this investment (£111 million in 2014/15) is in cancer research infrastructure where spend on specific disease areas such as brain tumours cannot be separated from total infrastructure expenditure. This infrastructure includes NIHR biomedical research centres and the NIHR Clinical Research Network.

The Government agrees that an increase in the level of brain tumour research is crucial in order to achieve better outcomes for patients and their families. Therefore, I will be convening a working group of clinicians, charities and officials to discuss how working together with our research funding partners, we can tackle the various issues raised by the brain cancer community to help increase the amount, and impact, of brain tumour research.