Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the (a) total cost and (b) cost to the public purse as a proportion of his Department's research budget is of departmental research into miscarriages in the last 12 months for which figures are available.

The Department commissions research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) which funds a range of research in maternal and neonatal health. In 2020/21, the NIHR’s programmes invested £2.8 million on research into miscarriage, including prevention. This includes a trial which aims to examine the effectiveness of progesterone to prevent miscarriage in women with early pregnancy bleeding. In 2020/21 the NIHR invested £39.7 million in research on reproductive health and childbirth, which includes miscarriage research. This accounts for 5% of the NIHR’s total research budget. Additionally, the NIHR’s Policy Research Programme funds a Policy Research Unit dedicated to maternal and neonatal health and care research, which has a research theme to address pregnancy loss, and perinatal morbidity and mortality.