Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to prioritise rare cancers research in the next round of National Institute for Health and Care Research funding allocations; and what proportion of the overall cancer research budget will be allocated to (1) brain, (2) liver, (3) stomach, (4) pancreatic, and (5) oesophageal, cancers.

Government responsibility for delivering cancer research is shared between the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation.

The Government will implement the Rare Cancers Act to make it easier for clinical trials on rare cancers to take place in England.

The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including rare cancers. Our approach to funding research is through open and fair competition and peer review to ensure that the highest-quality proposals, most likely to deliver real impact for patients, are funded without imposing financial targets or limits.

Welcoming applications on rare cancers to all NIHR programmes enables maximum flexibility both in terms of amount of research funding a particular area can be awarded, and the type of research which can be funded.