Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the reply by Lord Faulks on 9 December (HL Deb, col 1710), what evidence they have for the assertion that a lack of good research proposals is deterring research into mesothelioma and that there are no problems concerning availability of funding.

The Medical Research Council (MRC) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) have been receiving high quality research applications in mesothelioma. The Government is implementing a package of measures to stimulate an increase in the volume of applications and funded research in mesothelioma.

In the last five financial years (2009-10 to 2013-14) the MRC has received 10 applications for grants or fellowships that relate to research on mesothelioma. Of these 10 applications four were successful resulting in a success rate of 40%. This is higher than the overall success rate for applications to the MRC which during the same period has been between 20% and 25%.

In the last five financial years, 11 applications relating to mesothelioma have been submitted to research programmes managed by the NIHR. Of these 11 applications four were successful resulting in a success rate of 36%. Success rates for NIHR-managed programmes are available on the NIHR website and are typically lower than 36%.