Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to
improve the scale of research into the causes and treatment of
brain tumours.
(Con)
My Lords, I am hugely grateful to the noble Lord for bringing
this challenge to my attention and pay tribute to the work that
he does on the APPG. We are working closely with research
partners. I am pleased to say that more research is being funded,
as we continue to encourage more researchers to become involved
in what remains a challenging scientific area with a relatively
small research community. I am confident that the Government’s
continued commitment to funding will help us make progress
towards effective treatment.
(Lab)
My Lords, this is a devastating disease and I welcome the
Government’s doubling of the £20 million grant for research to
£40 million in memory of my late friend . Unfortunately, of that £40
million, I understand that only about £8.8 million has so far
been allocated. Can the Minister assure me that that £40 million
fund will be ring-fenced purely for brain tumour research?
Secondly, will the National Institute for Health and Care
Research give proper feedback to researchers who have had their
projects rejected so that they can resubmit their applications
with more hope of success?
(Con)
I thank the noble Lord and pay my tribute to . I remember her final speech
in the House. It is one of the most moving speeches I have ever
heard; I recommend that noble Lords look it up on YouTube if they
missed it first time round.
Brain cancer poses major scientific challenges, requiring
investment in basic science through to applied and clinical
research. Progress is hard won but we are committed to finding
solutions. We want to fund high-quality research to benefit
patients. In the four years since the 2018 announcement of £40
million of funding, there have been 13 studies funded by the
National Institute for Health and Care Research, with £10.7
million of funding, compared with just six studies in the
preceding four years. We want to fund more, but this shows a
positive trend.
The department of NIHR continues to work closely with the Brain Cancer Mission to grow
capacity for brain cancer research. This means attracting new
researchers, developing the community and supporting researchers
to submit high-quality research funding proposals. As part of
this, the Brain Cancer Mission will host
a round-table event, with cross-party MPs participating to
discuss the future of brain tumour research with leaders in the
field. I extend an invitation to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to
attend this meeting, which will be held on 16 May.
(Con)
My Lords, I have three interests here. One is that my mother is
currently suffering from brain cancer in a hospice in Liverpool.
Secondly, I was successfully operated on 35 years ago for a brain
tumour. Thirdly, I am an officer of the APPG on Brain Tumours; I
was honoured to sit on the inquiry that produced the report,
Pathway to a Cure: Breaking Down the Barriers.
In the other place, the Minister, , said:
“I understand and share the frustrations that only a proportion
of the £40 million on brain tumour research has been
allocated”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/3/23; col. 510.]
Can my noble friend confirm that bureaucracy will not get in the
way of releasing funds for research, so that individuals and
families who are suffering know that every effort is being made
to find a cure for the deadly disease of brain cancer?
(Con)
I pay tribute to my noble friend and wish his mother well. I was
not aware of his fight with brain cancer 35 years ago. We are
very lucky to have him in this place—long may it continue.
The NIHR generally does not allocate funding for specific disease
areas or ring-fence. The level of research spend in a particular
area is decided by factors including scientific potential and the
number and scale of successful funding applications. In the four
full years since the 2018 announcement of £40 million of funding,
a commitment of £10.7 million has been spent on 13 studies,
compared with six in the preceding four years. We want to fund
more, but this represents a doubling of successful applications.
The Government are committed to this but are reliant on
good-quality projects being brought forward. I have spoken to my
right honourable friend the Minister and more than £40 million
will be allocated if the right projects come forward.
(CB)
My Lords, do the Government have any plans for further proton
beam therapy treatment centres, in addition to those in
Manchester and at UCL, with consistent government and ethics
research committee arrangements, so that the small research
community can also benefit from cross-border working with the
CUBRIC centre at Cardiff University, in which I declare an
interest?
(Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question; she shows her
expertise in such matters. The UK departments for cancer research
are jointly funding a network of 17 experimental cancer medical
centres across the UK, plus a network for children which is
dedicated to early-phase research into childhood cancers; we
invested a total of £36 million between 2017 and 2022.
(LD)
My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that the Government
are committed to supporting research into brain tumours affecting
children—in particular DIPG, which affects up to 40 children a
year and for which, sadly, there is still no effective
treatment?
(Con)
The Government are committed to trying to solve the problem of
childhood cancers. I am not aware of that specific case, but I
can assure the noble Lord that, as I said in my previous answer,
government research into childhood cancers will continue.
However, there is still a lot of work to do; as the noble Lord
well knows, this is a complicated and difficult subject to
follow. There is a small medical community looking into this
complicated disease, but the Government are doing all that they
can.
(Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the wonderful charities
that are undertaking important research into brain tumours,
including the Brain Tumour Charity and Brainstrust? Will he join
me in thanking the thousands of runners in yesterday’s London
marathon who raised such amazing amounts for charities such as
these? I believe that my noble friend was one of those
runners.
(Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. I was indeed running
the London marathon yesterday and took note of all the wonderful
cancer charities, including those that my noble friend mentioned,
as they were running past me—which is an indication of how slowly
I was going. They were going a lot quicker than I was. However,
the serious point is that the London marathon is a wonderful
British institution that raises millions of pounds for charity,
and an awful lot of cancer charities benefit from it.
(Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister and others in this House on
their efforts yesterday and pay tribute to the tireless work of
the Foundation. It deserves our
support for how it presses home the need for urgent improvements
in treatment research and training to combat the rising
devastation of brain cancer. However, while survival rates for
glioblastoma are shockingly poor, and the numbers are described
as an epidemic, this still is not enough for a business case to
encourage companies to test new drugs. How will the Government
encourage longer-term investment and action to develop new drugs,
and will the Minister act to increase the numbers in clinical
trials?
(Con)
I thank the noble Baroness, who is right to point out that the
number of people surviving brain cancer has not moved in recent
years. I assure her that the Government are doing all that we
can. The money is there. Working with the charitable
organisations, we must attract more projects and investigations
on this very complicated and difficult disease.
(CB)
My Lords, I refer to my registered interests. Is the Minister
content that there is sufficient investment in the basic
infrastructure to deliver clinical research in the NHS to ensure
that novel therapies to treat brain cancers can be evaluated in a
timely and efficient fashion, especially within the context of
the substantial challenges that the NHS is facing as it deals
with clinical backlogs?
(Con)
There is already a significant investment in people and
facilities for cancer research. The research infrastructure
supports brain tumour research studies, mainly in the NHS. This
infrastructure is instrumental in the delivery of research funded
by the NIHR, charities and others, so it is important in
supporting and building the research community. However,
resources are significant, and it is difficult to disaggregate
brain tumour spending and add to the £10.7 million that we have
already allocated.
(Con)
My Lords, it is very impressive to see the Minister at the
Dispatch Box after his efforts in the marathon.
All of us all in this House want to see progress in responding to
this hard-to-treat cancer. However, the Minister’s answers on
this topic are not that dissimilar to those that I would have had
to give when I was responding back in 2019. Can he go back to the
Question from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, go back to the
department and challenge civil servants on whether they are
giving the right feedback to researchers on how they can improve
their research proposals so that we can start taking research
forward and get the solutions for cancer patients who really
deserve progress on that research?
(Con)
I thank my noble friend, who is absolutely right to point this
out. Perhaps we can discuss this further at the round table next
month. Prior to these questions, I had a meeting and pressed the
government department officials on this to ensure that the money
is there. I am reassured that the money is indeed available if we
get a sufficient number of projects that will have a significant
impact on curing this terrible disease.
