Brain Cancer: Children
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ringfence protected funding for children's brain cancer research separate from wider cancer budgets.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
Government responsibility for delivering cancer research is shared between the Department for 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 Department of Health and Social Care invests almost £1.8 billion each year on research through the NIHR. Cancer is a major area of NIHR spending at £141.6 million in 2024/25, reflecting its high priority.
We are committed to furthering our investment in brain cancer research, including in children, and have already taken steps to stimulate scientific progress and build scientific capacity to do research on brain cancer.
As announced in the National Cancer Plan, investment in the NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium, co-funding of the Cancer Research UK Brain Tumour Centres of Excellence and other direct programmatic spend through NIHR funding streams totals a combined investment of £32.3 million since July 2024 and a total of £45.2 million since 2018, all of which is designed to accelerate brain cancer research, including in children. One of the Brain Tumour Centres of Excellence is specifically focused on children, seeking to transform the way that treatments for children with cancer are developed.
In addition, the NIHR’s wider investments in research infrastructure, namely research centres, which run studies, supported by dedicated staff and resources, leverages research funding from other donors and organisations. These NIHR investments in infrastructure are estimated to be £44.5 million between 2018/19 and 2024/25, enabling 298 brain tumour research studies to take place.
It is not the usual process of the NIHR to ringfence funds for research into specific conditions. However, the NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including brain cancer in children. 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.
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