Brain Tumours

Lord Allan of Hallam Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (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.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (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?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (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.