G8 Summit on Dementia

Andrew Miller Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The all-party group on dementia recently produced a report on diagnosis. Shockingly, only about 42% of people get diagnosed, which leaves a massive diagnosis gap. The earlier people are diagnosed, the better their treatment and pathways.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on introducing the debate. I hope she will hear later some of the evidence that the Science and Technology Committee has taken on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and of the important work of the Medical Research Council prion unit, which could lead to exciting new possibilities for the treatment and diagnosis of people with all sorts of dementia. Does she agree that it is important to maintain such research programmes?

[Tracey Crouch]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman, and I will hear more later of the initiatives his Committee is examining. The importance of research is very much the basis of my speech.

Hon. Members may talk about many aspects of dementia, but I shall address four, the first of which is investment. The statistics are gloomy, but there is a good-news story underlying the negative numbers: people are living longer and people can live well with dementia. We need to capitalise on best practice and ensure that we maximise people’s ability to maintain long-term well-being, despite their debilitating condition. Although we do not have a cure for dementia, we have come on leaps and bounds in recent years. A cure is hopefully no longer a lifetime away, but to ensure that we make that cure happen, we need to take action.

Dementia costs the UK economy £23 billion a year, which is more than cancer, stroke or heart disease, but the annual research spend on dementia is about £51 million. The research spend on cancer is £521 million —10 times more—yet dementia costs society much more than cancer annually. I therefore welcome the increase in investment in dementia research through the Government’s themed initiatives, which has resulted in Government investment more than doubling over four years. However, the investment comes from a low base and represents less than 1% of the overall science budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

I am a member of the Science and Technology Committee, and I am delighted that my Chairman, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), is here and has intervened. I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to some excellent work that our Committee has been doing this year. I think that some of the reports we have published will help him to prepare for the summit. We undertook a very good investigation into clinical trials and also produced a report called “Bridging the valley of death”. Both reports highlighted a very significant issue facing research, not only in the UK but globally.

As Members will know, we have an absolutely world-class science base in our country. The main challenge facing it is to overcome regulatory environments, many of which are international, to enable it to take its first-class research across the valley of death and into the development of ways of diagnosing dementia and therapies for treating it. It is very important to learn the lessons from our very extensive inquiries to enable more of this research to be commercially developed in order to find its way into the marketplace.

[Andrew Miller]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be helpful if the Minister could revisit the Government’s response to our inquiry on clinical trials, because we could then be a world leader and show real leadership at the summit?

[Sarah Newton]

Only yesterday, we took evidence from Professor Collinge from University College London and Professor Ironside from Edinburgh, who are leaders in the field of degenerative brain disease. They provided us with even more compelling evidence of the increasing difficulties of getting from the research stage to being able to secure enough commitment from the pharmaceutical industry and other bodies that fund research into developing the science into diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. They reported that the pharmaceutical industry, which is a massive investor in research and its outcomes, is getting far more risk-averse and, as a result, is putting many more burdens on to the research of scientists in universities—burdens that they are not really capable of taking on board. The G8’s focus on getting the companies and clinicians, as well as researchers, around the table to look at the pathways from the science into scaleable, commercialised solutions is vital.

It is important that we do this not only in our own country but internationally, because most of the regulations are international. Where there is not international agreement, that in itself becomes a barrier to research and its commercialisation. The work done at the G8 will enable there to be much larger markets, meaning that very many more people will be helped and that money will flow into the research and make it more widely available.

The transcripts from our findings yesterday will be available in a couple of days’ time. That should give the Minister a good opportunity to look at the evidence we were given by those very eminent researchers, who are undertaking research into prions, as well as looking into developments on variant CJD, which is a form of dementia, and how that links to other types of dementia such as Alzheimer’s. We need that sort of joining up across the process to enable diagnostic and preventive procedures, and therapies, to be developed. All the various scientists—