Brain Tumours

Baroness Merron Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (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.

[Baroness Merron (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 Tessa Jowell 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?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (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.