Charity-funded Medical Research

Liz Twist Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Members for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) and for Bolton West (Chris Green) on securing this important debate.

Most of us will have put dignity to one side and “worn it pink” for Breast Cancer Now, piling on feather boas, hats and Elton John-style pink specs. It is a bit of fun, but it has a serious point. More than 150 MPs took part in 2019, and the charities Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now say that the Wear it Pink campaign has raised over £33 million in the last 17 years to fund breast cancer research and support. It is just one of the many activities helping charities to raise essential funds to support the cancer research that is so desperately needed, and it is helping to improve cancer survival rates.

This year is different, though. Understandably, covid-19 has meant that Wear it Pink and so many other events cannot take place. Although we might wear pink at home, it is not quite the same. Of course, such parliamentary events are just the tip of the iceberg in raising funds. Our charities have been hard-hit by the effects of covid-19. Their fundraising activities right across the sector have been hugely hit by the restrictions on holding events. Charity retail shops have had to close, resulting in a huge loss of income. It has made it more difficult for them to meet and engage with people, and to raise the money on which they rely to carry out their activities and to fund the research that makes such a positive difference to our knowledge of, and treatment for, the conditions that they work on.

I mentioned Breast Cancer Now. Most of us have been affected by breast cancer at some time in our life. In my case, no fewer than four of my aunties have been treated for breast cancer—thankfully, all successfully. It was only two weeks ago that we heard in the main Chamber from the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Breast Cancer Now, which has provided a very helpful brief for the debate, has pointed out that 55,000 women and 370 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, that one in seven women in the UK will develop breast cancer, and that 35,000 people are living with incurable secondary breast cancer. It remains the case that almost 1,000 women die from breast cancer each month in the UK, with 600,000 living with or beyond breast cancer.

Covid-19 has had a severe impact on clinical trials. Breast Cancer Now points out that recruitment to many clinical trials was paused, and that the virus stopped new and ongoing trials, as healthcare professionals were asked to prioritise frontline care. I hope the Minister can say what the Government will be doing to improve the rate at which clinical trials will be restarting recruitment.

Members of the Association of Medical Research Charities have together invested £14 billion in research since 2008, with £1.9 billion spent on UK research and development in 2019 alone. That is more than was spent by the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research. It is half of publicly funded medical research nationally, and 66% of total research spend on cancer. Members of the Association of Medical Research are planning for an average 41% decrease in research spend in 2020-21. Many other charities are also facing difficult problems. The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) mentioned the British Heart Foundation; many of my constituents have been in touch to talk about the importance of ensuring that its research continues.

I want to look briefly at two charities at opposite ends of the scale. Muscular Dystrophy UK supports people with neuromuscular conditions and the research that produces new treatments for those conditions, dealing with quite a small group of people as a percentage of the population. The charity points out that covid-19 has produced a shortfall of £310 million in charity research investment, and that although the Government have provided £750 million of support to charities, none of that was for charity research. Muscular Dystrophy UK estimates that it will take over four years for its charity research fund to recover, but a decade to rebuild what would be lost in terms of capacity and capability.

Muscular Dystrophy UK’s research relates to rare or ultra-rare conditions, supporting research, infrastructure and capability, and sustaining a diversity of funding approaches, including those that are high-profile and high-risk. It involves people with lived experiences of neuromuscular conditions to set research priorities through its lay research panel and its medical research committee. It has also supported research into gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, cell-based screening for myotonic dystrophy and exome sequencing—all projects that have produced important outcomes, have led to further potential treatments that will make such a difference to those with neuromuscular life-limiting conditions. So those are really important issues, and the pandemic is limiting what can be done.

At the other end of the scale of numbers is Alzheimer’s Research UK. It works on behalf of a much wider group of people, who live with the impact of Alzheimer’s and dementia, sadly, another condition that most of us will be touched by in the course of our life—either in people we know or ourselves. Alzheimer’s UK points out that covid-19 is not the only health crisis that the UK is facing, and says that dementia is the only condition, of the top 10 leading causes of death in the UK, for which there is no treatment to prevent, cure or slow its progression; and that it is predicted that 1 million people will have dementia by 2025. There is an urgent need for medical research into Alzheimer’s, and that is largely funded by medical research charities such as Alzheimer’s Research UK.

Covid-19 has hit people with dementia hard. A quarter of people who have died from covid-19 also had dementia. Research is urgently needed, but it is facing delay due to the pandemic. Funding opportunities have been reduced and social distancing has slowed the pace at which researchers can work. We know, too, that dementia has a huge impact on too many people. It is vital that we support research into the causes of dementia urgently, even in these difficult times.

The medical research charities have come together to propose a way to ensure that that vital research for both rare and widespread conditions can continue. They point out that the current Government support for charities and Sustaining University Research Expertise—the SURE fund—is not a long-term solution, so they are calling for the Government to create a life sciences charity partnership fund over the next three years, starting with £310 million in year one, to meet that shortfall.

Our medical research charities play a huge part in developing future treatments for so many conditions. If we are to maintain that progress in cancer research, rare conditions, dementia and so many other things, the Government must help, so I ask the Government to commit, in tomorrow’s statement, to supporting that vital work.