Brain Tumour Research Funding

Will Quince Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Will Quince)]

First, let me congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on securing this debate on a very important topic and for his personal commitment to making progress on this devastating condition. Like him, I pay tribute to the life and work of Tessa Jowell, who, after a long and distinguished career on these Benches, left a legacy that lives on in the numerous initiatives that the Government are supporting.

I also thank hon. Members from across the House for their valuable interventions and comments today— I will come to them in turn—especially in regard to NIHR support for cancer research, the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission and our commitment across Government to cancer research funding.

Before I turn to the contributions of individual Members, I want to touch on Government commitments, particularly the Baroness Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives said, in 2018 the Government announced funding through the NIHR of £40 million over five years for brain tumour research as part of the brain cancer mission. I would like to draw on Tessa’s words. She said that this

“is not about politics but about patients and the community of carers who love and support them. It is…about the NHS but it is not just about money. It is about the power of kindness”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 January 2018; Vol. 788, c. 1169.]

We are grateful to all those who have provided care and support and who have campaigned for better funding for research, and to those involved in brain tumour research for keeping this nation at the forefront of scientific progress. Research, as many Members have set out this afternoon, remains key to progress. There are many challenges with brain tumour research, some of which have been set out today, but as Tessa implored us, we must not leave this in the “too difficult” box. I will now try to address the comments made by hon. Members in turn.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives rightly praised the work of the Realf family, whose petition led to significant funding and focus on brain tumour research. He rightly pushes us to ensure that we are spending the allocated funding on brain tumour research, and he asks us to look at the NIHR’s processes to make them more user-friendly. He followed the report in calling for a brain cancer champion, as did the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). I want us to be world leading in this sphere, so I will take that point away and ask the Secretary of State. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives might pick this up and run with it himself, given how he runs the APPG and given this superb report.

I will come back to research more generally a little later, but my hon. Friend talked about applications and the application process. As part of the £40 million fund, all the applications assessed as fundable in that open competition have been funded—in total, that is 13 of 95 applications, and a further three are under consideration. I very much encourage researchers to make those applications. We have to get it right, and I will come back to this later.

My hon. Friend touched on funding committees, which play a hugely important role. We have a diverse range of applications for funding and, as a result, there is a broad range of expertise sitting on the panels. The panels may or may not include people who specialise in brain tumour research. I understand the frustration of applicants, and work is already being done by the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, through customised workshops and the work of researchers, to enable people to resubmit their funding applications after understanding why they were not successful.

The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) rightly praised the work of Brain Tumour Research. I understand his point about not only patients but consultants hearing the phrase, “There is nothing more I can offer or do for you.” We have to do what we can to change that. He rightly says the brain is a very complex organ, which is why treatment and research are so complicated—I will come back to this point if I have time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft) talked about the heartbreaking experience of David. She asked us simply to get the money into the hands of researchers, and I wish it were that simple. Understandably, this does not sit in the hands of Ministers—it would be totally inappropriate if it did. It sits in the hands of clinicians and experts in this field, but I completely understand the sense of urgency with which she makes the point. We spend around £1.3 billion a year on research, and we have to ensure that it is well spent and leads to research that gets treatments and drugs to patients in this country and around the globe.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) gave the most powerful testimony, sharing her sister Margaret’s experience. I am so very sorry to hear of her experience, which must have been very difficult to share. She spoke about cancer diagnosis and treatment, and we have come on so much, but I recognise that this is not universal across all cancer types and that we have much more to do.

The hon. Lady made a very strong case for clinical trials, and she spoke about the need to travel abroad. We cannot do every clinical trial in the UK, although I sometimes wish we could. There is global competition, but I give her my personal assurance that clinical trials are high on my agenda. I want to make sure that our United Kingdom has the best environment for clinical trials. We have launched the O’Shaughnessy review, and we are working with the NHS, the MHRA and NICE. We are trying to encourage patients through the NHS app to sign up to clinical trials. Of course, raising awareness of clinical trials is a huge area of interest and importance for me.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I completely understand all the work that the Minister and everybody else is doing, but can he explain why it is not happening?

[Will Quince]

I will specifically address brain tumour research, but clinical trials are taking place in acute trusts across the country. There are fewer clinical trials in this area than I would want, and I will explain why a little later. Finally, I pass on my very best wishes to Margaret.

My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) urges us to act on the report’s recommendations, and he is right to do so. I will look at those recommendations very carefully. He touched on the £40 million, and I will come on to that a little later. He also mentioned childhood brain tumours. There is insufficient time to go into the level of detail I would want to on that subject, and I would be happy to meet him and members of the all-party group to discuss what more we can do on childhood brain tumours and the treatment thereof.

The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington talked about the courage and fortitude of families. He shared Sonya’s experience and talked about the importance of support for loved ones, and I will raise those issues with my counterparts at the Department for Work and Pensions. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) shared the impact on the Fearn family, which outlines why it is so important that we get this right. She touched on the importance of awareness, and how in this area there is a high prevalence of late presentation and late diagnosis, and the impact that has on prognosis.

The hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) told Amani’s story and how the family had to fundraise to travel to take part in an international clinical trial. Of course, I send my condolences to Amani’s family, and I would be happy to meet Khuram and Yasmin to discuss this further. The hon. Lady asked where the money allocated is. It sits within NIHR and remains there; funding is allocated and it awaits suitable, fundable applications, so that is where we need to focus our efforts.

My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) rightly praised the work of the all-party group, which probably makes this the right time to turn to the report, “Pathway to a Cure”. I very much welcome the group’s investigation and report. I acknowledge the problems and issues that have been identified. Let me be clear: we want to fund more high-quality research to accelerate the field and help patients. The report makes a number of recommendations for actions by research funding agencies, such as the MRC and NIHR, on co-ordinating action and making funding available. Crucially, the report is clear that to make advances in brain tumour research we must bring together diverse disciplines. There are detailed recommendations here, with potentially far-reaching consequences, and the MRC, NIHR and I will consider responses and come back to colleagues.

Members from across the House will understand that this debate is not necessarily the place for a detailed response to the report and every recommendation. Notwithstanding the strong case made today on the importance of research, we have to tread carefully. This is not the first condition into which I have probed and asked lots of questions about why we have not been funding all the research, and why funding is sitting unallocated, given the bids that have come in. We have to tread carefully because the clinicians and scientists rightly push back, saying that lowering the scientific quality bar for access to scarce public research funds, which would not be won in open competition, is unlikely ultimately to be a good solution. We must get this right, and at the heart of that is ensuring that we support applicants to make high-quality bids, which will then translate into funding awards. Of course, we want to fund the best science to help patients and ensure that our country remains at the forefront of scientific progress.

All Members, from across the House, rightly mentioned the crucial importance of research in tackling cancer. A theme of the report and the debate has been that of co-ordinating action along the translational pathway; that starts with the fundamental science and early translation, typically supported by the MRC, and goes through to the applied health and care research, which is funded by the NIHR. Working with the NIHR, the MRC has developed guidance and toolkits for teams to help them to navigate the scheme that is best suited to their proposal. However, I have heard today that we are not giving the right support to those making applications, and where applications are rejected we need to look into that further.

[Hilary Benn]

I am listening carefully to the Minister. What does he say to the argument that we heard during the inquiry that the people who sit in judgment, quite properly, on bids might not have a sufficient degree of expertise in this area to be able to judge whether the research proposals are suitable to be funded? I do not expect an answer now, but will he undertake to go away and look at that point?

[Will Quince]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, and I shall try my best to answer it. It is a question that I listened to very carefully when he posed it in his contribution, and it is one that I have posed myself when looking at the NIHR and what it does. The committees for NIHR and the programmes that come forward receive a diverse range of applications, which is understandable. Their make-up, therefore, is that of a broad range of expertise. As I said a few moments ago, they may or may not contain experts in the field of brain tumour research. However, having said that, the NIHR committees then use peer review from appropriate experts, which would include brain tumour expertise as relevant to the brain tumour proposal that is under review in each individual case. That is there deliberately to inform their decision-making. They co-opt particular expertise on to the committee, which is an option always available to NIHR if the committee needs that particular input. If clinicians and scientists are telling the right hon. Gentleman that that is not happening, or is not happening to the degree that we would want and expect it to, I would want to take that away and look at that further.

I wish to come back to a comment that the right hon. Gentleman made about brain tumours and why they remain a challenging area for research. There is the complexity of the brain itself as an organ, and the way that perception, memory, and emotion— everything the brain does—can be affected differently by different types of tumour. Brain tumours are different diseases that can differ in terms of histology, molecular characteristics, and clinical behaviour, meaning that many different treatments must be developed. Brain tissue is precious and obtaining it for research purposes can be difficult. Obtaining biopsy samples is risky and invasive, and animal models are of limited applicability. Additionally, the community of active clinical researchers is relatively small—it is certainly small in relation to the scale of need. This all makes research on brain tumours challenging, as has been well articulated today, and progress, if we are to make it—and I am determined that we will—requires a collaborative effort between researchers, clinicians, and funding agencies.

How do we grow the field of brain tumour research? This was a challenge from the shadow Minister. We have been taking action to grow the field by supporting researchers to submit high-quality research bid proposals. That has been supported by working with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, which hosts workshops for researchers, and provides research training specifically for clinicians.

Since the initial Government announcement of £40 million over five years ago, we have spent £33.9 million on brain cancer research across Government. I am conscious that there is a difference in the two figures, but that is because we are combining spending from UK Research and Innovation with the spending of NIHR. However, as I have made clear already, we want to spend more and the NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into brain tumours, and the Department of Health and Social Care priority call on brain tumours remains open. Critically, all applications that have been assessed as “fundable” in open competition have been funded, and that will continue.

As I have said, brain tumour research is one of the most difficult scientific challenges of our age. We need to invest across the translational pipeline, from fundamental science through to effective treatments. These are long-term challenges and we are committed to them for the long term. To be clear, the £40 million announcement was a signal to the research community that we are serious about funding research in this space. It is not a ceiling. If we can spend more on the best quality science, let me assure the House that we will do so. I understand and share the frustrations that only a proportion of the £40 million on brain tumour research has been allocated so far, but this funding will remain available. I genuinely believe that the funding for brain tumour research is promising and we look forward to considering the all-party group recommendations with colleagues across Government. I am confident that the Government’s continued commitment to funding will help us make progress towards effective treatment.

[Liz Kendall]

As the Minister may be about to close, I would like to ask him whether he would respond to a request to meet Professor Mulholland about the other issues that he raised around training and clinical trials, because that would make a hugely useful contribution to the debate.

[Will Quince]

The hon. Lady pre-empts not only that I am coming to a close, but my final response. I have a little more time than I would ordinarily, but in closing such debates, one never quite gets the opportunity to answer every single question. I have never turned down a meeting with a colleague, and I do not intend to start doing so today—it is important that we consider some of the issues that have been raised this afternoon, including the report’s recommendations—and, of course, I would be very happy to meet senior clinicians and scientists in the field as well.

In closing, I want to say how much I appreciate the vital work of my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on brain tumours, of all those who have spoken so powerfully today, and of the powerful advocacy for more research on brain tumours and better treatments and care for patients, not least in last week’s report and in this important debate. It has been my pleasure to respond to the powerful points that everyone has made.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call Mr Derek Thomas for the final word.