Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of clinical trials running in the UK for people with brain cancer; and whether he has any specific targets on this to reduce the number of patients who travel overseas for treatment.

The Department is committed to turbocharging clinical research and delivering better patient care, to make the United Kingdom a world-leading destination for clinical research. We are working to fast-track clinical trials to drive global investment into life sciences, improve health outcomes, and accelerate the development of medicines and therapies of the future, including treatments for brain cancers.

The Department is supporting the delivery of brain cancer clinical trials through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) that funds research and research infrastructure to support patients and the public to participate in high-quality research. In January 2026, the NIHR announced total investment of over £25 million in the NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium to accelerate research into new brain tumour treatments across the UK. The consortium will develop and enhance innovative clinical trials.

There are no specific targets around increasing the number of brain cancer clinical trials, although the Life Sciences Sector Plan aims to double all commercial interventional trial participants in the UK by 2026, and double again by 2029.

As set out in our National Cancer Plan, the Government will implement the Rare Cancers Act, making it easier for clinical trials on brain cancer to take place in England, by ensuring the patient population can be more easily contacted by researchers.