Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he will take in response to the 2020 Spending Review to support the research undertaken by medical research charities.

The Government is aware of the challenges, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, that medical research charities are currently facing.

The Government already provides significant funding to charities’ research, for example through Research England’s Quality Related (QR) charity support funding. This year charity QR will amount to £204m, to support charity funded research in universities in England and equivalent support is provided in Scotland through devolved funding arrangements.

Additionally, the Government supports this research through investments in the necessary infrastructure, through collaborations with UKRI and through the tax system. In 2018-19 over £1.3bn in tax relief on donations was received through Gift Aid benefitting all charities, including those carrying out vital medical research.

BEIS has been working with the Association of Medical Research Charities to develop an appropriate approach to supporting the important research that their members fund.