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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether charities conducting medical research will be able to access the funding for research and development announced in the 2020 Spending Review.

The Government is aware of the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the funding of medical research charities.

The Government already provides significant direct funding to charities’ research 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.

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 officials have also been meeting regularly with the Association of Medical Research Charities to develop an appropriate approach to supporting the important research that their members fund through the challenges they are currently facing.