Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will ring-fence the budget of the National Institute for Health Research in the forthcoming Spending Review.

The Government has protected the funding the National Health Service receives and increased the Department’s budget in real terms year on year. There is no plan to change this, fulfilling the Government’s manifesto commitment. By 2020-21, the Government will increase funding for the NHS by £10 billion a year in real terms compared to 2014-15 to support the implementation of the NHS’s own plan - the NHS Five Year Forward View - to transform services across the country.

The Spending Review will conclude at the end of November and will set the Department’s overall budget for the remaining years of the parliament. Following this, funding for the National Institute for Health Research will be determined.