Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure that brain tissue (a) collection and (b) storage infrastructure is adequate to support research into brain tumours.

The Department-funded National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) invests in research, clinical expertise, specialist facilities, workforce and support services across a range of clinical areas, including brain tumour research.

NIHR has recently announced the outcome of the Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) competition in which six BRCs have been funded to support brain tumour research. The NIHR BRCs work in partnership with other research centres to collect samples for research purposes as well as local and national sample storage facilities to support research into brain tumours.

No specific assessment has been made as to the adequacy of the sample collection and storage infrastructure.