Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the existence of viable research proposals on the treatment, alleviation and prevention of mesothelioma; and if he will make a statement.

The Medical Research Council (MRC) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) have been receiving high quality research applications in mesothelioma. The Government is implementing a package of measures to stimulate an increase in the volume of applications and funded research in mesothelioma.

In the last five financial years (2009-10 to 2013-14) the MRC has received 10 applications for grants or fellowships that relate to research on mesothelioma. Of these 10 applications four were successful resulting in a success rate of 40%. This is higher than the overall success rate for applications to the MRC which during the same period has been between 20% and 25%.

In the last five financial years, 11 applications relating to mesothelioma have been submitted to research programmes managed by the NIHR. Of these 11 applications four were successful resulting in a success rate of 36%. Success rates for NIHR-managed programmes are available on the NIHR website and are typically lower than 36%.

Last year, the Government set up a partnership of patients, carers and clinicians to identify a top 10 list of mesothelioma questions for researchers to answer. The results were published on 8 December. The NIHR has invited researchers to apply for mesothelioma research funding, in particular to address the research questions identified through the priority setting partnership.