Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the adequacy of funding for medical R&D in advance of the Spending Review.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care met regularly with the former Chancellor (Rt. hon Philip Hammond MP) and other Cabinet colleagues to discuss a range of issues related to funding for medical research and development.

The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) budget for 2019/20 is just over £1 billion and welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality. Information on individual projects funded by the NIHR can be found at the following link:

https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/programmes/

The future of budgets outside of the NHS England resource settlement, including capital budgets for research and development, will be confirmed later this year at the Spending Review 2019.