Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of the industrial strategy on increasing the availability of clinical trials for young people with cancer.

The Department is committed to ensuring that all patients, including young people with cancer, have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, lifesaving treatments.

The Department is working to fast-track clinical trials to drive global investment into life sciences, improve health outcomes, and accelerate the development of the medicines and therapies of the future, including for cancer.

Through the Life Sciences Sector Plan, the Government has committed to improving the speed and capacity of commercial clinical research, including trials for young people with cancer. This is supported by commitments to invest at scale in discovery science and maximise the United Kingdom’s translational research capacities, accelerating the development of new medicines and technologies, and getting innovative treatments to patients more efficiently.

Each action in the Life Sciences Sector Plan includes metrics through which performance can be measured. An annual Implementation Update will transparently summarise progress against both the overarching targets as well as on an action-by-action basis.