Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have a programme and timetable to increase funding for mental health research from its current level of six per cent of health research so that it can achieve parity with funding for physical health research.

The Government funders of health research do not generally set a target research spend for specific areas. The level of research spending in a particular area is driven by a number of factors, including the scientific potential and the number and scale of successful applications. In 2015-16, the topic-specific spend on mental health research by the National Institute for Health Research was second only to that spent on cancer.

The Department has been collaborating with the mental health community to develop a ten year framework for research on mental health, which is expected to be published by the end of 2017. It is recognised that there is a need to encourage researchers in other disciplines to apply their research skills in the mental health field to help drive forward new approaches.