This afternoon in the House of Lords, Lord Hunt (pictured outside the House of Lords today with today’s order paper) posed a question on ‘Improving the scale of research into the causes and treatment of brain tumours’.
This is the second time that Lord Hunt has brought brain tumours to the agenda at the Lords – you can find out about the mini debate he instigated at the beginning of 2021 here.
This afternoon however it was Lord Evans of Rainow responding on behalf of the Government. He made clear that money unallocated from the 2018 Government allocation of £40 million remained available for deployment and indeed more could be found for suitable funding opportunities.
Lord Polak whose mother is currently in a hospice having treatment for a meningioma, and who, as a patient brings lived experience to his role on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Brain Tumours (APPGBT) and as part of the APPGBT’s recent inquiry panel, sought assurances from the minister that bureaucracy would not be allowed to hinder the flow of this vital funding stream.
Lord Allan sought to shine a light on the need for paediatric research and in particular research into DIPG.
A telling contribution came from Baroness Blackwood who said that the answers being given by Lord Evans today were similar to ones that she would have given in 2019 in her then role of Health Minister. She wanted to know that the minister would really challenge civil servants on funding processes in an effort to “get solutions”.
This was a short but informative mini debate and signposted a brain tumour roundtable that will be held on Tuesday 16th May. It will be convened by the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission and at Brain Tumour Research we look forward to taking our seat at that table.