Our 2020 petition called for increased national investment into brain tumour research to £35 million a year and closed at the end of February 2021.
Following the amazing support of more than 112,000 signatories, we produced our Level Up and Stop the Devastation Petition Report which called on the Government to:
- Introduce a new levelling up brain tumour research fund of £105 million
- Increase the national investment into brain tumour research to £35 million a year
- Demonstrate joined-up thinking for investment across the brain tumour research pipeline
In March 2021 at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Derek Thomas MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Brain Tumours (APPGBT) asked the Prime Minister (Boris Johnson) if he would meet with him and receive the report. That meeting took place in July 2021.
That political momentum continued with the APPGBT report Pathway to a Cure – breaking down the barriers launched at Westminster on 28th February 2023. This was followed by a backbench business debate in the main chamber on 9th March 2023 and a question raised at PMQs with the upshot being that ministerial meetings are now in the pipeline. We also spoke with Science Minister George Freeman during May 2023.
It was an earlier petition initiated by the Realf family which supported by Brain Tumour Research resulted in a Westminster Hall debate in April 2016 and at that debate the formation of a working group to investigate brain tumour research funding was announced. The resultant report was a prime factor in the allocation in 2018 of £40 million for deployment to brain tumour researchers and clinicians.
These two previous petitions gained huge progress and raised political momentum.
We are grateful to our longstanding supporters and activists who may have signed a previous petition and followed our course through to our current position – and we do hope that you’ll continue to campaign with us. We are also regularly admitting new campaigners and as more people join our community, our voice is amplified.
Petitions are effective ways to hold politicians to account and to keep our profile high.
For too long governments have put brain tumours on the “too difficult to think about" pile. Five years after the Government announced £40 million for brain cancer research, just £15 million has been spent.
Our 2023 petition calls on the Government to ring-fence £110 million of current and new funding to kick-start an increase in the national investment in brain tumour research to £35 million a year by 2028.
Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer yet the national investment in brain tumour research still represents just 1% of brain tumour funding since records began in 2002.
The Government should recognise brain tumour research as a critical priority, developing a strategic plan for adequately resourcing and funding discovery, translational and clinical research, ring-fencing £110 million of current and new funding to kick-start this initiative.
This should lead to an annual research investment of more than £35 million a year by 2028 from the Government and larger charities in line with the spend on cancers of breast, bowel and lung, as well as leukaemia.
To sign the new petition, visit: www.braintumourresearch.org/petition