Breast Cancer Campaign 2nd Scientific Conference
Carlton House Terrace - 13 May 2008

Thank you Pamela and good morning everyone. It's a great pleasure for me to have been invited to join you here today at Breast Cancer Campaigns 2nd Scientific Conference.

During the course of the day, you'll be hearing from experts about some of the latest discoveries and techniques in the treatment of breast cancer that funding from you and other charities have made possible that are really excellent.

They're an illustration of the strength of British science. And you should be in no doubt of the level of commitment in the Government, from the Prime Minister down, to doing everything we can to ensure that science in this country becomes stronger still.

Charities are powerful funders of medical and scientific research, working in partnership through NCRI to fund around £400 million of cancer research a year. But, as Breast Cancer Campaign's work proves, the value of the research undertaken by no means always corresponds to the size of the grants involved. Indeed, many of the smaller charities are funding vital research into forms of cancer that might otherwise receive too little attention.

The Government is doing its bit, too. With project funding from the Research Councils coupled with quality-related core funding from the Higher Education Funding Councils, we have a system that's been shown over many years to work effectively.

So I want to start by repeating the commitment given last year by my colleague John Denham to maintaining and strengthening the dual support system for research.

The Government fully recognizes just how much dual support is valued by academics in all disciplines, including medical research.

That's why, in the last spending round, both the Research Council budgets and the HEFCE research funding stream were awarded increases well above inflation. This is to further reinforce our science base and build on what has been achieved in the last ten years, during which we have doubled public funding of science in real terms.

Over the next three years, Science Budget funding will rise from £3.4 billion around £4 billion - providing among other things a total of some £2 billion for medical research over the spending period. At the same time, HEFCE research funding will rise from just under £1.4 billion to over £1.6 billion.

This means Research Councils can move much closer to awarding grants that cover the full economic cost of projects. I think there's a general acceptance that that this is a very welcome development. Progressively eliminating the need for higher education institutions to cross-subsidise projects helps reduce the financial risks they run.

But I want to make clear to you that I do appreciate that, for researchers in the field and for charities themselves, full economic cost funding does not necessarily come without problems. And that we need to do something about that.

It's not the principle that's at fault, but the way it's sometimes implemented.

For example, I know that we need to balance form-filling and general administrative burdens placed on researchers. We have first-class minds with top-notch research facilities to work in so we ought to make sure that as much time as possible can be spent on actual research rather than administration.

In some places, the way that the accounting procedures which underpin full economic costing work requires an awful lot of form-filling.

I'm afraid that some bureaucracy is always going to be a fact of life where taxpayers' money is involved. But I do realise that an excess of it can make things really tough, especially for small projects where the paperwork involved sometimes seems to swamp the project itself.

So I am determined that we in the Government, with our partner agencies, will do everything we can to reduce to a necessary minimum the bureaucratic burden to apply for and receive funding. I hope university administrators, too, will become more conscious of the need for proportionality.

The application by universities of full economic costing principles to research contracts with non-governmental bodies can also cause problems. For example, I know that some charities have difficulty paying for project overheads because of the terms of their deeds of trust.

That's why we in Government are trying to do our bit to help, too. As most of you know, HEFCE operates a Charity Support Fund which helps to bridge the gap between charitable research grants and the full cost of the projects they support.

And in the run-up to last year's spending review, bodies like the Association of Medical Research Charities lobbied us hard to increase the size of the fund.

Well, we listened. And over the next three years the amount of money in the Charity Support Fund will rise by 50 per cent to £270 million per annum in 2010-11.

We wouldn't have done that if we weren't fully aware of how important to everyone's well-being charity-funded research in this country is.

I would like to say a few words about why what you do matters so much not just to the Government, but to the person in the street.

Most people know someone who has or has had cancer. In this country alone, 300,000 people a year are diagnosed with cancer, and 150,000 die of it.

And of all the types of cancer, breast cancer exerts a particularly strong emotional pull on us. I think that's partly because it's so widespread - the breast cancer rate has risen by over one percentage point a year for the last 50 years and it's now the most common cancer in this country. I also think that it has something to do with the fact that it's so predominantly a disease of women. About 120 women and only one man are diagnosed with breast cancer every day of the year.

I know some smokers who aren't in the least bit concerned about the danger of lung cancer. But is there a woman who doesn't worry about breast cancer? If there is, I haven't met her.

And is there a woman with a history of the disease in her family who isn't doesn't wonder whether she's inherited a ticking genetic time-bomb? Or is worried she may pass it on to her children. I'm reminded that when Nancy Reagan was diagnosed, her response was simply 'I guess it's my turn'.

Of course, that's where the work you do and where events like this come in. The sustained effort that's gone into the science behind cancer and its treatment has produced results. So has the work that has gone into raising awareness of the disease, leading to better prevention and earlier diagnosis. Indeed, while the incidence of breast cancer continues to increase, death rates from the disease have fallen by almost 20 per cent in the last 10 years.

That's why I am glad to be able to represent all my fellow non-specialists here today - all the people who, like me, don't have the foggiest what a TGF-beta signalling pathway is.

And above all, on our behalf, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the work you do. In doing it, you can rely on the wholehearted continuing support of both the Government and the public at large.

I hope that you enjoy the rest of the conference. Thank you.