§ 2.43 p.m.
§ LORD TAYLORMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any progress has been made towards the setting up of a hospital or special centre for clinical research; and whether any further progress has been made in the provision for research in tropical medicine.]
LORD ST. OSWALDMy Lords, the Medical Research Council's Report for the year 1958–59, which is published, to-day contains details both of the proposed Clinical Research Centre and of, a New Tropical Medicine Research Board. The Council have appointed Professor J. R. Squire, who at present holds the Chair of Experimental Pathology at Birmingham University and is Honorary Director of the Council's. Unit for Research on the Experimental Pathology of the Skin, to take charge of, the Clinical Research Centre and to advise on its design and organisation, and on the selection of a suitable, hospital in which it can be incorporated.
As regards the Tropical Medicine, Board it has been agreed that the Medical Research Council should take over, responsibility for co-ordinating and promoting research in the field of tropical medicine supported from public funds, and it is to advise them in these matters that they propose to set up the Board. 459 The Overseas Research Council, which is responsible for general policy on overseas research, has concurred in the proposals. The new Board will also take over the work of the Colonial Medical Research Committee which will be dissolved. It will advise the Secretary of State for the Colonies, through the Medical Research Council, on all medical research in or for the Colonies financed from Colonial Development and Welfare Funds.
§ LORD TAYLORMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that encouraging Answer, and I should like to ask him two questions. First of all, may I take it that the establishment of this new Clinical Research Centre will not lead to any reduction in other clinical research being done, or to a reduction in expenditure? Secondly, may I take it that the establishment of this new Overseas Medical Research Board will enable research to be carried out in Commonwealth countries, as well as in Colonial territories, and that there will be a career structure for doctors working in these services?
LORD ST. OSWALDMy Lords, I am happy to say that the noble Lord is correct in both his assumptions. The Centre will be an addition to, and not a substitute for, the Council's normal methods of supporting research, such as the establishment of individual research units and the award of research grants and travelling fellowships. In the matter of the Tropical Medicine Research Board, as the noble Lord says, since the war the Colonial Medical Research Committee, which was appointed jointly by the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Medical Research Council, had advised on the research which should be undertaken with support from Colonial Development and Welfare Funds. Because an increasing number of overseas territories are passing from Colonial to independent status and leaving the ægis of the Colonial Office, they cease to be eligible for aid from Colonial Development and Welfare Funds. The whole question of the organisation of research in the tropics has therefore had to be reconsidered. It is hoped that by providing, under the auspices of the Board, a career structure such as the noble Lord wishes to see, which will enable interested research workers to 460 devote themselves to tropical medicine, the experience, knowledge and resources of modern medical research may be brought to bear on problems of disease in this field, and that co-operation with tropical countries will thereby be facilitated.
§ LORD TAYLORTropical countries outside the Commonwealth as well?
LORD ST. OSWALDI cannot give a specific answer on that point, but I should not have thought that it would be restrictive by its constitution. I was trying to answer the noble Lord's question on the Commonwealth. I have no reason to think that it will be restricted to the Commonwealth.