§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) what finance has been made available to the Tropical Medicine Research Board by his Department through the Medical Research Council, at current prices, for the last five years; and how much will be given in the current financial year;
(2) if he will make a statement about the work being carried on by the Tropical Medicine Research Board over the past few years; and what effects he expects government spending cuts to have on this work.
§ Mr. MacfarlaneThe Medical Research Council receives a parliamentary grant-in-aid from the science budget, and is then free to allocate these funds as it sees fit within the terms of its charter. I under324W stand that the funds made available by the council to the Tropical Medicine Research Board over the last five years are as follows:
Amount (£ million at 1980 prices) Year (estimated) 1975/76 … … … 2.4 1976/77 … … … 2.9 1977/78 … … … 3.2 1978/79 … … … 3.1 1979/80 … … … 3.8 The estimated figure for 1980–81 is £3.8 million.
The work of the board covers a wide variety of tropical diseases with particular emphasis on malaria, schistosomiasis, trypanosomiasis, filariasis, leishmaniasis, and leprosy. The work carried out overseas is undertaken in close collaboration with local medical and scientific institutions, and the council has two major centres in its laboratories in The Gambia and in Jamaica. The work in the United Kingdom is funded by long and short-term grants to applicants from various academic institutions and by the support of research in the council's own establishments.
So far as can be foreseen at the present time, Government public expenditure policies already announced are not expected to have significant effects on work currently supported by the board. It is however unlikely that there will be any expansion of the board's work.