HC Deb 06 July 1993 vol 228 c61W
Mr. Dalyell

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what is the breakdown of the £600,000 spent on basic aging research or gerontology.

Mr. William Waldegrave

The Medical Research Council—MRC—is the main Government agency for the promotion of medical and related research in the United Kingdom. The MRC do not recognise the figure to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but in 1991–92—the last financial year for which figures are available—the MRC's expenditure on projects relevant to aging and the elderly was £9.8 million.

This research refers to work on cognitive performance, hearing, dementia, osteoporosis, Parkinson's, nutrition, cardiovascular, stroke and cancer research. Additional work is also carried out on understanding the processes underlying aging; and on molecular mechanisms in the clonal deletion of auto-reactive T cells by programmed cell death. Because much of this research is interlinked, the financial breakdown of this research would be available only at disproportionate cost.