TOUCHING TINY LIVES CAMPAIGN AND PRE-TERM BIRTH

Early day motion 1762, tabled 25 June 2007 by Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative). Signed by 76 members.

That this House congratulates the charity Action Medical Research on having raised £2.5 million for its Touching Tiny Lives campaign to fund high-quality research to help sick and vulnerable babies; notes with alarm that pre-term birth is the single biggest cause of death in babies and a major cause of lifelong disease and disability; regrets that more than 25 babies die each week in the United Kingdom as a result of being born too early; believes that the Government must give a higher priority to finding ways of preventing pre-term birth with the aim of reducing the number of these deaths and the incidence of lifelong disability; acknowledges that reducing the incidence of pre-term birth would lessen the emotional toll on families and the burden on the NHS; recognises that in 2004-05 the Government, through the Medical Research Council (MRC) and NHS Research and Development, allocated £3.7 million to research into preventing premature birth, which represents less than 0.3 per cent. of the combined MRC/NHS biomedical research budget; and calls on the Government to review the funding it provides for medical research into preventing pregnancy complications and pre-term birth to ensure that more babies have the opportunity to live longer, healthier lives.

Signatures by party: Labour 29, Liberal Democrat 21, Conservative 19, DUP 3, Social Democratic and Labour Party 3, Scottish National Party 1.