The Autumn Budget has often been a moment of significant shift in UK Government spending and policy. Despite the financial climate, a much-changed front bench offers the potential for meaningful shifts in Government direction. As Chancellor John Healey delivered his debut budget from the dispatch box, we at Cancer Research UK were on hand to analyse what this year’s key fiscal moment means for cancer research, prevention, diagnosis and treatment.  

What did the budget mean for cancer? 

Backing innovation

For science and research, it was good to see the Government reiterating their commitment to investing £1bn through UKRI into innovation clusters, and devolving Local Innovation Partnerships Fund settlements. As we highlighted in our clusters report, local and regional leaders can play a powerful role in building innovation ecosystems: strengthening connections between universities, industry and the NHS; supporting commercialisation; attracting investment; and developing local talent. We were pleased to see that this announcement focused devolution to later stage innovation funding, retaining a nationally connected research funding system. 

It’s also welcome to see that the government recognises the importance of scaling and retaining start-ups in the UK via the Entrepreneurship in the UK prospectus, which was published alongside the budget. Within this, we welcome the Budget’s focus on scale-up capital, the scale-up gap is a significant structural weakness in UK innovation finance. However, we need to ensure these measures are designed to meet the needs of life sciences businesses and reflect how they are built.  It was also encouraging to see the UK Government recognise that attracting and retaining global talent is key to delivering their ambitions for growth across the UK.  

Looking ahead to the Spending Review, there is an opportunity next year to build on those foundations and think bigger about how medical research could drive economic growth. Our globally competitive life sciences sector, which brings together research-intensive universities, NHS organisations, major charitable funders and businesses, is worth around £147bn annually. With the right support from Government, it could deliver long-term economic and patient benefits. That requires keeping the research base and its people secure, investing in the facilities and technologies that will drive tomorrow’s discoveries, and making it easier for new ideas to move from the lab to patients, so that UK companies can launch, grow and scale here. 

Investment in NHS and cancer services

There were limited health announcements from this year’s Budget, but the Government did promise £100 million to expand access to robotic-assisted surgery in the NHS across England. This is estimated to increase the number of robotically assisted surgeries from 70,000 a year today to 500,000 in 2035. The National Cancer Plan, published in February, committed to expanding the use of robotically assisted surgery in cancer treatment, but did not identify any funding. This investment could could benefit cancer patients if government ensures the new equipment is available for cancer treatment.  

In addition, £190 million in 2026/27 for the NHS in England was earmarked to support the NHS to manage the additional pressures it faces over the winter, joining the £140m for urgent care schemes announced earlier this week. Winter pressures are a common pattern in the NHS and are likely to be particularly impactful in 2026/27. For an NHS cancer system already struggling to meet its targets including for cancer, extra money to deal with urgent demand is welcome. However, the scale of the funding is modest compared to years prior to the pandemic, when non-recurrent winter funding ranged from £300-700m per year. One-off payments are unlikely to provide the long-term relief needed to maintain current performance or continue improvements in cancer waiting times at the same pace. 

Delivering the National Cancer Plan

As part of our submission to the Treasury ahead of the budget, we called on the Government to provide funding to deliver the ambitions set out in the National Cancer Plan to improve outcomes for the growing number of people affected by cancer. Premature mortality, ill health and informal care needs put substantial strain on the economy; an estimated 350,000 productive years of life were lost due to cancer deaths occurring in the UK in 2023. Cancer cases are projected to increase to over half a million cases each year by 2040. With no mention of direct cancer investment, we expect the Treasury will look to the Spending Review to set out how they will fund the successful delivery of a plan that could be transformative for the patients of today and tomorrow.  

A focus on prevention

On prevention, the big announcement from the Chancellor was the trialling of a new category of ringfenced, preventative spending to be established following the next spending review: the Preventative Departmental Expenditure Limit (PDEL). Cancer Research UK is pleased to see a continued shift to prevention for future spending. We know that investment in prevention delivers long-term health and economic benefits. The Public Health Grant, dedicated to prevention, has been flatlining and real-term funding remains below 2016/17 levels. Whilst we wish to see that funding increase, the new PDEL offers an opportunity for Government to invest more sustainably in public health and to prevent cancer cases.  

As a priority, we believe this funding should support the 4.9m people who smoke in the UK to quit through sustainably and sufficiently funding stop smoking tools and services, mass media campaigns and regulatory enforcement. Additional funding should be allocated for targeted interventions to support communities where smoking rates remain higher than the national average, such as those in more deprived areas and those in mental health settings. This investment should also be used to help provide equitable access to weight management services, and – working with the NHS – provide a fully resourced approach to improving HPV vaccination coverage, ensuring targeted action in areas and amongst demographic groups with lower uptake. 

Meanwhile, the announced changes to alcohol taxation will help ensure taxation keeps pace with inflation and incentivise the production of lower strength alcohol, which is key for helping reduce alcohol harm. However, this budget marks a missed opportunity to reintroduce an automatic uprating system of 2% above RPI for non-draught alcohol, and to bring  the cider duty rate in line with beer. This would have enabled a more consistent, strength-based approach. 

What happens next? 

The Autumn Budget was the first of a series of key milestones as the Government sets out its vision for the country. With the upcoming 10-year-plan expected to offer a potential roadmap across all departments, next year’s Spending Review will be ever more crucial to shape long-term spending. Cancer Research UK will continue to advocate for how the Government can deliver on its manifesto pledge to tackle the “biggest killers” and deliver for cancer research and patients.