Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged to meet campaigners seeking £20m of government research funding for lobular breast cancer, after a Conservative MP told the Commons that Downing Street had gone 43 days without replying to a letter from opposition parties backing the campaign.
Answering Peter Fortune, the MP for Bromley and Biggin Hill, at Prime Minister's Questions on 14 October, Burnham reaffirmed the support he gave the Lobular Moon Shot Project as Mayor of Greater Manchester. He made no commitment to the money the campaign is asking for.
The exchange puts the Prime Minister's backing for the campaign on the parliamentary record now that he is in No 10. The project wants £20m ring-fenced over five years for research into invasive lobular breast cancer, a form of the disease the campaign says is diagnosed in about 22 people a day in the UK. The government has not committed to funding the programme.
Fortune told MPs: "It has been 43 days since the Prime Minister received a letter signed by all Opposition parties expressing support for the Lobular Moon Shot Project, which seeks funding to fight the insidious disease that is lobular breast cancer. Sadly, no response has been received. When the Prime Minister was the Mayor of Greater Manchester, he committed to supporting the Lobular Moon Shot Project. Will he reaffirm that commitment from the Dispatch Box?"
Burnham replied: "I will indeed, and I remember the meeting very well. I speak as someone whose family has been affected by breast cancer." Hansard records him going on to say he looked forward to meeting the group again, possibly alongside Fortune and MPs from other parties.
In an opinion article published on Politics.co.uk on Wednesday, Fortune said the Prime Minister's parliamentary private secretary had contacted him after the question. Downing Street has not said whether a date for the meeting has been set or whether it has now replied to the letter.
"The response from Andy Burnham felt much more encouraging, with an assurance from the prime minister that he would meet with me, colleagues and the Lobular Moon Shot Project," Fortune wrote. "I'm pleased that his parliamentary private secretary reached out to me after the question, and I will be holding the prime minister to his promise."
The campaign says the letter was delivered to No 10 on 1 September. Its signatories, as reported by the Sussex Express, include Damian Hinds, the Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, Sir Ed Davey, Nigel Farage, John Swinney, Michelle O'Neill and Zack Polanski. The campaign describes the letter as signed by all 17 opposition parties, while Fortune's article puts it at 17 of the 19 opposition parties holding seats at Westminster and in the devolved parliaments.
The letter asks for the £20m to be provided "subject to appropriate scientific proposals, independent peer review and governance", according to the campaign.
Burnham's earlier support dates from June 2025, when as mayor he issued a statement saying he was "proud to back the Lobular Moon Shot Project". Tristan Loraine, the project's co-founder, told ITV News Meridian in July that Burnham had been due to chair a meeting of scientists in Manchester on 30 June 2025 but had covid. It is not clear which meeting the Prime Minister was referring to in his answer.
Loraine founded the project in Horsham in May 2023 with his wife, Dr Susan Michaelis, who died on 9 July 2025.
Fortune's article contrasts Burnham's response with that of his predecessor, saying "no real progress was made" following a meeting with the then research minister after he raised the issue with Sir Keir Starmer in April. The Department of Health and Social Care said in July that Lord Vallance and the health minister Sharon Hodgson had met the project "about how best to progress research in this vital area", and that the government was "determined to back research that could transform outcomes for patients".
The campaign says 469 MPs now support it. John Milne, the Liberal Democrat MP for Horsham, led a Westminster Hall debate on government support for the project on 9 July.
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