Andy Burnham has invited British swimmer Archie Goodburn to a personal meeting after the Commonwealth Games star broke down in tears while making an emotional plea for more cancer research funding on BBC Breakfast yesterday.

The 25-year-old swimmer, who was diagnosed with inoperable brain tumours when he was just 22, implored the Prime Minister to invest more money and resources into cancer research by tearfully asking him to 'give us a chance to fight for our lives'.

Burnham, replying to a video of Goodburn's impassioned plea on TikTok, said: 'Archie, thank you for this. I know how hard it must have been.

'What you're doing for other people while you're going through all this yourself shows the best of us.

'I'd really like to meet you and hear from you directly and I've asked my team to get in touch.'

Goodburn, who has undergone significant challenges over the past few years and has tirelessly campaigned for increased awareness of the disease since his cancer diagnoses, remarkably reached the 50m breaststroke final at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last week.

While appearing on BBC Breakfast on Tuesday, the swimmer stared down the barrel of the camera and broke down in tears as he made a direct plea to Downing Street, saying: 'Andy Burnham, if you believe and want to make a change and a difference to the future of our country and our young population, please listen to us.

'Please establish a national brain cancer lead and give us a chance to fight for our lives because the things that patients are going through out there is unbelievable and so unjust.

'There are clinical trials around the world, in the US, in Australia, in China, that could change lives. We are not seeing them in the UK and it is unfair and unjust.

'Please invest and make the difference. I'm on my knees begging for not just my own life but for those of my best friends and those that are affected and the families around the country.

'This has to change. It's been going for too long and the suffering is unbearable.'

His emotional plea came after the Rare Cancers Bill, aimed at improving research and trials into rare types of the disease, had become law earlier this year.

'It's a step in the right direction but it's not going to make the changes that we need,' he continued. 'I'm extremely grateful for Dr Scott Arthur and the work he's done there.

'The Rare Cancers Bill covers 14 different types of rare cancers. Brain cancer is one of these in terms of incidents of diagnosis, but it's not the same in terms of the number of deaths it causes.

'Yes it's rare, but it's extremely deadly. This frustrates me immensely.

'The rare cancers bill establishes two new positions: a clinical lead and a research lead. These two roles are part-time across 14 different types of cancers and they accumulate to 36 days a year.

'There's two roles to cover 14 different types of cancer and change the landscape of treatment.

'I do not see how 36 days a year is going to make that change for 14 different types of cancers, let alone the most deadly type of cancer.'