Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and Jo Churchill

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Employment (Jo Churchill)]

Across the country our fantastic work coaches are supporting people to secure and progress in work. In Kendal, Cheadle and Darlington, jobcentres are working with local and national employers to match jobseekers with vacancies through job fairs, sector-based work academy programmes and apprenticeships. As it is National Apprenticeship Week, this is a great time for employers to promote the opportunities available, and I urge all colleagues who have not yet done so to visit their jobcentre if it has an apprenticeship fair on. The hon. Gentleman’s was last week, wasn’t it?

[Tim Farron]

I do indeed celebrate the work of the Kendal jobcentre. It does a fantastic job but one problem is that it has too small a workforce. This week we mourn the loss of yet another Lake District business, this time a bistro in Coniston, due in part to the loss of affordable homes and to restrictive visa rules, both of which are shrinking our local workforce. Will the Minister meet me and local Cumbrian business leaders to develop a plan to tackle Cumbria’s workforce crisis?

[Jo Churchill]

I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, but I also gently say that this is about other Government Departments as well. I will certainly work with him as far as employers go, under my remit.

Covid-19

Debate between Tim Farron and Jo Churchill

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

I am going to push on a little bit and then I will give way again.

This enormous national effort has put our country on a strong footing for today and years to come. We are using the best of British ingenuity to help us to deliver in this area. Progress has also been seen in other areas. As the pandemic unfolded, the UK could not call on a major diagnostic industry. From a standing start of about 2,000 tests a day in March, our capacity is now over half a million tests per day. This matters, because it has often been said in this place that in order to beat the virus we need to draw on different parts of our armoury to help to get us through. Testing works. It helps to deny the virus the connections it needs to spread. Mass testing therefore offers us a chance to achieve that on a much bigger scale. We are making progress in city-wide testing in Liverpool. I thank Joe Anderson for his leadership in helping to deliver not only in testing but in other areas too. We are also rolling out a further localised approach to other areas with the help of directors of public health, among others, who know their local areas. Some 83 local authorities have now signed up to receive regular batches of lateral flow tests, which allow for a result to be seen in 15 minutes.

Further, I know that hon. Members will celebrate Monday’s announcement of two mega-labs coming on stream early next year—very high-throughput laboratories, one in the midlands and one in Scotland, adding a further capacity of some 600,000 tests per day. These are massive gains that we are achieving by embracing cutting-edge technology such as automation and robotics and harnessing the best of British industry and academia, meaning that we will not only be able to process more tests but that they can be processed quicker and at a lower cost. The mega-labs will be another powerful weapon in our defence against this deadly virus in order to get back to a more normal way of life, but more than that, they will form a permanent part of the country’s new diagnostic industry. They can help us to respond in the future and build further resilience.

I am excited at the potential for a new diagnostic industry to help to care and deliver across other disease types, not least cancer. Hon. Members will know that, informed in large part by my own experience, I was an advocate of improved cancer outcomes long before I came to this place or took on this role. Early diagnosis is the key to beating the disease, and with bold steps forward in diagnostics, I would like it to make it my mission—I am sure with many others across the House—that we seize new opportunities in cancer services so that covid-19 is not a derailer but an opportunity for a new phase in smarter, faster diagnostics.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

rose—

[Jo Churchill]

I would be happy to hear from the hon. Member, who champions radiotherapy.

[Tim Farron]

I very much appreciate the Minister’s work in this area. She will have seen that leading clinicians think it will take five years for us to catch up with the cancer backlog. Indeed, Cancer Research UK has recognised that there have been 35,000 avoidable deaths from cancer over this period. Only very recently, there was an awful figure in an article in The BMJ saying that there have been 60,000 lost life years as a consequence of cancer during this period. I absolutely acknowledge that progress is being made when it comes to diagnostics; I am less convinced that progress is being made when it comes to treatment. Will she confirm whether her Department is making an urgent bid for spending review funding for smart radiotherapy, for delivery at satellite sites and for digital technology, to ensure that we clear the backlog, save lives and catch up with cancer?

[Jo Churchill]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As he will know, the comprehensive spending review will deliver forth, and bids have been put in across the piece. I am sure he will understand that it is not my place to answer, as those decisions are still being made.

We know that some of these figures relate to specific challenges. For example, endoscopy is still a particular challenge because of the aerosol-generating procedure. That is why I was really pleased that Cally Palmer, Professor Peter Johnson and other stakeholders, including charities, have formed the cancer recovery taskforce. They will be laying out a national plan for how we beat this, and also how we optimise the use of new treatment paths. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are using fewer radiotherapy treatments, or fractions, so that people do not have to attend so much. There is also oral chemotherapy and many other advances that need building in, to ensure that patients get timely and quick treatment.

As the first wave subsided, the NHS rose to the challenge of restoring cancer services: it kept focus and did some amazing reconfiguration work around cancer hubs and rapid diagnostic centres. I recognise that, as the hon. Gentleman says, there is a way to go, but I am aware of how much each day spent waiting for a diagnosis, for treatment or for an answer suspends time and feels like a year for the individual. We will continue to ensure that cancer services are prioritised and we thank those who work in the cancer workforce for everything they are doing.

In September, slightly over 86% saw a cancer specialist within two weeks of a referral from a GP, and 94.5% had treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat. I would really urge people who are worried about cancer or any other major issue, “Please, don’t leave it. Help us to help you.” It is always challenging, and many people have said to me that they do not want to overload the system, but doctors are keen to help.

A vaccine will perhaps be our most potent weapon, once we know that it is safe and effective. However, we do not yet have a vaccine. I must be very clear on that point. We are not quite there yet—we must ensure that we stick to hands, face, space and ventilate our environments by opening windows for short bursts—but progress on this front is encouraging. Last week, we heard about phase 3 trials from Pfizer and BioNTech, stating that their vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing covid. Today, further data indicates that the vaccine is now thought to be around 94% efficacious for those who are 65-plus, with good data on many other groups. As I say, we are constantly learning. Earlier this week, preliminary trial data from Moderna suggested that its vaccine had an effectiveness of 94.5%. Additionally, we have had the start of Janssen’s phase 3 trials in the UK this week, and we will hopefully have more phase 3 trials reported in the next few weeks.

This is all very positive, but of course, our regulator will not approve any vaccine until it is proven to be clinically safe and effective, and the way to get there is via trials. On that note, I would like to give a shout-out to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), who is taking part in the trial, and my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), who is also doing so. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) have registered, although I do not know whether they are part of it. I am sure several other Members across the House have also stepped up.

We have already struck commercial deals to secure access 355 million doses of seven vaccines, and the Department is working at pace with the NHS to ensure that we will be ready to roll out any that are proven safe and effective immediately. That will be a massive undertaking, and I thank everyone for their hard work thus far.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you were not in the Chair yesterday, but I somewhat embarrassed myself by perhaps displaying more of the parent in me than the Minister. This country’s journey in beating the pandemic, however, has been a little like watching one’s child grow: it is a huge undertaking, it comes without a manual, we are proud of the successes and, when things are trying, we attempt to learn and move on—but the work is never done. Over the past year, so many parts of our country have risen to meet an incredible set of challenges; challenges they are facing every day. Only by ensuring that we have those different lines of defence, and by pulling together in local, regional, national and international ways will we protect those on the frontline and allow family and business life to resume and get back to a different, albeit more normal way of life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tim Farron and Jo Churchill

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

If he will publish the timetable for the NHS England plan to roll out stereotactic ablative radiotherapy to all cancer centres by April 2021.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and the other members of the all-party group on radiotherapy and cancer for meeting me and officials recently. It is expected that each of the 50 NHS trusts that provide radiotherapy will be able to deliver stereotactic ablative radiotherapy no later than 31 March 2021. Increased external quality assurance capacity means that we could complete the roll-out process for all commissioned indications quicker than that. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree that such a result would be fantastic.

[Tim Farron]

I very much welcome the Minister’s response and thank her personally for her excellent attention to this matter and the progress that she has helped to make possible. Of course, with a 60% drop in the number of cancer referrals and a 20% drop in the number of people starting cancer treatment, we have late diagnoses and a backlog that could, tragically, kill more people than covid. Will the Minister therefore go further and faster and deploy expanded radiotherapy treatment this summer to clear the backlog? Will she commit to appointing a radiotherapy tsar and to a rolling radiotherapy fund, so that we can stop more lives being unnecessarily lost?

[Jo Churchill]

The hon. Gentleman will know which parts of that are still open for discussion between us, but we are of course driving hard to make sure that patients get their radiotherapy and treatment as quickly as they can. The NHS has a “Help Us Help You” campaign: it is open for business and people should make sure that they attend any appointment they are called to.