Heart Disease and Stroke: Premature Deaths

Debate between Alison Bennett and Sharon Hodgson

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mrs Sharon Hodgson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dame Siobhain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster) for securing this debate on such an important issue. I also commend him on sharing his own personal experience with his diagnosis of a congenital heart defect. I thought, as he was speaking, that it just goes to show that we should never judge solely based on how someone presents on the outside, because we never know what is going on inside; I know he served in the Royal Engineers, and he is also very fit and active. He rightly highlighted why this Government are determined to tackle cardiovascular disease head on through earlier prevention and diagnosis, because that is what is really going to make the difference.

I also thank all hon. Members for their valuable contributions this afternoon. It is clear that far too many lives are still being cut short by cardiovascular disease. In recent years, heart disease and stroke caused around 33,000 premature deaths per year, and it is the second leading cause of death in England after cancer.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) gave a powerful speech, bringing this issue into stark focus with regard to Northern Ireland. I have to say, I share his pleasure in spending so much time in these important debates in Westminster Hall; he and I are usually the common denominator. I want to refer to some of the things that he said, specifically about the ticking time bomb that cardiovascular disease can be. He mentioned that 225,000 people—one in 10—in Northern Ireland live with heart and circulatory conditions. That was very sobering; this is not a niche condition at all. He said that it accounted for 24% of deaths in Northern Ireland—one in four—and that most of those were premature. As always, I will commit to ensuring that key learnings and best practice are shared between both our health services and, indeed, with the other devolved Administrations. I always learn a lot from the hon. Member’s contributions, so I thank him for them. That is why, as part of our 10-year health plan for the NHS, we have committed to shifting from sickness to prevention and to ensuring that fewer lives are lost to the biggest killers, including cardiovascular disease.

I have made so many notes, but the trick is now whether I can find the right note for the right person and not just forget about them all; I am trying to be too clever for my own boots here. The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) who speaks for the Lib Dems, spoke a lot about prevention and about the shift from treatment and sickness to prevention. She asked me whether the public health grant would go back to 2010 levels. I cannot commit to that. Obviously, something did happen in 2010 and, as much as I like and admire the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew), there were big cuts to the public health grant—although I think the biggest cut was in 2015. However, we have provided the first three-year public health grant settlement in over a decade. That will give surety and confidence to the local authorities and public health directors in all our areas for the three years.

[Alison Bennett]

For the record, my request was that the public health grant be restored back to 2015 levels, not 2010 levels.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Right, the hon. Lady said 2015. I am being too clever for my own boots. I wrote down 2010, but of course, as I said in correcting myself, the big cut was in 2015. I am pleased that the hon. Lady has corrected the record for us all.

As I say, we have set an ambitious goal to reduce premature mortality from heart disease and stroke in the under-75s by a quarter in the next 10 years. As part of the first wave of the new generation of modern service frameworks, we will publish a cardiovascular disease modern service framework soon.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble asked me about that, and I shall move on to answer his questions. He asked when; the answer is soon. The Department and NHS England have engaged widely to consider a range of conditions that are most likely to drive progress on the Government’s ambition and the CVD MSF—if Members do not mind me using the acronym to save words—will set out 12 high impact priority action areas, descriptions of how unwarranted variation should be addressed and a road map for the next 10 years. The framework will be backed by clear accountability and routine monitoring of progress using existing NHS performance and oversight arrangements.

To support the delivery of the framework across the system, we will launch a series of ambitious strategic partnerships between Government, the NHS, industry and the voluntary sector. We thank the British Heart Foundation for its support and participation as a task and finish group member for the CVD MSF.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble asked about type 2 diabetes. I pay tribute to and thank his friend Jared, who is with us today, and who I am aware is a type 1 diabetic. Type 2 diabetes is very prevalent in cardiovascular disease. We are taking steps to reduce overall prevalence of type 2 diabetes by supporting programmes such as the NHS health check and the highly effective “Healthier You” NHS diabetes prevention programme. I will talk more about obesity prevention and the obesogenic environment if I have time.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble asked me about cholesterol. We know that addressing raised cholesterol is key to preventing CVD. Statins cut CVD risk in just four to six weeks, and are readily available and quite cheap, as interventions go. As of December 2025, 85% of people with CVD were being treated with cholesterol-lowering therapy, including statins, across England. He also asked me about arterial fibrillation. The Government recognise the importance of optimising arterial fibrillation treatment. As of December 2025, 92% of those with high-risk arterial fibrillation were being treated with anticoagulants, which was an increase from 87% in March 2020.