Progressive Supranuclear Palsy

Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Amber Rudd

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I am delighted to have secured this debate, in which I will draw to the Chamber’s attention the needs of a specific group of people who need us to take action on their behalf.

In Towcester, in my constituency of South Northamptonshire, there is a national charity called the PSP Association, which is the only charity in the UK working solely for people with the neurological conditions progressive supranuclear palsy and the related disease corticobasal degeneration and those who care for them. PSP and CBD are diseases closely related to motor neurone disease and Parkinson’s disease.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend clarify how many people suffer from PSP compared with motor neurone disease?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will address that later, but my hon. Friend is right to make that point, because it is believed that more people suffer from PSP than from MND, despite the fact that the latter disease is much more commonly known in general society.

PSP and CBD are similar diseases, and PSP is often used as shorthand for both conditions. In progressive supranuclear palsy, progressive means that it gets steadily worse over time; supranuclear means that it damages parts of the brain above the pea-sized nuclei that control eye movement; and palsy means that it causes weakness. Members may never have come across PSP before, but, sadly, it takes many lives.

PSP is caused by the progressive death of nerve cells in the brain, leading to difficulty with balance, movement, vision, speech and swallowing. Over time, PSP can rob people of the ability to walk, talk, feed themselves and communicate effectively. The average life expectancy is seven years from the point of diagnosis. Those who are diagnosed with PSP suffer severe and unpredictable impairments that have an enormous impact on the individual and their family. PSP is a dreadful disease.

I am pleased that since 2010, having written several times to the Department of Health, there is now better recording of PSP on death certificates, giving a clearer indication of the number of sufferers. Our attention, however, must now turn to diagnosis. Statistics show that some 4,000 people are living with PSP in the UK, but because diagnosis is still so uncertain, neurologists believe the figure could be as high as 10,000. Astonishingly, as my hon. Friend mentioned, there may be more PSP sufferers than sufferers of MND in the UK today.

UN Women

Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Amber Rudd

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), with her powerful advocacy for the women of the middle east and her description of the very difficult lives that they are living out there.

I welcome UN Women’s ambitious and wide-ranging plans for women. Talking about the differences and similarities between men and women can be tricky, but does it counter the strong, rational argument for equality to raise the clear differences that exist? For instance, if we say that women are more likely to fight for peace, do we make it less likely that they will be taken seriously in a military scenario? Can we discuss differences without falling into the trap of stereotyping men and women into caricatures of themselves—the pink team and the blue team? It might be tricky, but it is dishonest to ignore the clear differences between men and women—the positive differences that create better outcomes.

There have been several references this week to the report from Lord Davies on women in the boardroom. I should like to draw the House’s attention to a report that came out this week from the City law firm Eversheds, which carried out a study of 234 listed companies. It showed that corporate governance issues had absolutely no effect on the share price, except in one area. The fact that there were more women on the board of a company had a positive influence on the share price. Let us hope that fund managers will pick up this important news and perhaps make it obligatory for the businesses they invest in to take on this particular aspect of corporate governance.

I am not here to raise the issue of equality on my own behalf or for women like me, as I recognise that I have had many privileges, but the issue is vital for less developed countries. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) pointed out, it is perhaps our duty, particularly on international women’s day, to raise this issue for other women. It is because of the differences and the vital but different contributions women can make that we need to fight for their opportunities and influence those outcomes when we can.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that so many women in needy countries are taking out micro-finance loans to provide for their children shows how the role of women is absolutely essential to feeding so many children in less developed parts of the world?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution; in fact, I am about to talk about a similar situation. As she implies, the difference women can make to managing their families in the developed world can create an opportunity for non-governmental organisations and perhaps UN Women to focus on women as providers in their own communities.

The human rights case for equality is, I believe, glaringly simple. Girls and women should not be disadvantaged because of their gender, and where that is the case, we need to remove the barriers in their lives. We know what a lot of those barriers are: they are to do with education, health, and taking action against violence, and the UN Women initiative will focus on those. I feel sure that few would disagree with that.