Business of the House

Andrew Jones Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The freedom of information legislation is on the statute book. I advise the hon. Gentleman to take the action that is available to him through the process of appeal against decisions if he is unhappy with some of those decisions, and has not obtained information that he wants.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

Every day about 75 people in Yorkshire and the Humber are diagnosed with cancer, but at the same time great work is being done in our area in the form of medical research and work on improving training techniques for surgery. I have seen that work being done at the Leeds cancer research centre, which is a partnership between the NHS, the voluntary sector and Leeds university. May we please have a debate on medical research and all that the Government are doing to support it?

[Sir George Young]

I should welcome such a debate. Within the budget of the Department of Health, research is a priority. As for the specific issue of cancer, we have created a £200 million a year cancer drugs fund to help cancer patients gain more access to the life-extending drugs that they need, which has financed more than 10,000 treatments. I know that my hon. Friend will welcome that.