NHS: Cancer Treatments

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, at the beginning of this debate it became clear that we are dealing with one of those extraordinary parliamentary moments. In a way, I have a much easier job than the Minister today, so my sympathy is with him in answering this debate.

Are any of us surprised that when Tessa, my noble friend Lady Jowell, was diagnosed with what she called this “bloody tumour”, she tried with her usual courage, energy and vigour to try to improve the outcomes for all people with cancer? No, we are not, because this is the woman who, as the first ever Public Health Minister, promoted the tobacco control that we all now take for granted, facing outrage from the tobacco industry, its friends at the Sun and the Mail and, though probably less well-known to the public, many Back-Bench Labour MPs who thought pubs and clubs would go out of business if people were not allowed to drink in the smog created by cigarettes. “Nanny” was the label that the papers gave her at the time, but how many lives have been saved already as a result of my noble friend’s determination to do the right thing? The label of nanny was continued because of Sure Start—of course it was. But this is a woman whose determination led her to take on the Prime Minister and all comers to convince us that the Olympics should come to London, could come to London and, when they did so, to ensure, with others, that we all had an absolutely great time in 2012.

The reason I am reminding the House of these matters is not only because of my admiration for my friend Tessa. I am reminding the House, particularly the Minister, that in the face of opposition and scepticism, my noble friend will win through. She has proved to be correct time and again. I say to the Minister and the Government that they had better believe this noble Baroness and take what she is telling us very seriously. From the relatively modest suggestion that fluorescent dye to identify the tumour should be available in all brain surgery centres in England, which seems to me perfectly correct, to the more innovative—adaptive clinical trials, testing multiple treatments against a standard, which could speed up the introduction of new drugs as well as enabling existing ones to be repurposed, linked to a platform to share data across the world—my noble friend is saying: this is a demanding new paradigm, but the prize is surely worth the struggle.

The Government and all of us should follow her example and not be afraid to commit to making this happen.