Moles: Histological Testing

Ben Goldsborough Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. My speech today will come from a personal perspective, as well as my talking about Zoe Panayi’s life experience. I start with thanks, because this is a huge part of my own journey, as well as the journeys of everyone in this room. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate.

I want to give my thanks to Zoe’s family for letting me meet them a couple of weeks ago. It was an honour, and I cannot say that strongly enough. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley); I would never have known about Zoe’s journey, tragedy and her family’s loss without him reaching out to me and asking me to support and be involved in this vital campaign.

I need to thank those who are currently treating me for stage 2C malignant melanoma. A lot of people might be wondering—including those watching at home—“Is he getting his treatment at the Norfolk and Norwich?” Unfortunately not—so that I can carry on doing my job, which I am really determined to do—my treatment is currently being done at Charing Cross hospital in London. To lift the mask off, yesterday was my treatment day, and I went in for pembrolizumab immunotherapy. I thank those on the sixth floor in the oncology department —I will not name names, because sadly there are too many of them who have to shove a canula into me every three weeks, and I would be here forever listing their names.

I thank everyone in clinic 8 in the phlebotomy team who look after me. I thank my oncologist, who has gone above and beyond to hold my hand and make sure that I have the mental support and wellbeing that I need as well as the physical support. Those people have made a difference to my life. It reminds me of, “There but for the grace of God go I”, when we talk about Zoe’s life. The reason why I will keep referring to Zoe is because Zoe Panayi is a name that needs to be in Hansard as much as humanly possible. We lost her in tragic circumstances.

Jess’s law, which the Government are now passing, will make a difference to close the loopholes in the NHS when failures occur, but there are other issues that we need to look at. There is the private sector and the beautician sector as well. Through the great loss of Zoe’s life, at least, I hope that in the fullness of time we will be able to turn around and say Zoe Panayi’s life gave us something that actually protects others, and that it drives forward the change that we need in this country to ensure that more lives are not destroyed by melanomas and other skin cancers.

The other thanks I want to give is to Skcin—which, for Hansard, because their name is a bit funnily spelled, is S-K-C-I-N—a fantastic charity that has advised me over time on what action we can take. As pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), we need to have more investigations into the use of sunbeds. We know that they make a huge difference in our more deprived communities, and I praise the work that my hon. Friend is doing in her APPG.

I also thank Melanoma Focus and the dermatologists from Leeds teaching hospitals for their engagement with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West last week, talking about the solutions. All too often in this place we can talk about the negatives and we say, “Oh, this is too difficult. We can’t fix this problem”, but we truly can. With a Zoe check and Zoe’s law, we can make the advancements that we need.

The best way to think about this in this House is to talk back to the silos. In the NHS, Jess’s law will make a difference. With the private sector, we need to look at how we work with the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Surgeons to make sure that they have the training and skills they need to deliver the detection that is needed on different forms of dermatology, skin cancers and melanomas.

There is also the beautician sector. There are lots of different solutions for that, ranging from completely banning all removal of lesions, skin tags and moles to enforced checking of everything through a biopsy, which is where I land on this, and is why I think a Zoe check is so important. We should say, “Yes, this is not something the NHS will pay for; it will be part of the private sector’s charge”. That private sector money will help us fund more pathologists and drive forward the checks that we need so that more lives are saved.

As I think was said perfectly by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West—this debate is not the end: it is very much the start. Zoe’s family have been working on this tirelessly for years, and that shows. It takes a huge amount of strength not just to deal with the loss of a loved one, but to find an inner strength to look after those they have never met—and never will meet—and know that they are doing something good and something that will last. I think that is extremely noble. I thank Charlie and his mum for doing that. It is a time of thanks and a time of optimism. By pulling together on a cross-party basis, which we know we can do on cancers, we can save more lives.