Advanced Brain Cancer: Tissue Freezing

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh]

My hon Friend is absolutely right. Let us be absolutely clear: there is no route for an improvement in any of the rare cancers unless there are more trials—and the system mitigates against that. There is a lot of talk at the moment about the Government of stakeholders. The stakeholders involved in drug trials—the major pharma companies and cancer charities—do not get involved in these trials because for pharma there is no money in it, and for the big charities, there seems to be more interest in primary science and mice work than there is in using some of these amazing drugs to find out whether they can provide some sort of support to people with rare cancers.

It is the lack of treatment options, and this inaction, that led me, alongside my sister’s extraordinary network of friends and supporters, to launch our own trial in her memory. When the system does not move quickly enough, patients and families are forced to take matters into their own hands. We have an established clinical trial now under way at the University College London Hospitals clinical research facility with encouraging early indicators, a wider trial programme mapped out and further trials ready to follow with protocols written.

We are seeking to clarify how to secure the funding needed to repeat and extend this work using alternative drugs, so that more patients can benefit. We continue to raise funds to support that goal.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Yesterday the hon. Member outlined the tremendous work being done to privately raise about £1 million for research. Does she agree that that needs to be supplemented and complemented by statutory funding to make the dramatic difference that she, and hopefully all of us, agree needs to happen?

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh]

I completely agree with the hon. Member. Anything that we have raised—£1 million over two years—is a drop in the ocean. It is an important drop in the ocean, and it has led to action, which is what we need, but in the longer term, it has to be the Government and the pharmaceuticals that are not intervened on if we are to make progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) for setting the scene so incredibly well, and the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) for all that she does—I was impressed by her contribution yesterday, and she equalled it today.

I think we all know someone who has been touched by cancer. The youngest daughter of a close friend of mine was diagnosed with glioblastoma last Christmas, and she died a few weeks later. At that time, the diagnosis was bleak, and the lives of my friend and his wife were changed forever. Bleak does not even come close to the sense of loss.

[Mr Campbell]

I have personal experience of a very young constituent who lost her father for the exact same reason. The trauma affects not just the immediate family, but close friends too, and it lives with them for years. Hopefully, we can see some progress both today and in the next few weeks, whenever the cancer issue is addressed in the main Chamber.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend. That story makes today’s debate that bit more impactful for me and for us all. My friend is a veteran. He served in the forces with great courage. He has shoulders as broad as a rugby player. He is a man who could take on anything. He laid his life on the line for the freedom of everyone here. Yet, he could do nothing but watch—

Less Survivable Cancers

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Clive Jones]

Yes, that was the Minister calling me to apologise. [Laughter.]

I asked the Committee for the debate six months ago, but having it one month before the probable publication of a national cancer plan is not a bad date for it. I also thank the less survivable cancers taskforce, Cancer Research UK and Myeloma UK for their help and guidance in securing and preparing for this debate.

As I have mentioned many times here and in the main Chamber, I am a cancer survivor. The experience has shown me how important early diagnosis and effective treatment are to our outcomes. My diagnosis was delayed, because I was sent away by the first GP I saw and had to wait several months again before being diagnosed with breast cancer. Fortunately, my treatment was successful, but many others are not so lucky, especially those with less survivable cancers.

Every year in the UK, 90,000 people are diagnosed with a less survivable cancer—cancers of the brain, liver, lungs, pancreas, oesophagus and stomach. Together, they represent 40% of all cancer deaths and account for 67,000 deaths every year. The less survivable cancers have been overlooked for far too long. While many other cancers have seen major advancements in survival, survival rates for those six cancers have remained staggeringly low for the past 25 years. The collective five-year survival rate for those cancers is just 16%. The sad reality for the 90,000 people diagnosed with one of the cancers is that 75,000 will not survive more than five years. That is a school play someone will not see, a set of exam results that they will miss, or a first day at university, a graduation, a significant birthday of their own or of a loved one, or the birth of a grandchild that someone will not see.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, in particular given his personal circumstances. He rightly outlined the need for early diagnosis. Does he agree that that is particularly true of those of us who are males, who sometimes have an extreme reluctance to go to a GP to ascertain what might be wrong? That needs to be addressed urgently.

[Clive Jones]

It does. The more that people like me and others who have survived cancer talk about it, and about our experience of a delay and having the cancer spread, the more that will help others to come forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I join my hon. Friend in commending Lord Cameron on his openness. Raising awareness, as we know, encourages men to come forward and leads to more diagnosis. He has done a great public service in talking about his own experience. We are improving care for men diagnosed with prostate cancer and undergoing active monitoring or treatment. We will be introducing support for individuals who are on prostate cancer active monitoring pathways to enable them to order and complete prostate-specific antigen blood tests at home from 2027. As for screening and the case being made for targeted screening, I await the recommendations of the National Screening Committee. We will study those carefully. We know that this is contested within the sector, so it is important that we have an evidence-based discussion, thrash out the arguments and reach the right way forward.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s indication that he is awaiting the outcome of that report on screening for prostate cancer. If that report recommends what many of us hope it will recommend, will he act quickly to develop the report’s recommendations, whatever they are?

[Wes Streeting]

We are expecting the draft recommendations, and then a three-month consultation period will follow, but I want to act quickly on the evidence and what the recommendations contain, not least because we know that as well as it being a prevalent form of cancer, some groups—particularly black men, men with a family history of prostate cancer and men with BRCA gene mutations—are at higher risk. Black men are twice as likely to die with prostate cancer than white men. There is therefore an imperative to act. Whatever the recommendation, we need to do much better on diagnosis and treatment of this terrible condition.

Obesity and Fatty Liver Disease

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Beccy Cooper (Worthing West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered obesity and fatty liver disease.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford, alongside my parliamentary colleagues who have kindly come along this morning to debate and highlight the public health emergency that is obesity and fatty liver disease.

The vast majority of us do not often think about the health of our livers. If we do, our biggest concern is how many units of alcohol we drink every week and whether our livers can keep up. But we do talk about our weight a fair amount, either in terms of how we look and how our clothes fit, or, if we are linking it to disease, whether we are blocking up our arteries and risking a heart attack. Today I want to make the case for linking our concerns about being overweight and sedentary with the very real risk of developing fatty liver disease. Before I give the alarming statistics about the huge increase in liver disease in the UK, I want us all to hold on to the fact that a weight loss of 10% can halt and even reverse fatty liver disease progression, and the way to help us all to do that is not to point fingers and tell individuals to try harder. There are much more effective public health solutions than that.

Now for the alarming statistics that should give us all pause for thought: after heart disease, liver disease is the biggest cause of premature mortality and lost working years of life in the UK. In stark contrast with other killer diseases where the mortality rate has gone down, deaths from liver disease have increased by 400%—yes, 400%—over the past two decades. Every year we are seeing 18,000 deaths from liver disease. It is now the biggest killer of 35 to 49-year-olds in the UK. In two to three years it is set to surpass heart disease as the leading cause of premature death in the UK.

Today’s debate matters because fatty liver disease is becoming one of the defining public health challenges of our generation—a disease that already affects as many as one in five adults in the UK, equating to about 1 million people, but one that hardly anyone knows about. When I asked my parliamentary colleagues to speak in today’s debate, they said, “Fatty liver disease? What’s that?” So hopefully this debate will highlight this alarming disease.

Closely linked to our ongoing struggles with obesity, fatty liver disease—for the record, its clinical name is metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease; that is the last time I am going to say that today—is deeply rooted in our broken food systems and the stark health inequalities that our communities face.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. She is outlining very clearly the importance of the issue. It is vital that people are aware of it. Does she agree that if we do not deal with the issue, the NHS waiting lists over the coming years will be compounded even further than they have been already?

[Dr Cooper]

I thank the hon. Member for making that excellent point. He is absolutely right. The issues of the NHS waiting lists are pertinent and stark. Reducing them will mean that we have to get the left shift right as well as invest in acute services.

Our policies have failed the population for decades. This debate is an opportunity to make the urgent case for a national liver strategy, joined-up public health work and profound reform of the conditions that stop us all living well. Because we have failed to build an environment where healthy food is affordable and accessible, two thirds of UK adults are now overweight or obese, and one in three children in England are above a healthy weight when they leave primary school.

Fatty liver disease is a silent killer, often asymptomatic until at a very advanced stage, meaning many patients are diagnosed too late for effective intervention. Left untreated, as too many are, fatty liver disease can progress to liver inflammation, fibrosis, cirrhosis, liver failure or liver cancer. Fatty liver disease also increases significantly the risk of heart attacks, stroke and heart failure. It is projected to overtake alcohol as the leading cause of liver transplants within a decade.

How do we treat fatty liver disease? Despite high and rising mortality rates, there are limited treatment options for patients with this disease. As I have said, weight loss and lifestyle change are essential.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Some progress has been made in the early diagnosis of prostate cancer. Will the Secretary of State ensure that when the further progress that we all hope to see is made, it will be shared quickly and efficiently with the devolved regions?

Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I know that this subject is close to my hon. Friend’s heart, and I pay tribute to him for his work on it. We recognise the devastating impact that an eating disorder can have, and the earlier the treatment is provided, the greater the chance of recovery. The Department continues to work closely with NHS England, which is now refreshing guidance on children and young people’s eating disorders. I commend the work of Beat, and I would be happy to discuss this further with my hon. Friend.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The eating disorder issue is escalating, as the Minister rightly points out. Will he agree to hold discussions and consultations with the devolved structures in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, so this issue goes to the top of the list of issues that have not really been dealt with in the past but need dealing with now?

[Stephen Kinnock]

We remain in close contact with all our colleagues in all the devolved Administrations. I will certainly be following up with officials as we develop the research programmes that we are working on, and as we integrate eating disorders into the broader work we are doing around mental health. Getting 8,500 more mental health workers and creating Young Futures hubs and mental health crisis centres is just some of the work that this Government are doing on this important issue.

Glaucoma Awareness

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered glaucoma awareness.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Mr Pritchard. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for attending this important debate. First, I declare my registered interest as a practising optometrist for the NHS. As an optometrist for many years, I have had the privilege—sometimes the heartbreak —of looking into the eyes of people whose lives are changing without their even knowing about it. Fundamentally, that is what glaucoma does: it changes lives quietly, and often without warning. Last week was Glaucoma Awareness Week because many people are not aware of the condition.

At this point, I applaud the work done by Glaucoma UK to raise awareness of the condition. It is known as “the thief of sight” for very good reasons. Broadly speaking, glaucoma damages the optic nerve. The optic nerve is made of millions of little nerves and bundles, and each part of the nerve represents a single point in our visual fields. Because vision loss begins at the edges, people do not often realise that anything is wrong until it is too late.

I would like to give two brief but real examples from my experience. First, a woman came into my practice who had been hit by a car, while in her own car, from the side, not once but twice. She came in and read out the bottom line—the tiniest letters that can be seen—and could not understand why she kept missing things on the side: in this case, cars. It became apparent that she was a quite advanced sufferer of glaucoma, and she had lost the majority of what we call peripheral or side vision. Another memorable patient was a gentleman who was brought in kicking and screaming by his wife because he kept knocking off the salt, pepper and ketchup from the dinner table. It became apparent, again: he could see everything clearly straight ahead, but he really could not see anything on the side. He also had a very advanced form of glaucoma.

Glaucoma is the leading cause of preventable blindness in this country, with over 700,000 people affected, but the shocking thing is that more than half of them—350,000 people—are undiagnosed: they are walking and driving around not knowing that they have the condition. They could be one of us—somebody we love, or somebody we work with, as was the case of a former Member of Parliament of this parish, Paul Tyler, a Lib Dem Member, who was diagnosed at a completely routine eye test. In his own words, he might not have been able to carry on his duty as a parliamentarian if he had not gone for a simple eye test where they detected glaucoma. Twenty-five years later, his sight is still preserved.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He rightly alludes to the issue of regular eye testing. Although we obviously want a response from the Minister, does he agree that if nothing else is achieved from this debate but raising people’s awareness about doing exactly as he recommends—and all of us recommend regular eye testing—to detect conditions such as glaucoma, he will have done us all a service?

Alcohol and Cancer

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered alcohol and cancer.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting us the opportunity to debate alcohol and cancer. This issue affects all of us; it affects our constituents, our families and friends, and our local health services. I thank the Alcohol Health Alliance and the World Cancer Research Fund for providing me with detailed figures and materials that helped me to prepare for this debate.

As parliamentarians, we often need to know a little about a lot, but I confess that even I was shocked at how little I knew of some of the latest alcohol harms and cancer risks when I started to investigate this issue. I find it astounding that although alcohol has been designated a group 1 carcinogen since 1988—the same grouping as both tobacco and asbestos—almost 40 years later, this is the first debate in this place on alcohol and cancer. That speaks candidly to the lack of awareness that perhaps many of us have about alcohol. Were we better informed, perhaps we would pursue more changes to the drinking culture in our workplace. I therefore sincerely hope that we can do this issue justice and raise awareness—both among Members of the House and members of the public who might be watching at home—about the harm that alcohol causes, including cancer. Given the poor record of numerous Governments on tackling alcohol harms over the past 20 years, that is perhaps the least we can do.

It is hard to argue against public health experts who say that we are amid “an alcohol harm crisis.” The figures are frightening, and they have been rising at an explosive rate since the pandemic. For any other health condition, a 42% increase in deaths over a five-year period would be treated as a health emergency, but for alcohol it feels like just another day in the office. Those statistics are only for alcohol-specific deaths, and the numbers spike even higher once alcohol-related deaths are factored in.

I will return to that later in my speech, but I would first like to set the scene on alcohol and cancer. The reality is that alcohol is toxic to our bodies. Risks are present even at low consumption levels, and they increase the more someone consumes. That has led the World Health Organisation to declare in recent years that there is “no safe level” when drinking alcohol. Evidence now links alcohol to at least seven types of cancer, including breast and bowel, which are two of the most common cancers in the UK, and oesophageal, which is one of the hardest to treat. The other cancers that alcohol can cause include mouth, throat, liver and stomach. In addition, a new study released in May by the International Agency for Research on Cancer presented evidence linking alcohol to an eighth cancer: pancreatic cancer.

I am afraid that it gets worse. In the UK, 17,000 cancers a year are attributable to alcohol, which is close to one in 20. When it comes to breast cancer, which is the UK’s most common cancer, research figures from Cancer Research UK attribute as many as one in 10 cases to alcohol. We are already at a diagnosis rate of around 46 new alcohol-related cancers a day, and experts have warned that if the nation’s alcohol consumption does not start to return to pre-pandemic levels, we could see an additional 18,875 cancer cases by 2035.

With 46 alcohol-related cancers already being diagnosed every single day, that would add up to the equivalent of an alcohol-related cancer diagnosis for every Member of this House in just two weeks, which I find simply staggering. I know those are big numbers, but they are not faceless figures. Each is someone’s mother, father, spouse, sister, brother, colleague or friend.

The harm is disproportionate, and it is concentrated in our most deprived communities. Lancaster and Wyre is ranked worse than the national average in four of the six key alcohol harm categories, including hospital admissions, cancer cases and alcohol-related deaths. Government after Government have not got a grip on alcohol harm, and our constituents continue to pay the price.

My interest in this subject started just over 12 months ago when local stats on alcohol-related deaths were released. I was shocked to see my area at the top of the English league table. I thank the Alcohol Health Alliance for supplying me with so much information, including my constituency figures, in the lead-up to this debate, though it makes stark reading.

We are a year into this Government and, if nothing changes and we do nothing in this Parliament, my local figures suggest that I will have to explain to my constituents why we did nothing to stop another 195 alcohol-related cancer cases, as well as 225 alcohol-specific deaths and 9,400 hospital admissions in my constituency alone. Doing nothing is not good enough.

Figures in the north-west are not much better, with alcohol estimated to cost my region almost £4 billion a year. That pattern is repeated across neighbouring regions, including the north-east and the west midlands. Time and again, our most deprived communities suffer the most harm from alcohol, despite often drinking less than their more affluent counterparts.

Alcohol harm and health inequalities walk hand in hand: alcohol-related deaths, alcohol-related cancers and alcohol-related hospital admissions. Those are people’s lives. They are being chewed up and spat out by an alcohol industry whose main concern is delivering the highest profits to its shareholders and board members, at the expense of our national health.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on the timeliness of her debate. Does she agree that we need more research on the health costs endured by society and the NHS due to this problem? That has to be offset against the tax revenues that accrue from alcohol overconsumption. Those things have to be analysed and researched to address a worsening problem, to which she is right to draw attention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I thank the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) for setting the scene expertly with all the detailed information we need. Before we started, she told me that this is our first debate together in Westminster Hall for some time, and it was a real pleasure to see her in full flow again.

This issue affects so many people in every constituency. The debate is an opportunity to explore the issue further and see how we, and ultimately the Minister, can inform and aid people to make good choices about nutrition and health. I am not in the business of telling people what to do. I do not think that is the way to do it; we should try to coax. If we raise awareness of the issues, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre has done incredibly well, we will have a better way of persuading people to be careful and not excessive. I welcome the Government’s excellent 10-year NHS plan, which was announced last Thursday. All of us in this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be encouraged by the Government and Minister’s commitment to it.

It is estimated that nearly 40% of cancer cases in the United Kingdom are currently preventable, caused by known, modifiable risk factors such as the food we eat and what we drink. I am a diabetic, and that is because of my own circumstances—I would not recommend Chinese and two bottles of Coke five nights a week, and lots of stress. It does not work. Unfortunately, I did not have the wherewithal to understand that it was the wrong thing to do. It caught up with me when I was 17 stone and heading for type 2 diabetes, as a doctor told me. The point is that I did not know, but I should have known, because the symptoms were there.

It is the same for the symptoms of cancer. There is convincing evidence that being overweight, obesity, processed meat consumption and drinking alcohol are associated with increased cancer risk. Suggestions have been made that being overweight and obesity—this is really worrying—could overtake smoking as the greatest cause of preventable cancers in women in the United Kingdom by 2043. Some of the stats are incredibly shocking.

Cancer research has highlighted that there are many ways that alcohol can cause cancer, such as through damage to cells and changes to hormones. Alcohol can increase the levels of some hormones in our bodies such as oestrogen and insulin. All alcohol has an effect, even a small amount. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre is right that it is better if we do not drink it. By the way, I am not telling anybody what to do, to make that clear, but it is about advice.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

My hon. Friend is talking about an educational approach and trying to advise rather than force people; does he agree that the younger we start doing that, the better? Although they are not exclusively the target audience, we need to focus on teenagers and those in their early 20s, because lifestyle choices are made when we are very young.

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those are, by and large, the factors that will indicate where someone goes in adult life and further afield. It is important to do that at an early stage, whether at school or in young adulthood.

Hormones are chemical messengers, and high levels of oestrogen and insulin can make cells divide more often. That increases the chance that cancer will develop. Alcohol can make it easier for cells in the mouth and throat to absorb harmful chemicals that cause damage. There are signs that alcohol can exacerbate the chances of different types of cancer such as breast cancer and bowel cancer—two of the most common types—and mouth cancer. It can also increase the chance of some types of throat cancer, including cancer of the oesophagus, or the food pipe; cancer of the larynx, or the voice box; cancer of the pharynx, or the upper throat; and liver cancer. All those are potential issues.

Cancer Focus Northern Ireland has highlighted on its website the fact that the consumption of any amount of alcohol increases the risk of developing cancer, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre said. Cancer Focus Northern Ireland also says that the more alcohol a person drinks, the higher the risk of their developing cancer. Reducing consumption or, even better, avoiding alcohol completely will help to reduce the risk. Cancer Focus Northern Ireland also highlights the fact that drinking and smoking together multiplies the risk of developing certain cancers.

It is essential that we get the message across that just as we need to modulate our eating habits, we need to consider alcohol not simply from an addiction point of view but knowing that the links to cancer are clear. As with all things, it is important to educate young people, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) said. We need to give them the understanding that alcohol intake is linked to overall health. This is a cross-departmental undertaking, with the Department for Education having a role to play alongside the Department of Health and Social Care. Perhaps the Minister could give us some ideas about how those two Departments could work better together to ensure that young people have a healthy approach to alcohol and less of a binge mentality.

British women are the biggest female binge drinkers in the world. That is what the stats say. More than a quarter of British women consume more than six drinks at least once a month, according to a 2023 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which compared alcohol consumption across 33 countries. Although the proportion is much higher for men, at 45%, the proportion for British women is still unmatched among female populations anywhere else in Europe. So we have a big job to do in encouraging a healthy attitude to alcohol. We must ensure that the messaging shows that it is an issue of long-term health, as well as one of short-term sobriety.

To conclude, people must be free to enjoy their lives and have a taste of things in moderation, but the health of the nation depends on a healthier approach to alcohol. The statistics outlined in this debate, by others before me and by those who will follow, show that this is a matter of urgency. As always, I very much look forward to the Minister outlining how the Government can—with us MPs, on behalf of our constituents—change the approach to the health of this great nation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Eating Disorder Awareness

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I wish you well in your first debate in your new role as Chair, Mr Stuart? It is your first debate, and I am sure you will keep us all in order. You are always in order in the Chamber, so that sets an example. I jest, of course.

I commend the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for leading today’s debate. She is greatly to be commended for having spoken about the issue in Westminster Hall and the main Chamber for so many years. I am grateful to be able to contribute to the debate; as the DUP health spokesperson, I have dealt with many issues on which people who have been suffering with eating disorders have sought help and support that will benefit them in the long term. As I always do in these debates, I will give some background on the situation in Northern Ireland, which replicates what other Members have said and will say.

Eating disorders present a significant health concern that affects all age groups back home. A study has found that some 16.2% of 11 to 19-year-olds in Northern Ireland met the criteria for a probable eating disorder. We are quite worried about that in Northern Ireland; I certainly am in Strangford, because it is absolutely shocking.

Between April 2022 and March 2023, the charity Beat delivered 603 helpline sessions to individuals aged 18 to 22 in Northern Ireland—a massive 225% increase, which is very worrying. Action Mental Health has revealed that between 50 and 120 people in Northern Ireland develop anorexia every year, and around 107 develop bulimia, which are worrying figures. There are approximately 100 admissions to hospital for eating disorders every year. I know that the Minister does not have responsibility for Northern Ireland, but I add that information because it shows how things are back home. I will give an example of how we have managed to overcome the problem.

There are many risk factors for eating disorders, including genetics, psychology, trauma, abuse and—a large one for young people today—social media, to which the hon. Member for Bath referred. It is important to remember that eating disorders can affect anyone, not just young people and not just women. It has been said that early intervention is essential for improving outcomes and for reducing the duration of the disorder. There is commonly a stigma around eating disorders; more often than not, people suffering with an eating disorder feel extreme shame.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the shame that sufferers sometimes feel is an issue that wider society needs to grapple with? There is often self-denial about the problem, even when others can see it. As well as having data and support, we need to show empathy to overcome the problem.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for his wise words, as always. He reminds us of the pressure that is on everyone.

It is important that our schools have the tools. They need to support young people who may be suffering or on the verge of suffering with a serious eating disorder. Beat’s SPOT—school professionals online training—was introduced to enhance teachers’ ability to identify and respond to potential signs. There is potential for further teaching within our local schools to promote awareness of the dangers of social media and of how it is often not a positive reflection of reality. Young people do not have to look a certain way and are often unaware of the health dangers of eating disorders, which are completely distorted by social media and the internet.

Back in 2012, a constituent came to see me. I know the mum and dad very well; they both served in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. They were extremely worried about their daughter. It would be no exaggeration to say that she was probably on the point of death. The mother went to the then Health Minister in Northern Ireland, Edwin Poots; they approached me and I spoke to the Minister over here. We were able to get her transferred from Northern Ireland to St Thomas’ hospital, just across Westminster bridge. Today, that young lady has been cured; she is a mother to two children; she has a business. All those things happened because of the co-ordination between Northern Ireland and the Health Minister here, so there was good news at the end.

The funding for mental health and for the services that deal directly with eating disorders must be improved to ensure that people who need it have access to behavioural therapy, nutrition education, monitoring and, in some cases, in-patient care and hospitalisation. I look to the Minister for his commitment to ensuring that those are a priority and that he will engage further with the Education Minister and the devolved nations to ensure that schools are equipped to protect young people and have the knowledge of the early signs that they may require help.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

We have seen the biggest settlement in many years for our health and care system across the country. It is now up to the SNP Government in Edinburgh to absorb and deliver that funding in a way that will actually improve services in Scotland—something that we have not seen for a very long time under the misrule of the Scottish National party.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The magnificent work done by those who work in hospices, including the four in Northern Ireland, needs to be reflected in the funding formula. Will the Minister undertake to discuss with ministerial colleagues the need for the Treasury to review that funding formula, particularly in relation to devolved settlements?

[Stephen Kinnock]

From the roundtable discussions, and from subsequent discussions we have been having with the sector, it is clear that we need to look at the long-term funding issue. We faced a cliff edge towards the end of last year. That is not the right way to do things. We must start getting the funding discussions moving so that, well in advance of the end of this financial year, the funding situation for the palliative and hospice sector is much clearer.