Cancer Strategy

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me early in this debate. May I express my sincere thanks to the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), and to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron)? Of course, I join the whole House in sending our best wishes to my hon. Friend’s wife at a very difficult time. I also pay tribute to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this vital debate about the cancer strategy which was published almost 18 months ago in July last year.

I am going to confine my remarks to the issue of blood cancers, and hope to be concise. There are 137 different types of blood cancer, although many of them are not well understood by the general public, and awareness is relatively low. In fact, blood cancers are the fifth most common type of cancer that people are diagnosed with in this country, and, sadly, the third biggest killer. It therefore deserves much greater awareness and understanding, and further efforts by the Department of Health and the national health service to ensure that patients who are diagnosed and their families are properly supported. I thank the hon. Member for Scunthorpe for raising that issue.

I was initially very unaware of the issue of blood cancer; my knowledge was relatively vague. That was until midway through 2012, when after only a few weeks of being ill with flu-like symptoms, my mother was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, and within 24 hours of diagnosis unfortunately passed away. Sadly, this experience has been revisited in my office. One of my employees, Tom, who also works for my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin), found out only weeks ago that his mother has unfortunately been diagnosed with leukaemia. I know that the House will join me in sending our best wishes to her and to her family.

The issue of blood cancers often comes thundering into people’s lives unexpectedly, because it does not, perhaps, have the same profile as solid tumour cancers. Indeed, I mentioned my mother’s experience of being ill for a short time and being diagnosed very late. Unfortunately, the national cancer patient experience survey has shown that a third of those who are diagnosed with blood cancers have gone to see their GP twice before they finally get that diagnosis, again because of the lack of awareness.

In relation to our efforts here in Parliament, I am pleased that just before the summer recess I was able, with the help of other right hon. and hon. Members, to establish the all-party parliamentary group on blood cancer. I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his place—he is a very key member of that group—as we seek to raise awareness of this issue. I would like to put on the record my sincere thanks to the Speaker for allowing Bloodwise, the cancer charity that is the secretariat to the all-party group, to hold an awareness event in his apartments in September.

The Minister is very diligent and works very hard, and in the short time he has held his well-deserved position he has been very kind and generous to me when responding to health concerns. I would be grateful if the issue of blood cancers was specifically addressed, so that the patient pathway and patient experience can be improved with regard to general awareness, diagnosis and the treatment and care provided by our national health service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman]

There are aspects of that with which I agree. The reality is that tobacco is the only product in the world, which, if used in the way that was intended, will kill us. Therefore, controlling it is vital.

We know as well that those with complex medical needs have the highest smoking rates. I am talking about people who are unemployed, who have mental health conditions, and who are in prison. I am also talking about the people whom I am championing at the moment—the homeless. All of them are much more likely to smoke than others, and they are also more likely to have the most health problems as a direct result. It is quite clear that the most disadvantaged members of society are more likely to smoke and therefore suffer cancer and other health-related problems as a result. Clearly, we need to take action. Quitting smoking reduces the likelihood of having cancer. It is also key that lungs can recover if one gives up smoking. We must encourage people to give up smoking and, more importantly, to try to prevent young people from ever starting. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) told us what happened to him as a five-year-old. I would not advocate that as a shock treatment. None the less, it is quite clear that stopping people starting to smoke is the best way forward, rather than trying to get them to give up later in life.

The recent report “Smoking Still Kills”, which was endorsed by no fewer than 129 organisations, recommended that, as a target, we should reduce adult smoking to less than 13% by 2020 and to 5% by 2035. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill): that is not ambitious enough. We should be going for a smoke-free Britain, or, rather, a smoke-free United Kingdom. I must get my phraseology correct.

To achieve that target, we need mass media campaigns, which the Department of Health has ceased. We need stop-smoking services to be encouraged, promoted and funded across the UK, and local authorities should enforce the necessary activities and to do their job. We know that mass media campaigns are extremely effective and cost- effective in prompting people to stop smoking and in discouraging young people from starting. In 2009 we had funding of just under £25 million for anti-smoking campaigns, but by 2015—last year—that had been reduced to £5.3 million. That is a false economy.

If we had much better funding for mass media campaigns, I am sure we could reduce the incidence of smoking far more. Equally, we know that stop-smoking services across the UK have been highly effective in reducing smoking rates. Smokers are up to four times more likely to quit if they have support from specialist groups and smoking services, compared to quitting cold. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse referred to when he gave up smoking, and he can remember the time and the date when he did so. Most people who have smoked in their adult lives have difficulty giving up and they need help and support. We should ensure that that is available.

The sad fact is that right across the UK smoking cessation services are either having their funding reduced or being closed altogether. That is extremely regrettable. I suggested to the Chancellor that by putting just 5p on a packet of 20 cigarettes and using that money to fund smoking cessation services we could provide all the money that is needed to continue smoking cessation services across the United Kingdom. That, to me, would be a very sensible investment indeed.

Funding for trading standards has fallen from £213 million in 2010 to £124 million now; the teams have been cut to the bone and the number of staff working in trading standards has been reduced radically. That means fewer local controls to target illicit tobacco in the way we should, to prevent some very nasty products from being used by people across the United Kingdom. That is a retrograde step. We need to invest in those services to make sure that we deliver better health outcomes.

We desperately need a new tobacco control plan and programme so that we can see the radical targets that are needed and the investment required across the United Kingdom. We should be setting out our stall—we want a smoke-free United Kingdom not by 2035 or beyond, but by 2020 or 2025. We can achieve it with the right programme. The key point is that if we deliver this plan, we will cut the rate of cancer deaths and the number of people suffering from cancer, which will reduce the burden on the national health service and allow us to take that money from the health service to use on the more difficult cancers that colleagues have mentioned. Those cancers are difficult to spot, difficult to treat and need specialist drugs and specialist treatments.

[Henry Smith]

My hon. Friend is making the powerful point that if we reduce preventable cancers, we can redirect resources to the difficult cancers. It is a fact that more than 230,000 people in the United Kingdom suffer from blood cancers. As in the case of pancreatic cancer, which the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) mentioned, if we could better treat those difficult cancers with those resources, we could go so much further.

[Bob Blackman]

Clearly, the priority has to be to eliminate what we can eliminate. If people smoke, they put themselves at risk of cancer—as I said, 14 different cancers are affected by smoking. If people stop smoking, it eliminates that risk. Equally, through diet, people can eliminate some of the risks. However, there are cancers that are not affected by smoking or diet. Therefore, if we can reuse resources and concentrate on the detection or treatment of the more difficult cancers, the health of the nation must be improved.

I bring my remarks to a close by saying that I hope we will get an answer in a few minutes to the question we are all asking: may we please have a date—with a day, a month and a year—when we will get the tobacco control plan?