Business of the House

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I hope that my past actions on that matter speak volumes and do that job. Where I have given the House incorrect information, I have corrected the record. The hon. Lady is quite right: sometimes mistakes happen and they should be corrected. With regard to the motivation for her question, I refer her to what I said yesterday further to a point of order: the figures that she is working off, from a House of Commons Library paper, are from the SNP’s budget in 2022. They are out of date.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

I wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 16 October to ask whether the Department would consider reopening the state-of-the-art Rutherford cancer centre in Bomarsund in my constituency, given the lengthy—and lengthening—cancer waiting lists in my area of the north-east. I received a letter from the Department only this week—three months later—suggesting that:

“To operate as NHS cancer centres, the Rutherford sites need to meet NHS specifications and we are advised by NHS England that they do not.”

The reality is that other Rutherford cancer units, in Taunton and in Clatterbridge in Liverpool, have joint partnerships with the NHS. The Rutherford centre in Bomarsund has had referrals from the NHS, so this is absolute humbug. Will the Leader of the House consider a debate in Government time on fairness and equity in the frequency of diagnostics, cancer treatment and so on across the country, not forgetting the north-east of England?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. Before I call the Leader of the House, I should say that a significant number of Members wish to participate, and there is some very serious business to follow, so I would be grateful if Members on both sides of the House asked questions and did not make speeches.