World Cancer Day

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing the debate and giving us all an opportunity to participate. This issue is very close to my heart. My father battled and had the victory over cancer three times during his lifetime, but watching him and my mother go through it was incredibly tough. My dad survived those three times due to the clinical and surgical skills of the doctor, the care of the nurses, who were excellent, and, as a man of faith, the prayers of God’s people. That is the experience of so many people throughout my constituency and throughout the UK.

Cancer is no man’s respecter and the reality is that in our lifetime one out of two of us in this place will have an experience of it. I was in touch with CLIC Sargent—indeed, it was in touch with all of us. It is a wonderful charity that is very active in my constituency and I am happy to support it. It gave me the following figures, which are simply heartbreaking. Some 4,450 children and young people under 25 are diagnosed with cancer every year. That is 12 children and young people every day. Those are extremely worrying figures. Around four in five children and young people survive cancer for five years or more, yet cancer remains the disease that is the biggest killer of children and young people in the UK aged from one to 24 years old.

Cancer impacts on young people and parents’ mental health. Undergoing cancer treatment is challenging, isolating and deeply personal. Young people’s ability to cope is often seriously affected by the emotional pressures and the mental health impact of a diagnosis and months of treatment. CLIC Sargent’s 2017 “Hidden costs” report found that 79% of young people felt cancer had a serious impact on their emotional wellbeing. During their cancer treatment, 70% of young people experience depression, 83% experience loneliness, 90% experience anxiety and 42% experience panic attacks. More than half of parents—63%—say they experience depression during their child’s treatment. It affects not only the child, but the family and the parents. More than a third of parents experience panic attacks and 84% experience loneliness.

I stand with CLIC Sargent, Macmillan, Marie Curie and all the other charities that are too numerous to mention, but which do great work. They are asking the Government to improve support for young cancer patients and their parents by making changes to the way benefits such as PIPs and DLA are accessed. The stories that I have heard from others in the Chamber, in my constituency and elsewhere, and in the news are disgraceful. I know that the Minister is not responsible for the DWP, but he does, I believe, have compassion and a heart, and hopefully he will pass these issues on to the Minister who is responsible. I have written to that Minister about these matters as well.

Not only do I need to see change; the system needs to see change. As treatment starts immediately and often takes place a long way from home, the costs start building up from day one. There must be a review of access to DLA and personal independence payments for young cancer patients, so that they can get their financial support backdated from the day of diagnosis. It is so important to have that financial support in place, because that worries the parents, the families, and everyone else at a time when they need that support most desperately.

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement in April 2018 of the establishment of a children’s funeral fund in England, I ask the Minister to further clarify when that fund will be introduced. Again, that is not his responsibility, but perhaps he can ask that question of the Minister who is responsible. Furthermore, will the Minister provide an update on what the Government are doing to ensure that parental bereavement leave, which would give all employed parents a right to two weeks’ leave if they lose a child, is ready to be introduced in 2020?

I will quickly mention the importance of partnerships between universities and businesses to develop cures for cancer and other diseases: Queen’s University Belfast does that extremely well, and that partnership works. I will also mention that I had the opportunity to speak with Bowel Cancer UK the other day. Every year in Northern Ireland, 1,100 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer and 400 people die. By 2035, 332,000 more lives could be lost to that disease in the UK. There are some things that Bowel Cancer UK has asked for, but I will not go into those in the time I have left.

These topics are heartbreaking, but they need to be addressed. I ask the Minister for a response, either in this place or in writing, on how changes are going to be made to support the families of children with cancer throughout the UK. How can we make these impossible, dark, soul-wrenching things a little bit better? We can make them better by using common sense, and using funding in appropriate ways to provide support as and when it is needed, lightening the load in the only way that we can. That will not take away the pain of watching a child go through this, or losing a child, but it will take away pressure that should not exist in the first place.