Cancer Treatment

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

May I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the courage and bravery of our friend, Baroness Tessa Jowell, and particularly her significant decision to make her medical data available? Does my hon. Friend agree that, given the low level of participation in clinical trials, if we are to achieve much better results for patients, the Government and all of us must do much more to encourage participation in these trials in all of our local areas and in our national politics?

[Mr Reed]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that well-timed intervention. We absolutely need to boost participation in clinical trials. Only 6.4% of adults with this particular form of cancer take part in those trials, whereas over 61% of people with leukaemia participate, so there is a clear need for a major increase in the numbers participating in these trials if we are to get the data we need to learn. I join my right hon. Friend, too, in congratulating Baroness Jowell on her historic decision to become the first patient to consent to share her data fully and openly, in order to speed up the discovery of new cures and ways to help other people; she is an example to so many people in so many ways, but here again we need to learn from Tessa’s example, because that is how we will help to find a cure for this terrible form of cancer.

I say to Ministers, who will be responsible for regulation as well as funding, that it is important that regulation is not drawn so tightly that it does not allow for innovation and for new treatments to be developed. We must be open to doing things in different ways and to learning from failure as well as success; we cannot regulate against failure, but we can always learn from it so that we can improve.

We must increase the funding going into the kind of research that will find a cure for this form of cancer and put it on a par with other, perhaps more high-profile, forms of cancer that have attracted levels of funding that are making a bigger difference. In that respect, I put my name on record in welcoming and congratulating the Government on the increase in funding of £45 million —I believe that is the figure—announced since the very moving debate, which many of us attended in the House of Lords, led by Tessa Jowell.

Tessa has been a fighter all her life and now she is in the fight of her life, but how typical it is that she has turned it into a fight to allow others to live well, live better and live longer. Every one of us in this Chamber, and many others beyond, are proud to stand with Tessa today. I would like to say this to her, if I may: Tessa, you have all our love and all our respect. Please keep going and keep being the inspiration to all of us that you have always been.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I cannot compete with some of the wonderful speeches that have been made today. My research would be perfunctory by comparison with some of the things that Members of the House have told us. I will leave this debate knowing so much more about brain cancer than I did when I arrived.

My purpose in speaking is simply to say to Tessa: we are with you. You know, Mr Speaker, that politics is a rough old trade, and sometimes you fall out with people—people you think the most of. I just wanted to be here to say to Tessa that whatever the arguments or disagreements, it counts for nothing by comparison with my admiration and my determination to do anything I can to support her in her campaign.

[Joan Ryan]

Let me grab this opportunity to say something, because I am sure that Tessa can see that she has got these three women here—me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), and my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). We entered this House in 1997 and joined Tessa Jowell on the Government Benches, and we served with her through three terms of the Labour Government. She gave us such fantastic support. I just wanted to leave a rounded picture of Tessa in this very serious debate. I bet she is really a little bit embarrassed at all the praise, but she deserves it. She is such a strong supporter of women coming into this place and getting them through the process to get here. She also has a very ready but very kind wit that we witnessed much of when she was at the Dispatch Box.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I thank my right hon. Friend—my very best right hon. Friend in this House—and Members can see so many reasons why that is.

Sometimes we fall out, and perhaps we fall out harder on our own side than we do with parties on the other side. Tessa is extraordinary in her example, as are so many people, particularly in the NHS. At 7 o’clock tonight, I will be holding a reception in the Jubilee Room of the House of Commons for the winter heroes from Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust to say thanks to them. If anybody wishes to join us, there will be a glass of wine and a packet of crisps for them. Thanks to the NHS, thank you to Tessa, and thanks to everybody for their brilliant speeches today.