Rare Cancers Bill

Joe Powell Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Arthur]

The challenge is devolution. I am a huge fan of devolution, but often the UK is at its best when it works together, particularly on healthcare. I hope that in time we will see progress and the nations will work together. I do not want to overstate this, but there have been discussions across the UK about how we could work together on the issue, so perhaps the answer is, “Watch this space.”

The Bill’s fourth measure is to trigger a review by the Government of the orphan drug regulations, to examine how they can be reformed to better incentivise pharmaceutical companies to invest in clinical trials for rare cancers. Specifically, it will consider how incentives could be provided to pharmaceutical companies to trial the repurposing of new cancer treatments. We often hear about how drug development for one cancer can be used to defeat another; that is what Kira relies on right now. My Bill aims to build a foundation for industrialising that approach via incentives. The EU has a similar system for incentivising the testing of drugs for paediatric use that have already been approved for adult use, so the approach has been tried and tested.

Together, these measures will ensure that we have leadership in Government and will remove the barriers to running new clinical trials that researchers and pharmaceutical companies face.

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the powerful way in which he is introducing the Bill. Will he recognise the work of pioneering teams such as the one at Charing Cross hospital, under Imperial College healthcare NHS trust, where Professor Michael Seckl is leading the way in groundbreaking treatment for and research on gestational trophoblastic disease and germ cell tumours? Does he agree that those centres need support to expand and share their research findings with the rest of the NHS?

Income Tax (Charge)

Joe Powell Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. In his allusion to the Labour party’s inheritance, he missed the fact that the Office for Budget Responsibility singularly failed to back up the assertions made about the quantum of challenge the incoming Government faced.

Time and again, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), both in opposition and now as Secretary of State, has promised that any more money for the NHS has to be linked to reform. He has done that again today. The week before the Budget, he said that

“extra investment in the NHS must be linked to reform”.

In September, the Prime Minister himself said:

“No more money without reform”.

They are right on that. The Opposition support that condition, because it is only with reform that the NHS can sustainably continue to look after us for years to come. Yet I fear that this risks being another broken promise. I say to him now that where he is bold and provides genuine reform to benefit patients, he will have our support. Equally, if he bows to internal pressure and backs away from the radical reform that is needed, we will hold him to account.

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Edward Argar]

I will make a little progress before giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

I congratulate the Health Secretary on winning round 1 with the Treasury—I look across the Chamber and see the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on the Government Front Bench—in securing extra investment. He has secured more than £22 billion announced for the NHS, but without, as yet, any detailed indication of where that funding will go. I look forward to him returning to the House to set out the detail—I think he said that would be next week. What it must do is genuinely improve outcomes for patients and our NHS, rather than simply be focused on the headline figure of the inputs to it. There are, as yet, no clues as to whether it will be spent on wages, recruiting more staff, medicines or equipment; no clues as to how it will deliver the 40,000 additional appointments that have been promised; and no conditions linking the funding, as yet, to productivity improvements, modernisation or better outcomes for patients.

What we need to hear next week from the Secretary of State is an actual plan. As he mentioned, the right hon. Gentleman became shadow Health Secretary three years ago. I hope that in that time he has had an opportunity to think about what he wants to do and that he will actually set that out to the House next week.

[Joe Powell]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new position. On the theme of broken promises and capital investment, and in the spirit of a fresh start, I wonder whether he will extend an apology to my constituents who were promised a new hospital under the new hospital programme, which was never funded in any forward-looking Budget document?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. If he pauses for just a moment, I will turn to capital investment and seek to address his point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

In July, I was proud to be elected the new Member of Parliament for Kensington and Bayswater—a fantastic community but one that has, like so much of the country, suffered 14 years of low growth, stagnant wages and crumbling public services. We have some of the highest health inequalities in the country. The major local hospitals have the largest high-risk repair backlog of any NHS trust in England. Much of my casework involves people in substandard temporary accommodation battling damp and mould and slow repairs, and victims of no-fault evictions and overcrowding.

What compounds that dreadful inheritance is false hope. The fantasy new hospital programme told people in my community that they would have a brand new St Mary’s hospital, as well as overhauls of Hammersmith and Charing Cross hospitals, but it was never budgeted for. Instead of taking responsibility, the Conservatives overspent, avoided the tough choices and signed off cheques that they knew would never have to be cashed. I welcome the Budget, and especially the investment to meet our election commitment to reducing waiting list and expanding surgical capacity and diagnostic hubs. I also look forward to the 10-year plan for the NHS, and I hope that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will set out in the spending review plans to build a new St Mary’s and invest for the long-term to get people healthier, improve productivity and deliver an NHS that we can all be proud of.

Of course, our housing crisis is directly linked to challenges in our NHS, so I welcome the investment in the affordable homes plan and the warm homes plan, and the reduction in right-to-buy discounts with councils keeping receipts. The damning National Audit Office this week laid bare the cost of inaction on building safety, so I welcome the Chancellor’s support for speeding up the remedial work. The NAO said that, on current trends, the last building will not be fixed until 2037—20 years after Grenfell. That is unacceptable, and I look forward to the Government’s plan to speed up the remedial work.

Trust in politics has collapsed to an all-time low after the covid VIP lanes, the lobbying scandals, and the Liz Truss mini-Budget, for which my constituents have still not received an apology.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

I am sorry for interrupting my hon. Friend at the very last minute, but he raised the important issue of the rebuilding of St Mary’s. May I suggest to him that that should come alongside the full refurbishment of Charing Cross hospital and Hammersmith hospital, as they all form part of the Imperial College healthcare NHS trust?

[Joe Powell]

I thank my constituency neighbour for that point. The Imperial College trust has the highest major repair backlog of any NHS estate in the country, so we hope that it will, on merit, be a strong candidate in the Secretary of State’s review of the new hospital programme.

As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) would know from our work together on open government and international transparency, I welcome the Chancellor’s focus on tackling corruption, fraud, tax avoidance and waste; the ending of the non-dom tax regime; the additional guardrails to ensure that public investment is well spent; and the appointment of a covid corruption commissioner to uncover which companies used a national emergency to line their own pockets. Taxpayers want that money back.

Four months ago, this Government were elected with a mandate for change. The Budget marks the end of the short-term cycles of chaos and mismanagement, and the start of a serious plan to build a fairer and more prosperous Britain.