Brain Tumour Survival Rates

Debate between John Hayes and Zubir Ahmed

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dr Zubir Ahmed)]

I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh), and the hon. Members for Witney (Charlie Maynard) and for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) for supporting this important debate. I would like to take a few moments to acknowledge the contributions of all hon. Members across this House—from personal experience, I know how hard it is to talk about these issues when people close to your family are lost to brain tumours. They include my aunt, who was instrumental in my pursuing a career in medicine. She passed away in 1997, only four months after a diagnosis of glioblastoma.

The hon. Member for Witney asked about consent in relation to tumour tissue research, which is a really important and pertinent topic. I am very happy to go away and consult with the Human Tissue Authority regarding the facility we have at the moment, which is quite sizeable, for securing consent to research on tissue from living persons and deceased persons. As a transplant surgeon, I am relatively au fait with some of the consent issues that can arise in using tissue from deceased persons, and I am always very happy to encourage consideration of those issues wherever possible. The hon. Member rightly challenged us to improve our architecture for digital consent. We continue to do so through our “analogue to digital” platform, on which the 10-year health plan is based, not only for care but for research.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) and the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) for their thought-provoking contributions to this debate, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), who talked so passionately about these issues. I thank him once again for bringing forward his private Member’s Bill, which will do so much to move the dial on research, not only on brain tumours but on rare cancers more generally. He had a specific ask about visa costs for talent coming from elsewhere in the world, and I assure him that we are looking seriously into these issues. Only today, I was chairing a session of the Life Sciences Council, where we talked about the global talent fund. That is pertinent to the discussions that my hon. Friend is having, and I am happy to put the council in touch with him to further those discussions regarding how we attract the brightest and the best to our country to advance the cause of life sciences generally, as well as the cause of researching rare cancers.

The hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) talked more specifically about referral targets. I can reassure him that we are totally committed as a Government to hitting those national standards on 62-day waits. He challenged us to go to 100%. I caution him that although 85% is possible, 100% is not, usually for clinical reasons. There may be genuine clinical reasons why patients cannot access treatment within 62 days in terms of planning and specialist access.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) talked about diagnostics. That issue is close to my heart, and I reassure him that through the continued opening of community diagnostic centres up and down the country and £2 billion of funding, I am determined to ensure that diagnostics is improved and available closer to home wherever possible.

The hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Alex Brewer) talked about her friend being diagnosed with a brain tumour in A&E. As someone who was a young casualty officer many years ago, that resonated strongly with me. The A&E department is the last place where any tumour should be diagnosed, but I remember it happening far too frequently as a young casualty officer. One litmus test of the success of our cancer plan will be that much fewer of those diagnoses will be undertaken in an unplanned fashion in A&Es up and down our country.

I am always grateful for the learned remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley). I always feel like I learn so much from him. In fact, I learned so much tonight that I might add his contribution to my portfolio of continuing professional development when I submit myself back to the General Medical Council to extend my licence.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) always raises thought-provoking issues about four-nation working. I assure him that I continually and frequently discuss many matters pertaining to the health of our four nations with the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland. I can also reassure him of our UK-wide commitment to the life sciences sector plan and life sciences project. On that note, it was my great pleasure to meet academics from Queen’s University Belfast in this place only a few months ago, where I reaffirmed my commitment as life sciences Minister to the life sciences sector plan being a true four-nation project. That of course includes Northern Ireland, and I know from my own academic interests that much expertise resides in Northern Ireland.

The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) talked about benign tumours not being forgotten, and she is absolutely right. Those of us from a medical background know that it is a spectrum between benign and malignant tumours. Many benign tumours can evolve into malignant tumours, and they must be captured by plans such as the national cancer plan. She challenged me about publishing regular outcomes from the national cancer plan, and I can certainly commit to that. Those can be scrutinised in the normal way by the Health and Social Care Committee.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) talked about screening. She will know, as I do, that screening is important when it is evidence-based and where the benefits outweigh the harms. Screening is never harm-free, so it is important to ensure we are calculating these things based on expert evidence. Neither she nor I are experts in screening, so we always defer to the UK National Screening Committee and its deliberations and opinions on these matters.

The shadow Minister asked me about the workforce plan. I can assure her that that is in play and will be published shortly, in the spring or very early summer. She asked how that might interact with diagnostic capacity, and I can assure her that we are working at great speed to ramp up diagnostic capacity through the funding envelope that I mentioned. She will know that it is important, when we plan both for workforce and diagnostic capacity, to take account of AI moving at a rapid pace. We have already been able to eliminate one radiologist from breast cancer diagnoses, and it is entirely possible that we will be able to have a similar impact with technology on the rates of other cancers and, for example, lung cancer diagnostics. It is important that, as we work through the workforce plan, we take account of what the future will look like in that context.

When we came to the topic of the potential association between traumatic brain injury and brain tumours and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket intervened on the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, the medical man in me could not help himself. I looked at PubMed quickly to check whether there was indeed an association, and I picked out a paper that may be of interest to the medical people in this place. Following 24 years’ worth of data from Mass General Brigham hospital, with 75,000 patients on each arm looked at retrospectively, there would seem to be a mild association between severe traumatic brain injury and the diagnosis of malignant brain tumours.

[Sir John Hayes]

As the Minister is now referring to my specialist subject, I thought that I had better intervene. Although I defer, of course, to the immense experience of the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) in these matters, I think that this is associated with lesions and scarring, and that is why, as the Minister said, there is a mild association. As the hon. Member said, there is a much more profound association with other neurological conditions, particularly dementia.

While I am on my feet, may I ask the Minister to address the issue of research? The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket is right: diagnostics are terribly difficult, but 1% of the expenditure on cancer research currently goes towards brain tumour research. Can we increase that?

[Dr Ahmed]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for his remarks. At the risk of turning this into some sort of medical journal club—I will move on quite swiftly, Madam Deputy Speaker—let me point out that the association is based on retrospective data, and we all know that we have to be a little bit cautious with retrospective data. As for the question of research, I can assure the right hon. Member that we are committed to spending more of the £2 billion NIHR budget on rare cancer research, some of which is ringfenced.

The hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham asked about rural areas. In the workforce plan, we are committed to ensuring—