Human Fertilisation and Embryology

John Hemming Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

This is a difficult issue for everybody. I have a real difficulty with this, which is that I cannot see the difference between modifying mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA. Both are inherited, and both can prevent inherited diseases. If we agree to this as a process, we are, in essence, potentially agreeing to swapping a pair of chromosomes—[Interruption.] I know that we are not agreeing to it in law, but in practice the same arguments can be used to justify—

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the fact that mitochondrial DNA only codes the mitochondria, which were undoubtedly alien DNA to the human cells, and actually were probably bacteria that are now symbiotically living within us?

[John Hemming]

They remain—

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[John Hemming]

I will not take lots of interventions because it would damage the debate. They remain inherited, and, in essence, we face the same difficulty. My concern is a legalistic one, which is that we are moving away from a society in which we value people as people to one where we start looking at people in terms of what categories they fall into and things such as that. To that extent, I cannot back the motion today, particularly as it is being pushed through in such a rush.

[Mr Speaker]

If the hon. Gentleman is finished, I call Mr Robert Flello.

Ebola

John Hemming Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

A systemic lacuna in the Government’s proposals relates to the lack of monitoring of lower-risk travellers. Will the Secretary of State consider having daily contacts with such travellers on the basis that identifying erroneous risk assessments at the first stage is the key to bringing things under control in the interests of the travellers as well?

[Mr Hunt]

The judgment on how effective we are at identifying higher-risk passengers must be made by the scientists and the doctors involved. Their view is that we are currently going further than we need to given the current risk level, but that it is prudent to do what we are doing because that risk level might increase. I will always listen to their advice.

Pancreatic Cancer

John Hemming Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the e-petition relating to research funding for and awareness of pancreatic cancer.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important debate. That citizens of the United Kingdom can, through their petitioning, move issues up the national agenda shows the strength of our democracy. Pancreatic cancer has not had the strong public spotlight of concern that some other diseases have had, so it is fantastic that the public’s voice has led directly to this debate, which I am proud to initiate. I thank every one of the 106,398 people who signed the petition by 8 April, and all those who have signed it since.

I pay particular tribute to my constituent, Maggie Watts, who started the petition with a determination to push pancreatic cancer further into the public’s conscience and higher up the political agenda. That we are here today in a packed Westminster Hall debate is tribute to her efforts and to those of everyone in the pancreatic cancer community—the charities, clinicians, patients, survivors and family members and friends of patients—who energised the nation to say through the petition that the time is right for us to up our collective game on pancreatic cancer.

It is worth pausing to consider the powerful testimony of the petition text, which asks the Government to:

“Provide more Funding & Awareness for Pancreatic Cancer to aid long overdue progress in earlier detection and, ultimately, improved survival rates”.

It reminds us that pancreatic cancer is the

“5th leading cause of UK cancer death with the worst survival rate of all cancers yet it receives only c1% of research spend. 5 year survival of 3% hasn’t improved in over 40 years, whilst survival rates for other cancers have… More funding/more public awareness is vital so that progress can be made in earlier detection and, ultimately, better survival rates. Often termed the “silent killer”, many of PC’s symptoms mirror other less critical illnesses. Sometimes GPs may not recognise these early enough, looking first at other possible causes resulting in lost time before diagnosis. By this time, in many cases, the prognosis is terminal.”

The petition calls for action:

“Another 40 years can’t pass without change. The requirement is for significantly increased research funding and inclusion in the National Awareness & Early Diagnosis Initiative (NAEDI) Public Symptoms Awareness Campaign”.

Pancreatic cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in the UK. It has the worst five-year survival rate of the 21 most common cancers, and that has not changed in 40 years. Maggie Watts’s husband Kevin died of pancreatic cancer exactly 20 months from diagnosis, aged 48. His mum died 40 years earlier of the same disease, aged 27. Maggie said:

“What shocked me the most when I started to research pancreatic cancer is that, actually, Kevin stood no better chance of survival in 2009 than his mum did in 1969. Their deaths were 40 years apart yet there was no change in survival rates in all of that time. I found that hard to understand—there is not a lot in this world that hasn’t changed or improved over a 40 year period, including most other cancers but, for pancreatic cancer, survival rates are still shockingly low.”

She concluded that

“there must be a direct correlation between the lack of funding allocated to pancreatic cancer and the lack of progress in the disease.”

The lack of funding has meant that there has been no progress in 40 years. It has not been a public or political priority, and that has to change. As Dr Andrew Millar of London Cancer told the all-party group on pancreatic cancer last week, the very fact that people have only a one in 90 chance of getting this cancer, but a 95% chance of dying once it is diagnosed means that it is less likely to attract commercial funding than the more treatable forms of cancer. As he said, that is exactly when the Government need to step up to the mark and step in, yet site-specific funding for pancreatic cancer research is very low in real terms when compared to other forms of cancer. Only £5.2 million, or just 1% of the National Cancer Research Institute’s 2013 budget, was spent on pancreatic cancer research—that equates to just £625 per death per year on pancreatic cancer, compared with £3,426 per death per year on breast cancer—despite pancreatic cancer being responsible for 5.2% of all cancer deaths in the UK and deaths from pancreatic cancer increasing between 2002 and 2013, while deaths from most other cancers declined.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on taking up this issue in Parliament and the campaigners on raising the petition. Constituents have come to me to explain their concerns about pancreatic cancer. Does he agree that it is important that the campaign continues to do excellent work in raising awareness of the difficulties with pancreatic cancer?

[Nic Dakin]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The campaign must go on, beyond today and into the future. Campaigners are here today in strong heart and with a strong determination to ensure that that is the case.

Breaking down the NCRI spend into contributions from individual partner members is difficult, but we know from evidence given to the all-party group that in 2013, Cancer Research UK provided £2.3 million and the Medical Research Council provided £750,000. The contribution from the Department of Health was therefore just £700,000. In its 2012 policy briefing, “Study for Survival”, Pancreatic Cancer UK calculated that at least £10 million of investment is needed by 2015 and that £12 million is needed by 2017. The target is £25 million by 2022. The minimum figure of £10 million to £12 million has not been plucked out of the air; it comes from a high-level analysis of other cancers, such as prostate and bowel, which suggests that there is a point where funding starts to grow in a more rapid and, importantly, more sustainable manner. A critical mass is needed to generate a solid research infrastructure—for example, through the establishment of centres of research excellence. A critical mass of researchers generating competitive research proposals needs to accrue, and those investment targets are a key starting point for such progress.

Maggie told me that she considers herself in a way to be lucky. She said that she and Kevin had 20 months post-diagnosis and that he was an incredibly positive man, who refused to give in to the disease. Maggie said:

“When I say we were ‘lucky’ I mean because we got 20 months to do and say everything we wanted to. People that I have met whilst I’ve been working on the e-petition lost their loved ones weeks or even days from diagnosis. They were only just getting their heads around a terminal cancer diagnosis when they were having to deal with death. I’ve heard some incredibly sad stories around pancreatic cancer and I’ve heard lots of them.”

Stories of such shattering losses are not rare. One quick look at the tributes left online for victims is testament to that.

NHS Investigations (Jimmy Savile)

John Hemming Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Absolutely. I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are taking a cross-Government approach—across a range of Departments, but particularly the Department for Education and the Home Office—and that the Government as a whole will draw the lessons from this whole horrific series of episodes to make sure that we have a joined-up approach.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I agree with the Secretary of State that our first thought has to be for the victims, and that in future we must listen to the powerless and not block inquiries. If we go back to 2011—before Savile died—an American journalist, Leah McGrath Goodman, was banned from coming to the UK to investigate child abuse, including by Jimmy Savile. Even more recently, she was arrested at the airport on 5 June, while coming to an inquiry. Will the Secretary of State speak to his colleague the Minister for Security and Immigration to ask why somebody in the UK Border Agency seems to be aiming to inhibit one of the inquiries?

[Mr Hunt]

I am afraid that I do not know the details of that particular case, but I will look into it and write to the hon. Gentleman.

Health and Social Care Bill

John Hemming Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to hear the questions and the answers. Members are a little overexcited and they need to calm down just a tad. A good example of such calm will now, I am sure, be provided by Mr John Hemming.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Under Labour, local democratic accountability in the NHS was reduced by the abolition, without consultation, of the community health councils. The letter refers to the creation of the health and wellbeing boards, which will increase local democratic accountability for the health service. Will the Secretary of State explain how that will ensure that local services in the health service better fit local health needs?

[Mr Lansley]

That is a very powerful and positive step forward. Through the joint strategic needs assessment and the strategy derived from that, local authorities and the NHS will now increasingly work together to deliver integrated services extending across health, social care and public health.