Lung Cancer

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jackie Doyle-Price)]

It is a real privilege to respond to my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) because he genuinely is a friend and has been a great friend to me. The public see this bear pit where we rip each other apart on a regular basis, but I am sure you will agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, that this is also a very special place.

The House takes a judgment of people and views us all as honourable Members, and my right hon. Friend is known for being one of the most decent men in this place. The genuine outpouring of concern and love when he was forced to make his announcement was tangible. I am not surprised that he was surprised to hear where some of the good messages came from, but he should take that as well deserved. He has talked today about a very personal and traumatic experience, and he did so with real purpose and dignity. In doing so, he has shown the best parts of being a Member of this House, and I warmly congratulate him. It has made it very difficult for me to answer, but there we are.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. He suggested he was lucky to get an early diagnosis and the outcome that he has. There is an element of luck in it, but I will come back to that. The most important point he made was the fact that he followed up with his doctors and did not let it go. The most important thing in getting a good outcome from cancer is being vigilant and taking that early action.

In my right hon. Friend’s speech, he has humanised his story. We all recognise the behaviours that he outlined. It must have been a very painful decision for him to make—at the top of his game, having entered the Cabinet as Secretary of State and done really good stuff, he was suddenly faced with physical health issues but knew it was the right thing to do and took comfort from his family. The rightness of that is here for all to see.

Luck forms part of it, but we also need to properly engage with health professionals. Some people are dogged, others do not want to face up to it, but we all need to have a much more open conversation. The days when cancer was a death sentence are gone. Cancer survival rates in this country have never been higher. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, that is down to early diagnosis and good treatment. The latest survival figures show an estimated 7,000 more people surviving cancer after successful NHS treatment than three years ago, and that is testament to the hard work of our dedicated NHS staff, but we must do better. Our aim is to save an additional 30,000 lives by 2020. Some 130,000 people die from cancer every year, so there is much to do, which is why the Government have accepted all 96 recommendations in the cancer strategy and backed up this commitment with £600 million of additional funding up to 2021.

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) on a superb speech. It sounds a provocative thing to say perhaps, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that we have cured cancer, in the sense that if diagnosed early enough survival rates shoot up. This might also sound provocative, but it pays for itself. If we can screen people and catch it early, treatment is cheaper than when it is caught later, so although screening would entail a big upfront cost, it would not only save many lives but pay for itself.