Obesity and Fatty Liver Disease

Lorraine Beavers Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Lorraine Beavers (Blackpool North and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper) for securing this vital and timely debate.

Liver disease is quietly stealing lives in every corner of our country. It is now the second-biggest cause of early death in England and Wales. Deaths have risen by more than 40% since 2001, which is in stark contrast to deaths from heart disease and cancer, which have declined. What makes it so heartbreaking is that 90% of liver disease cases are preventable.

In my constituency of Blackpool North and Fleetwood, this crisis is felt deeply. Blackpool has the second-highest rate of liver disease deaths in the entire country, with over 41 deaths per 100,000 people—almost double the national average. Childhood obesity rates are among the worst in England, meaning that many of our young people are already on the path to serious illness before they have even left school.

This is not about blaming people for their weight or lifestyle; it is about the world we live in—one where the cheapest food is often the least healthy, and where families in struggling communities have fewer choices and less support. Across England, people in the most deprived areas are more than six times as likely to die early from fatty liver disease. In parts of the north-west, people are dying 10 years younger than those in the wealthier areas. That is not right and it is not fair. Behind every statistic is a family torn apart.

Jamia and Stuart, in my constituency, were together for 35 years and cared for two disabled children. Stuart was fit and kind. When his stomach began to swell, he did not realise it was a warning sign. By the time he was diagnosed with fatty liver disease, it was too late. He passed away just eight weeks later. Their children still wake up at night looking for their dad. No family should go through that, but, tragically, they are not alone. The British Liver Trust has shared similar stories. Stephen, for example, was diagnosed far too late after years of missed opportunities for testing.

These stories are painful reminders that three quarters of people with cirrhosis are diagnosed only when they turn up at A&E, when it is often too late for treatment. We can change that. Early testing can save lives. Simple, painless scans, such as fibroscans, enhanced liver fibrosis testing, or the new intelligent liver function testing pathway, can spot liver damage long before the symptoms appear. Pilots of those tests have shown a 43% increase in early diagnosis and major savings for the NHS. Every community diagnostic centre, including the one on Whitegate Drive in Blackpool, should be able to offer those tests. Early diagnosis makes liver disease largely reversible and gives people the chance to act before it is too late.

We also need to tackle obesity at its roots, not by lecturing people but by making it easier to be healthy. That means fair prices for good food, limits on junk food advertising aimed at children, and continued action such as the soft drinks industry levy, which cut sugar content by nearly 30% across the market without hurting sales, and even reduced childhood obesity among girls in year 6. We need stronger measures to make the healthy choice the easy choice: reformulation of ultra-processed foods, a comprehensive 9 pm watershed on junk food advertising and a level playing field for businesses that want to do the right thing. Such structural changes, not finger pointing, can reshape the food system for good.

Finally, we must make sure that the NHS is ready for the new medicines that are coming. Medicines that target liver scarring directly and other treatments that improve weight loss and metabolic health could be transformative, but those new therapies, which could stop liver disease in its tracks, must be available on the NHS to everyone, not just to those who can pay privately. That means planning for workforce capacity, diagnostics and equitable access because if we fail to prepare, we risk widening the health inequalities that have already cost too many lives in towns such as mine.

Liver disease may be a silent killer but we do not have to stay silent about it. If we work together across parties, communities and the NHS we can stop this pandemic before it claims another life like Stuart’s. We can give families hope, and give our children the healthy future that they deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lorraine Beavers Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

The approach we are taking is different from that taken during previous periods of strike action. NHS leaders have made it clear to me that those earlier strikes caused much wider harm than had previously been realised. There is no reason why planned care—appointments relating to cancer, for example, as well as other conditions—should be treated as being less important than, or playing second fiddle to, other NHS services. That is why the chief executive of NHS England has written to NHS leaders asking them to keep routine operations going to the fullest extent possible, as well as continuing priority treatments. It will be for local leaders to determine what is possible given staffing levels, which is why it is so important for resident doctors to engage with their employers about their determination—or not—to turn up at work this week, and why I must again spell out the serious consequences for patients should these avoidable and unnecessary strikes go ahead.

[Lorraine Beavers (Blackpool North and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Healthcare assistants at Blackpool teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust have been underpaid on the wrong band for years, but the trust has consistently failed to put that right, and as a result staff have been left with no choice but to be balloted for strike action by Unison from today. Healthcare assistants play a vital role in our NHS, but is it any wonder that they often feel undervalued and demoralised when they are not paid the correct rate for the duties that they undertake? Does the Secretary of State agree that Blackpool’s healthcare assistants are worth just as much as those in the rest of the north-west and that the trust should pay up now?

[Wes Streeting]

I should declare that I am a member of Unison. The issue that my hon. Friend raises is a serious one. We obviously do not want to see strike action impacting on her local constituents, and my Department will do everything we can to help bring an end to the dispute.

I will make a more general point: these sorts of choices and trade-offs about resources are precisely why the BMA resident doctors, having received a 28.9% pay rise from this Government in the last year, ought to remember the responsibility that I and they have to some of their lower-paid colleagues. Resources are finite, and it is important that I act in the interests of all NHS staff and have particular concern for those who work extremely hard but are not properly rewarded.

Alcohol and Cancer

Lorraine Beavers Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Lorraine Beavers (Blackpool North and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) for securing this incredibly important debate. Having represented the Fleetwood part of my constituency prior to the boundary review, she will know the way the health service in that part of Lancashire has suffered from chronic underfunding throughout the 14 years of Conservative austerity and neglect.

My constituency suffers from more alcohol-related hospital admissions, cancer cases and deaths than the English average. It is a symptom of a community held back by low investment, industrial decline and neglect from national Government. I know at first hand the harm that alcoholism causes in communities and families; I have lost four members of my family to alcohol-related deaths. It was therefore extremely welcome to see the Government announce the 10-year health plan, but the plan must go further on alcohol-related diseases and cancers.

Although measures such as new standards for alcohol labelling and supporting the growth of low and non-alcohol sectors are welcome, we should be far more ambitious. We have not had a dedicated alcohol strategy since 2012. The Government should rectify that as part of the 10-year health plan. However, there are immediate measures that the Government can take, for example, ensuring that new alcohol labelling includes an explicit warning about the link between alcohol and cancer; strengthening marketing restrictions by classifying alcohol as an unhealthy product; and acknowledging the detrimental impact of the industry’s involvement in policy development.

It is clear that our current policy is woefully inadequate. Alcohol-related deaths are at an all-time high. We cannot be satisfied with our approach until the numbers begin to fall. We cannot afford to miss opportunities. Announcements such as the 10-year health plan must include a clear strategy to reduce alcohol-related deaths in future. That means introducing measures such as those I mentioned in my speech, but it also means addressing the root causes of poverty and under-investment.

Rare Cancers Bill

Lorraine Beavers Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lorraine Beavers (Blackpool North and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for introducing the Bill.

I remember the day my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I remember my mum and dad picking me up off the floor. I was supposed to be supporting them, but that did not happen that day. Dr Lau at Blackpool Victoria hospital explained that my dad’s cancer was terminal. My dad was initially given chemotherapy to try to shrink the tumours and give us more time. Later, he was asked to take part in a trial using immunotherapy. It was explained that the immune system does not recognise cancer as alien and as a threat. Immunotherapy teaches the immune system to recognise cancer, and enables the body’s immune system to fight back.

My dad was a fighter and he was willing to try anything. His body struggled with chemotherapy, and after we nearly lost him twice in 12 months it was stopped, but the immunotherapy continued. He finished the course without any complications. Once my dad started the treatment, the cancers—there were many—never moved. To this day, we do not know whether the treatment cured him and he was left with just scar tissue, or whether the cancers lay dormant. What I can tell the House is that my dad did not die of cancer; it was something else that took him from us.

My family believe that we were given an extra three years of loving and being loved by my lovely dad because of immunotherapy. We will always be grateful for the Christmas days, the birthdays, the celebrations and sometimes the tears that we were all able to share with my wonderful, caring dad.

People with rare cancers deserve the funding and research trials that the Bill will initiate. They should have the chance of life that my dad was given. That starts with ensuring that patients can get better access to clinical trials. Many people miss out on potentially life-extending trials because there is just not as much information out there as there needs to be. Recent research has found that 82% of respondents with a less common or rare cancer were not offered an opportunity to be part of a clinical trial. That has to change, and the Bill would achieve that.

I support the Bill, because everyone diagnosed with cancer should be given every chance of survival. Without the Bill, people with rare cancers will die sooner than other cancer patients, not having been given the chance to fight this terrible disease. I speak for them, so that they can have the chances that were awarded to my dad. I thank Dr Lau, my dad’s consultant, for giving an 81-year-old man the precious gift of life for a few years longer.