Cervical Cancer Screening

Debate between Lyn Brown and Alison McGovern

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is an honour to contribute to this important debate, and I welcome to the House of Commons today Sophie’s mum, Peri, her sisters Chelsea and Ashleigh, and other members of her family. I have been very proud to be involved in this campaign to highlight what happened to Sophie, who was my constituent. I think I am right in saying that this has been the biggest ever e-petition, which I think represents a real change in the way we do our politics in this country. Long gone are the days when only certain people in this place could call on us to hold debates here and only the Government said what we would talk about. In Sophie’s name, her very many friends and family have brought us here to talk about these issues today. That is a massively important change in our politics, alongside the important issue we are discussing.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram)—even though he keeps saying that I am the hon. Member for Wirral West, which I am not; I’ll have a row with him about that later—on having initiated this extremely important debate. As I have said before, it is very important for men in Britain, as well as women, to care about women’s cancers, and I will say more about that and about awareness. I make a plea, however, for all my male colleagues, as dads, brothers and friends of women as much as anything else, to ensure that they know the symptoms of cervical cancer and other women’s cancers, and to support their sisters, friends and mums if they have any concerns. That is important.

I begin my contribution by borrowing the words of Peri, Sophie’s mum, which she has allowed me to do. She characterised what Sophie was like in a really brilliant way:

“She was an amazing daughter, sister, girlfriend and friend, a live wire with a huge heart, the glue that held our family together. Her attitude to life was to live it to the best and her positivity shone through to everyone so as you couldn’t help but smile”.

I think those are lovely words about Sophie, and it is in her name that we all come here today. I know I represent all my constituents when I offer their condolences to Sophie’s friends and family, and I feel sure that the many thousands of people who signed the e-petition did so because they wanted to show that they cared about what happened to her. Members might be interested to know that friends and family have also organised fundraising events—they did so before Sophie died—and are taking care of all her family. That is a truly great thing.

Sophie had high aspirations for her life, and she had hopes and plans. She was clearly a vibrant, clever, beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her. She attended her GP surgery as she had been suffering for months with symptoms such as stomach pains and various things, and it seems that her request for a smear test was refused on the basis of her age. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton has gone through those issues in some detail. It seems that Sophie was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, but her health continued to deteriorate until she was eventually diagnosed with cervical cancer and very tragically died in March, just 19 years old.

The disease is rare in younger women, but in this case a smear test would have been important. Sadly, this is not the first case to come to light in which a young woman has died of cervical cancer following such events. Mercedes Curnow died aged 23 in 2011, and reports suggest that she too had requested a smear test. Another young woman, Becky Ryder, was 26. Thankfully, such cases are few and far between, and we are grateful for that; none the less we will all understand the tragic scenario that friends and family face when a young woman faces such a serious disease. Even though the numbers are relatively small, it is important that we take the issue seriously.

Approximately 3,000 cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed in the United Kingdom every year. While there are groups of people such as women under 25 among whom cervical cancer is rare, it does occur. I understand that there are approximately 2.5 cases of cervical cancer for every 100,000 women under 25 years old. It is thankfully rare, but very serious for those people who face it. How can we help GPs to pick up the symptoms of something so rare? A balance has to be struck, but it is important to raise GPs’ awareness of such conditions—rare though they are, they do happen.

There are potential risks in screening women under 25, which have been mentioned. The consequences of unnecessary screening can cause problems in later life, which is why the medical community has had such a discussion about the point at which screening should be done. As politicians, our first regard must be for the medical evidence, and we would never ride roughshod over that, but one thing that we have perhaps not always got right is making information available to people and accepting that people should be trusted with that information. The NHS is very good at giving advice and telling people what they should be doing, but much less good at giving information to help people to make their own informed decisions. The e-petition is about choice and how we ensure that people have the information they need to make the choice for themselves. I understand that Dr Moss of the Advisory Committee on Cervical screening has argued that volunteering to have the test should be an option. If someone does make that request and is turned away, it could cause a very negative response when they are invited for the test later. I know that Sophie was one of the youngest victims of this devastating disease, and such requests would be rare, but people should have the choice.

The debate is an opportunity to talk about the importance of smear tests. We have all had the invitation and thought, “Oh goodness, I’m not really sure I want to go for that.” But it is vitally important that people have the test if invited, and I hope this debate will make people think about the importance of having a smear test. Cervical cancer is a real problem, and the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) rightly talked about early diagnosis and said that that was a problem across various types of cancer. The biggest challenge we face in fighting cancer is getting people to come forward early, and my view is that that is more of a problem in areas of social deprivation. I know from Merseyside, my home patch, that in such areas people are likely to have busy lives, perhaps less awareness, and a bit less confidence and are perhaps working shifts. They may be concerned about symptoms but put their concerns aside, for whatever reason, and the possibility of diagnosis gets later and later.

We need to recognise the differential prevalence of late diagnosis in different areas, and we should ask what we can do to recognise and address the various social and economic factors that can cause late diagnosis.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am listening to my hon. Friend’s speech with interest and she anticipates many of the points that I want to make. Does she agree that women often put themselves last, behind their family, and there are always other pressing issues to be dealt with rather than a routine cervical smear? Somehow we have to get it across that the smear test is as important as anything else they have to do.

[Alison McGovern]

In my slightly cack-handed way, that is what I was trying to say. Women are incredibly good at putting off things that concern our own health, which is why it is important that our brothers, fathers, husbands and friends encourage us to be concerned about our health and to look after ourselves. It is also important that we make the point today about the importance of smear tests. People should have a choice and be able to talk to their GP about having a test if they need one, and if invited to be screened, they should take up the invitation.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Lyn Brown and Alison McGovern

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be saying that if you are poor enough to have a short life span, you are not rich enough to be affected by the change, which is an interesting hypothesis. It is a testable proposition, but it seems entirely wide of the mark.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

You are too generous.

[Alison McGovern]

I always try to be generous. In fact, I thought that we were agreeing across the House that the argument about increasing life expectancy cannot be made in such a broad-brush way, but perhaps the situation was not as happy as I had thought it was.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

That was a long intervention. The hon. Gentleman said that inequality grew under the previous Government. I point him to analysis done, if I recall correctly, by the Institute for Fiscal Studies at the time of the 2010 general election, which showed that the incomes of the lowest on the income scale increased significantly under the previous Government. We can have a discussion about how one deals with the inequality that is created when the incomes of people who earn a great deal of money rise, but I fear that it would not be within the scope of this debate. I am sure that we will discuss that on another occasion.

I will conclude my remarks by talking about the squeezed middle, because it is people on what one would think of as middle incomes who are affected by age-related allowances. In its frequently asked questions section on this policy, the BBC states that

“it is a ‘middle-income’ range of 40% of pensioners who will not get what they might have expected from the tax system.”

[Lyn Brown]

Is my hon. Friend not astonished by the figure of 40%? If one listens to the Conservative party trying to explain away this awful attack on our pensioners, it does not seem like it is talking about 40% of the pensioners in this country. A very high number of pensioners will be affected by this change.

[Alison McGovern]

That point was very well made. I am never surprised by the ability of people to brush over things. We have heard this afternoon that this is a minor technical change. As I said, I am quoting the BBC itself—[Laughter.] I know that Conservative Members are not always the greatest fans of the BBC, but it states that

“it is a ‘middle-income’ range of 40% of pensioners who will not get what they might have expected from the tax system.”