Advanced Brain Cancer: Tissue Freezing

Debate between Monica Harding and Siobhain McDonagh

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh]

I completely agree with the hon. Member. Anything that we have raised—£1 million over two years—is a drop in the ocean. It is an important drop in the ocean, and it has led to action, which is what we need, but in the longer term, it has to be the Government and the pharmaceuticals that are not intervened on if we are to make progress.

[Monica Harding]

May I pay tribute to the hon. Member for everything she is doing on glioblastoma? It has affected my own family: my brother-in-law, Pip Harding, was diagnosed with a glioblastoma. He has received oncothermia therapy, but only through crowdfunding. The cost of—I think—10 treatments was something like £40,000, which he got from his friends and family. That shows the generosity of the public, as well as how interested the public are in this, so does she agree that we should ask the Government to match the public spirit on this?

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh]

I thank the hon. Member for all the work she does; it is thrilling to hear that her brother-in-law has made such progress with the Oncotherm machine. The machine is in the UK because my sister raised the funds to bring it over, but it cannot go into an NHS hospital because it cannot get approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, so it is for people who can raise the money to access it, as she rightly says. Forty thousand pounds is a lot of money, but in this world it is only a fraction of what other possible treatments may cost; people sell their homes, spend their pensions and leave themselves completely bankrupt on the death of a loved one. It is the wild west out there, as she knows.

We have established a trial at UCLH, and we have encouraging early indicators, but we need to do so much more. Our hope is to do 10 trials with repurposed drugs, and we want to clarify how we can bid for the money from the NIHR. We are not the only people doing this—we are not exceptional. Patients and families who see the lack of alternatives are getting involved and raising money, as the hon. Member just said, but anything we can raise is insignificant in comparison with what the Government or big pharma can raise. How is it that, upon Tessa Jowell’s death, the previous Government can have given the NIHR £40 million for research, in good faith, and none of it has been spent on testing out repurposed drugs?

I am grateful that in yesterday’s debate the Minister highlighted the letter that I received from the head of the NIHR, Lucy Chappell, setting out the routes for funding and how they can be accessed. As a result of that debate, I went back to read the letter. It does not take us any further; the funding routes are still impossible to navigate in any effective way. I therefore thank the Minister for her commitment to provide further guidance. I do not want that just for me, for the work that I do, or for the work that Dr Mulholland does at UCLH; I want to encourage all the flowers to bloom, because somebody may actually hit on the progress we need.

Even for an experienced clinical team with an established research base, the funding process is complex, fragmented and difficult to navigate. If it is challenging for clinical teams in major London teaching hospitals, I worry deeply about how many other clinical teams, without the same visibility or support, will simply fall away before a trial even has the chance to begin. Will the Minister consider how clearer, more navigable routes to accessing funding can be set out, and provide clearer direction, so that the money committed by the Government can reach the trials that patients so urgently need?

Rare Cancers Bill

Debate between Monica Harding and Siobhain McDonagh

Report stage
Friday 11th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

I once more thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for all he has done to bring the Bill forward. We, along with thousands of families throughout the UK, all owe him a huge debt. I am proud to have supported the Bill from the very beginning. I also pay tribute to the ongoing work of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh), whose inspirational advocacy has set the example on these issues, particularly for new MPs like me.

I do not think I need take up much time restating why the Rare Cancers Bill matters; every hon. Member who sat alongside me in the Bill Committee knows that already, which is why we reported it to the House unamended. The Minister also knows, which is why the Government have repeatedly pledged their support, and organisations working with rare cancers know too. The Brain Tumour Charity describes this legislation as “a Bill of hope” and Pancreatic Cancer UK talks of its potential to transform survival for rare cancers. That potential sits with us today.

The Rare Cancers Bill takes concrete and common-sense steps to facilitate research into rare cancers, to improve the speed and quality of necessary clinical trials, and to help get orphan drugs—medicines often neglected because they target uncommon conditions—to those patients who so desperately need them. I urge the House to advance the Bill and ensure that its provisions become law as rapidly as possible. So much depends on getting this one right. To that end, I briefly remind the House what exactly is at stake today for families, including my own, throughout this country.

When I spoke on Second Reading, I told the story of Group Captain Pip Harding, my brother-in-law, who was diagnosed with an aggressive stage 4 glioblastoma in February 2024. His prognosis was such that he should not be here today. Pip is married with five children. He has served in the Royal Air Force in the Indo-Pacific, in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I am immensely proud of him, not least because of his battle against this devastating diagnosis.

Pip’s family, friends and those who loved him rallied around him. More than 600 of them set up a GoFundMe page to cover the cost of an experimental cancer treatment, oncothermia, which uses radio frequencies to target and treat malignant cancer cells. I am happier than I can say to be able to tell the House that Pip is alive and well, and that the tumour has shrunk from 7cm to less than 1 cm as a result of that treatment. For Pip’s loved ones, of course, that means the world—oncothermia is winning it for him. It means that there is more time for his family and more time for more treatments to come online to get his health back.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

It is a matter of delight that the hon. Lady’s brother-in-law is still well and that the tumour has shrunk. But I should say to the House and all Members that that machine, which my late sister campaigned and raised funding for, is currently situated in a private hospital in London because it would get nowhere near an NHS hospital. That is the tragedy of the circumstances that we find ourselves in: our system is so restrictive that we cannot look for new innovations within our NHS.

Rare Cancers Bill

Debate between Monica Harding and Siobhain McDonagh

2nd reading
Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for bringing the Bill before the House, and pay tribute to him and to the hon. Members who have already spoken so movingly on this subject, including the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn). I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) for her tireless advocacy.

The many forms of cancer categorised as rare according to the Bill might each strike a small number of people, but taken together rare cancers make up almost one in five of all cancer diagnoses. Each incident, each diagnosis, each prognosis has the same devastating impact on families throughout the country, my own being no exception. My brother-in-law, Group Captain Pip Harding, who was 53, was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma this time last year. At the time, he was serving in the Royal Air Force with the US Indo-Pacific command, one of his many tours, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was given nine to 12 months to live. For his wife Claire and his five children, the news changed everything.

In September, I joined Pip, his family and over 400 other loved ones at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire for what was called a “dining out” or farewell ceremony, an event to allow everyone to be together with Pip, potentially for one last time. You can imagine how difficult, yet how moving, that was. A few weeks later, Pip was lucky enough to come across the pioneering brain surgeon Dr Paul Mulholland, who has been trialling a treatment called oncothermia. This employs radio frequencies to target and heat malignant cancer tumour cells while avoiding healthy cells. Oncothermia is not currently available on the NHS and each one-hour treatment costs £1,000. A tumour like Pip’s requires 36 sessions.

For most people, indeed for almost all of us, that kind of money and, consequently, that course of care, is out of reach, but the 400 friends and family who attended Pip’s farewell dinner set up a GoFundMe page, which is now covering the cost of the treatment. We love Pip, which is why we all put in as much as we could to fund it. Cancers like this, with a brutal and bleak prognosis, bring people together to fight it. I want the Government to share that resolve. Since starting the monthly oncothermia sessions in December, the first MRI scan showed that Pip’s brain tumour had reduced in size from 7 cm to 1.7 cm. Pip is, thank God, still alive and watching today. European studies now suggest that oncothermia can extend life for four to five years. For Pip’s five children, that time is everything.

But that is not the whole of my experience with glioblastoma. In 2021, my husband John’s best friend Ian died from the disease. His widow Nicola is in the Gallery. Almost unbelievably, Nicola’s sister Karen, who had done so much to help Nicola through the loss of Ian, was herself diagnosed with a stage 4 glioblastoma last year and died a few months later.

I know that others in the Chamber and in the Gallery have had their lives touched by glioblastoma, too. I am sure they will agree that in the past three decades there has been an unacceptable lack of progress made on this disease: a lack of progress in developing new treatments, making them widely accessible and keeping those diagnosed with glioblastoma here with their loved ones. In the past 50 years, cancer survival rates in the UK have doubled. Whereas in the 1970s only 25% of those diagnosed were expected to live 10 years, today over half do. That is a record of staggering success and represents countless lives extended, made richer and fuller, and even saved. When it comes to glioblastoma, however, there is far less to celebrate. The chances of living a decade with the disease are one in 100. The gains in life expectancy over recent decades can be measured in months—precious, yes, but not nearly enough.



Glioblastoma is a rare cancer, but also an exceptionally lethal one. Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and of adults under the age of 40, yet in recent years, glioblastoma has been apportioned only around 1% to 2% of UK cancer funding. In 2018, to honour Dame Tessa Jowell, the Government announced a doubling of funding for research into brain tumours, but six years later, it was widely reported that less than half of the pledged £40 million had actually been spent. During each of those years, as funding was being delayed and sluggishly deployed, more than 3,000 people in the UK were diagnosed with glioblastomas. Will the Government update the House on how the remaining funds have been and are being spent? Will the Minister assure me that as the national cancer plan is developed alongside the NHS 10-year plan, deliberate and specific consideration will be given to glioblastomas?

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency incentivises research on orphan drugs, granting exclusivity for manufacturers and making it cheaper to bring drugs to market once they are developed, but clearly, when it comes to glioblastomas, it has not had adequate success.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh]

I have been to see the MHRA numerous times and have asked about repurposed drugs. Many pharmaceutical companies are worried about repurposing drugs; the fear is that if glioblastoma research were to affect the main cause for having the drug, that might make the drug less successful. We have beseeched the MHRA to treat glioblastoma separately. Would the hon. Lady support such a move?

[Monica Harding]

I would of course support such a move, and I urge the Government to listen and take action.

Getting it right on glioblastoma is vital. Despite minor breakthroughs, exciting innovations and apparently promising research leads, for this disease, there has simply not been the improvement in survival rates that most cancers have had. To put it bluntly, glioblastoma remains a death sentence—an increasingly common one. In the UK, cancer diagnoses have increased, but although there are some worrying sub-themes, this trend is largely due to increased life expectancy. However, that is not the case with glioblastoma. In the past 30 years, rates in the UK have more than doubled. There has been far more of an uptick than is attributable to us all living longer. More people are developing this disease, yet we have failed to make meaningful strides on treatment and cures, or even on giving those with glioblastoma a little more time with those dearest to them. Now is the moment to do something about that.

I welcome the Bill. I welcome its emphasis on improving research—I have already touched on drug development—and the provisions to facilitate clinical trials, because the grim reality is that for glioblastoma, those trials are hard to conduct. There are too few patients, and frequently their life expectancy is too limited. Anything that can be done to connect eligible patients with researchers faster and with less friction is valuable.

I emphasise that there are great opportunities in front of us for accelerating research and making broad advances in the battle against rare cancers. Along with almost half my parliamentary colleagues, I am proud to have pledged my support for the Lobular Moon Shot project, which advocates a boost of around £20 million over five years for research on the basic biology of invasive lobular breast cancer, with a view to developing new treatments. Despite being the second most common form of breast cancer, lobular breast cancer is in many ways treated like a rare cancer. It is under-researched, difficult to diagnose through the standard screening mammogram, and often presents fewer symptoms than invasive ductal carcinoma, which makes up the overwhelming majority of breast cancer incidents.