Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

As I said earlier, we welcome the fact that Labour is now interested in cancer policy. If we look at the reason for those delays, which we are working hard to address, it is because the number of cancer referrals—[Interruption.] Labour left this country with the worst cancer survival rate in western Europe; we are doing something about it. The reason for the delays is that the number of people being referred for cancer tests has gone up by 50% since 2010. We are treating record numbers of people with cancer because we want to do something about that survival rate.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

T2. The Public Health Minister is pursuing a long list of nanny state proposals that we might have better expected from the Labour party, including plain packaging of tobacco, outlawing parents smoking in cars and having higher taxes on alcohol. Will she give us a list of which policies, if any, she is pursuing that have a Conservative flavour to them?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)]

Following on from the Secretary of State’s previous answer, tobacco control is an integral part of tackling cancer. I am delighted to let the House know that smoking prevalence among adults in England fell to 18.4% in 2013. This is a record low, which means that the Government have hit their tobacco control plan target for 2015 two years early. I am sure that even my hon. Friend would welcome that news.