Cervical Cancer Smear Tests

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Roger. I am hugely grateful to the friends and family of Natasha, and all those who signed the petition, for enabling us to have the debate, which is much needed.

HPV accounts for 99.7% of cervical cancers. It also accounts for cancers in boys. I would like the Minister to seriously consider rolling out the vaccine programme to boys as well. I cannot think of any other inoculation programme where we inoculate only half the population. It seems a bizarre approach to trying to eliminate a reasonably common form of cancer.

I will build on what my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) said about the fears. As soon as I started tweeting about this matter, people replied saying how dangerous the vaccine was. I am sorry, but the evidence does not support that. It is an insurance policy for people’s children, and I urge parents to look at the evidence, rather than the scaremongering on Facebook and Twitter.

HPV is a sexually transmitted virus. As my friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, unfortunately children start having sex, on average, at 15.6 years of age. Legally they can have sex from the age of 16. I am sorry, but to me it does not make sense to have a gap of nine years, knowingly, between when children are likely to become sexually active and be exposed to a sexually transmitted disease and when they have any screening.

When I started talking about this issue a couple of weeks ago, two of my friends came to me and said that their cervical cancer was picked up when they were 21. They were incredibly fortunate in one way: because they had a history of cancer in their family, they were on the programme for high-risk people, so it was picked up. I am very concerned about the people who are not on that programme and for whom it does not get picked up. If two of my friends had this cancer at 21, I am sure that many others are at risk, and will have cancer that is not picked up until it is too late.

The smear tests are not fun and can be embarrassing, but at my GP they have changed. They now use a small brush that is nowhere near as uncomfortable. I say to the Minister that there are ways of minimising the discomfort of such tests. Turning to my personal experience, I have always gone for my smear tests. After one test, I received the letter we all dread, saying that there were some abnormalities and asking me to go back for a biopsy. When I did so, lo and behold, it was confirmed that I had cancerous cells.

I did not have any symptoms. If I had had the symptoms, I would probably have put them down to something else, because they are irregular bleeding, discomfort during sex and back pain—I am 49, so I suffer those quite a lot anyway. [Laughter.] Those are not abnormal symptoms at any age, even at a younger age—I look to the women in the room. If I had had those symptoms, the last thought on my mind would have been, “Oh, my goodness; I might be at risk of cervical cancer. I must go and do something about it.”

I was lucky that it was picked up really early, so I had simple day surgery and did not require any further treatment. Two weeks ago I got the letter saying that I was six months clear, which is just wonderful. I want everyone to know that feeling, and that is why I am so grateful that the petition was put forward and there are campaigns, and why I am so concerned that the number of women going for smear tests is dropping.

The figure cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North that 1.7 million women have never had a smear test chills me, but there are often very good reasons why women are not going. A lot of it, for the women I speak to, is due to past sexual violence or childhood trauma. I ask the Minister to look at the guidance that goes out to GPs. If a women has never been for a test, or has missed a number of appointments, instead of assuming that she is being difficult or that she cannot be bothered, is it possible to put something in the chase-up letter that says, “We understand that this can be very difficult, so here is the nurse you can talk to, so we can minimise some of the trauma and the worry that going for a smear test might create”?

These are simple things that we can do and that can change lives. I am very supportive of lowering the age for smear tests, for the reasons I have outlined, but I also think that we owe it to young women to give them the best protection they can possibly have.