Cancer (Reporting and Strategy) Bill

Scott Arthur Excerpts

Friday 13th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

To start with a slight aside, it is fantastic to see my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern) on the Government Front Bench. Some of her comments this week on social media regarding the stories about violence against women and girls have been really moving for me, and they have been amazing leadership from her, so I thank her.

Returning to the Bill, we should be in no doubt that the Government’s national cancer plan for England sets a genuinely ambitious vision—a vision to transform the lives of millions of patients and families affected by cancer. The Bill before us aims to turn that vision into reality, or at least help to do so. It has cancer patients at its heart, and would create a new era of transparency and accountability, ensuring that good intentions are matched with meaningful action and measurable progress. I thank the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for presenting it.

The Bill strongly supports the ambitions already set out in the national cancer plan. In particular, it reinforces action 14, which recognises that greater transparency drives improvement, and action 21, which commits the National Cancer Board to report annually on progress and carry out a comprehensive review every three years. I accept that as the hon. Member for Wokingham has already outlined, we do not need to put the plan on a statutory footing. I hope Labour remains in power for the remaining 10 years—or almost 10 years—of the cancer plan, but I worry that some other Government might not take that plan quite so seriously, which is why it is important that we consider a statutory requirement for reporting.

However, this is not just about plans, targets or reporting mechanisms. As we have heard, the Bill is backed by 64 cancer charities. As Members of Parliament, many of us have attended those charities’ receptions, posed for photographs and heard about their remarkable work. Today, they are asking something more of us: to take a small but important step by supporting the Bill. I have to declare an interest, because I am wearing my Cancer Research UK tie; it was a gift to me, and I am very grateful for it. I also have to reflect that this week, I went to a Blood Cancer UK event, which was focused on raising money for trials that it is running. At that event, I met a young woman who is living with myeloma, and another young woman whose father died of myeloma last year. They are both fantastic people, and they want us to support the Bill.

This year alone, around 400,000 people in the UK will hear the words, “You have cancer.” Behind every one of those diagnoses is a person—a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a son, a daughter or a friend. Those 64 charities speak for those people; indeed, they speak for all of us, because statistically, one in two of us will receive a cancer diagnosis during our lifetime. Cancer touches every constituency, every community and almost every family in this country, and those charities do more than just speak for patients; together, they fund more cancer research than the Government. That is something we should always remember. They have put their expertise, their resources and their credibility behind this Bill, because they know it will help make a difference.

At its heart, the Bill is a modest proposal. It does not ask for billions in new spending—at least, I hope not, Madam Deputy Speaker—and it does not create a vast new bureaucracy. It simply asks that we measure progress, report it honestly, and hold ourselves accountable for the outcomes that matter to patients. If we are serious about getting cancer back on track, about delivering on the ambitions of the national cancer plan—which I do not doubt that we are—and about improving outcomes for the millions of people affected by cancer, we should support the Bill. I understand some of the reservations people have, and I hope they can be explored further in the debate.

If not, I hope the Bill will, at the very least, make it to Committee, because there is something in this. We should take seriously the fact that so many charities support the Bill.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

The hon. Gentleman took four minutes and 50 seconds; colleagues will appreciate that.