Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

Yes, he will. I am pleased to say that prevention is one of the Secretary of State’s three key priorities. The HPV vaccine is a key prevention measure, while one of the drivers behind the child obesity plan was Cancer Research UK’s very clear advice that being overweight was one of the big risk factors, alongside diabetes, in cancer. Yes, prevention is always better than cure.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s acceptance of the JCVI’s recommendation to extend the vaccination programme to adolescent boys, but the Minister will know that there are huge regional differences in the take-up of the vaccination among girls. What steps will he take to tackle these regional differences before and during the roll-out to boys?

[Steve Brine]

The shadow Minister is absolutely right to raise this issue, which she also raised with me in the Westminster Hall debate on the same subject introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), who has done a lot in this area. I have already spoken to Public Health England about this in respect of the girls’ programme, and I will be speaking to it again now that we have announced the boys’ programme, because the equality of doing the dual programme must be matched by the equality of its taking place in her constituency as much as in mine in Hampshire.