World Cancer Day

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)]

As ever, time is short, so I cannot answer everyone’s questions, but that is the nature of Westminster Hall. It is nice to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher.

It is an honour, as always, as the Cancer Minister, to respond to these debates. As the shadow Minister said, we have been here before many times. The three Front Benchers are consistent and other hon. Members move around us. This time I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing the debate and on lighting up Parliament pink next Monday. It will be my wife’s birthday, so she will enjoy that. I look forward to seeing my hon. Friend for the event on the Terrace.

The title of the debate, World Cancer Day, suggests two things to me—the fact that cancer is recognised as important enough to have its own world day, and the fact that it transcends every international border and, tragically, affects everybody, regardless of their standing, their age and the wealth they accumulate. It touches everybody, including those of us here in the Chamber. I offer my condolences to the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) and his family. I hope that tomorrow goes well, and I am sure they will honour his late brother-in-law. I wish the hon. Gentleman well.

The hon. Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee) always speaks with great passion in cancer debates. She is another one of the consistencies in such debates—it is always nice to see her. She talked about the screening review. She was not here on Monday, when we had a very big debate on cervical cancer. There was a Petitions Committee debate initiated by a young lady who died of cervical cancer at the age of 31, leaving four very young children. It was a heartbreaking story, and all her friends were in the Gallery. There was obviously a lot of talk about cervical cancer and the screening age for it. As I said in that debate, Sir Mike Richards is doing a big piece of work for the Department on screening programmes, including for cervical and breast cancer. I am optimistic about what the review will bring, and I know the hon. Lady will take great interest in that report.

The hon. Lady mentioned the national cancer patient experience survey. As she knows, I agree that it is very important, because we need to know what patients are saying. She will therefore be pleased that I decided to give that a permanent opt-out from the new Data Guardian rules, to ensure that that can continue and that the data can be good. She also mentioned technology and Skype interactions, and I know that she will be pleased that technology is one of the three priorities of the new Secretary of State, and that it is at the centre of the long-term plan. She is right to say that words should be followed by action—indeed, that is why the 10-year plan for the NHS has been produced and there will be £20.5 billion a year of extra investment for the NHS in England.

As always, the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) spoke from great experience and raised many good points, which I shall not repeat. She is right to say that smoking is still the biggest preventable killer in our United Kingdom. We must and will do better, and we have a very ambitious tobacco control plan in England. We had an interesting ten-minute rule Bill in the House yesterday on smoking in NHS properties in England, which provoked an interesting debate. The Bill was promoted by the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin).

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire asked about bowel cancer screening at 50. I cannot give a firm commitment on timescales for lowering the age to 50, but the NHS long-term plan makes it clear that we are committed to doing so as soon as practically possible, which is the key phrase—it has to be practically possible. NHS England and Public Health England, for which I am responsible, are working hard on that. They know I am on their case about it, and I hope to be able to confirm a start date very shortly. I am following it incredibly closely and will say more as soon as I can—I know that she will be watching like a hawk.

The hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) and my shadow, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), talked about the workforce. As I have said many times, the NHS is nothing without the 1.3 million staff who patients depend on day in, day out. With the right workforce in place, we can deliver the long-term plan. In December 2017, Health Education England published the first ever cancer workforce plan, in which we set out our ambitious plans to expand the capacity and skills of the NHS cancer workforce. That was a welcome first step, and the Secretary of State has now commissioned Baroness Dido Harding—she is working closely with Sir David Behan, formerly of the Care Quality Commission—to lead a number of programmes to engage with the key NHS interests and develop a detailed workforce implementation plan. In March they will present initial recommendations to the Department and Secretary of State, who will then consider the detailed proposals to grow the workforce rapidly as we move towards the big spending review.

The sponsor of the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, raised many great points. He asked about the health boards that they have north of the border, and about those boards’ collaboration with the 19 cancer alliances that we have in England. My cancer alliance is down in Wessex—I should not think that they have an awful lot of interaction. He raises a good point, and I am always up for more collaboration—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) often raises that subject with me, certainly in the absence of an Executive at Stormont. He knows that the offer is always there. In answer to my hon. Friend’s question on health boards, to be honest, there is not much interaction between them and the cancer alliances at that level, but I would say there is significant collaboration at the clinical level, particularly on research. The original bowel cancer screening trial was based at sites in England and Scotland. Indeed, the chair of the UK National Screening Committee, Professor Bob Steele, is based at the University of Dundee. There was therefore a lot of clinical interaction, but maybe not enough practical interaction. I am happy to explore ways to make that happen.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned research, and I think that our record is clear: we are, and want to remain, a world leader in cancer research. That is made clear in the long-term plan. The National Institute for Health Research spent £137 million on cancer research in 2016-17, and the largest research investment in a disease area was in cancer.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Ged Killen), who is no longer in his place, made the point about the late Baroness Jowell and her work on brain tumours. Her great legacy there is to stimulate the research community to come forward with decent research proposals that we can back. We heard the same in last week’s debate on the treatment of ME: it is not for Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care to decide what research projects will and will not happen. The projects have to come from the research community, and they have to be good to be backed by the NIHR. That is the same for cancer as it is for every area.

How much of the extra NHS funding will be used to tackle cancer? The funding breakdown for the long-term plan is still being finalised, but the plan has significant ambition for England around the 75% stage 1 to early diagnosis standard. I am very proud of that. We have already put £600 million into the 19 cancer alliances in England, and there will be more. They are very much our delivery mechanism and, as I said, I would be very keen to see any interaction between those two across the border—especially on behalf of those who represent seats close to the border.

Many other points were made—those around PIP and DLA were well made—and I know that CLIC met the Minister for Disabled People, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton). She, too, will take notice of all the points made in the debate.

I wish to give my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk 60 seconds to sum up, so I will conclude. We have made great strides in cancer in the past 20 years, and we have the best survival rate ever. On research, diagnostics, treatment and, ultimately, survival rates, however, there is so much more to do. Anyone who knows me or listens to me when I respond to such debates knows that I certainly do not lack ambition in this area, nor is there an ounce of complacency in me.