Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent comparative assessment he has made of the incidence of breast cancer in (a) Slough and (b) South East with the national average.

The latest available data at local authority level (2012-2016) shows that in Slough there were an average of 502 cases of cancer diagnosed each year. In the South East region, for the same period, there were an average of 50,536 cases each year.

A standardised incidence ratio (SIR) accounts for differences in the age and sex structure of a population when comparing to a baseline. In this case the baseline is England which is set to 100. Numbers less than 100 indicate a lower incidence, and greater than 100 indicates a higher incidence.

The SIR for Slough was 95.8 and the SIR for the South East was 98.9. In each area the incidence of cancer is lower than the England average.