Cancer Workforce and Early Diagnosis — [Mr George Howarth in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 10:50 am on 8 January 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Steve Brine Steve Brine The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care 10:50, 8 January 2019

Yes. That is why the House gave all upper-tier local authorities the power to be effective public health authorities with ring-fenced public health budgets—£16 billion during this spending review period. Decisions will obviously be made about that going forward. One reason why we did that was because we believe that, for example, my right hon. Friend’s borough will have different priorities and demographics from mine in Hampshire.

It is a statement of fact that I will clearly not be able to respond to every Member’s points in the short time that we have left. I will respond to everybody in writing, as I always assiduously do. I will try to take a few themes in the minutes that I have.

The hon. Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) touched on radiotherapy. I very much enjoyed our meeting, and I thank them again for their work. I will send the hon. Member for Easington a note with more detail on his point on tariffs, because I know that he and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale are concerned about it.

The hon. Gentlemen also talked about the manifesto response. We await the publication of the new radiotherapy specification before we respond. It is an excellent piece of work that will address many of the recommendations made, and we expect it to be published very shortly. I am afraid to say that the long-term plan makes no commitment to a one-off investment. However, it commits to improving access to safer and more precise medicines, including advanced radiotherapy. That document is not the final word. It is a living document that I will work on while listening to all-party parliamentary groups such as his own.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale also talked about the radiotherapy review. There was a phenomenal response to NHS England’s consultation, not surprisingly, with a lot of those were from the west country of England. The NHS will plough through that. I am putting great pressure on it to publish its report in response to that, which I am hoping, and am told, will be in early 2019.

Dr Whitford, otherwise known as the Member for the Irish sea, talked about prevention and smoking and child obesity and humour. I loved her reference to “poo in the post”. There is a great charity that talks about men’s bits called It’s in the Bag, which is good at promoting awareness of testicular cancer. She is right to talk about prevention. I am the Minister for Public Health and Primary Care, looking at prevention. The Secretary of State has made prevention one of his top three priorities, and she knows that it is key for me.

Smoking is still the biggest preventable killer in our country today, as I said in the House last night in the statutory instrument debate. We have published a world-leading plan on child obesity. We will consult very shortly. I try to be honest with the House at all times, and I hoped to get it out before Christmas, but there is an awful lot else going on and there is only so much I can get out the door at one time. However, I will get the 9 pm watershed consultation out the door. It is damned important that we do that. We said that we will, so we will.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that prevention is better than cure, which is why the child obesity plan and Cancer Research UK’s work in that space has been very helpful.