Tim Farron

First of all, Sir John, thank you for your oversight of this debate and for keeping us in order. I also thank everybody who has contributed from the Front and Back Benches. Members from all sides of the House have contributed so knowledgably and passionately on behalf of their communities, so I am really grateful to them all. I especially thank the Minister for his response and for agreeing to my two requests. That is great—I appreciate it very much indeed. I also appreciated his statement in the main Chamber earlier, when he spoke very movingly about his own family experiences. We share an experience: my mum also passed away from ovarian cancer, at a similar age to his mum. We begin to see the impact that cancer has on the lives of just about every single family, so when we get to a position where we can do something about it, what a privilege that is and what an opportunity, which we absolutely must not miss. Since I still have a few moments left, I encourage Members who are not already members of the all-party parliamentary group on radiotherapy to join up, please: we will not overburden you. I have discovered over time that decisions are so often made in the interest of the people who are in the room, so we need to be in the room. Chemotherapy is a really vital part of cancer treatment and the pharmaceutical industry that goes with it has tons of resource to lobby us; that is good, and it is entitled to do that. Radiotherapy is a very different industry. This is the lobby—so we need to be in the room to make sure that we are equally heard and that radiotherapy is part of the armoury to tackle and defeat cancer. Money is vital, but leadership is key. Having people who will be “on it” constantly within NHS England at the senior levels—who want this to happen, who are dissatisfied with how things are and who are hungry for change—is essential, but, without meaning any disrespect to anybody, I do not see that at the moment. I am, though, encouraged by what the Minister said about trying to instil it. Radiotherapy is non-invasive. It is increasingly targeted and accurate. In the time that I have been involved in this area of campaigning, I have seen an exponential increase in how targeted it is and therefore how strong the doses, so to speak—the fractions—can be. I have seen the damage that can be done to a tumour without seriously damaging the healthy tissue around it. If the Minister is trying to convince his right hon. Friend the Chancellor to give us more money, he should argue that radiotherapy is so beneficial for the economy, because people will go back to work healthy, earn money and pay taxes. I thank the Minister very much again for responding to points made in the debate. My final point is to make again the case for satellite radiotherapy units around the country, not just in my patch. His civil servants might want to look into this more deeply. Among the wonderful people I met today was a young clinician, James, who works in a radiotherapy unit in London. He used to work in Cheltenham, which then of course branched out to have a satellite unit at Hereford. He was able to demonstrate and vouch for the fact that that new satellite unit ended up with getting on for 25% more patients than it had originally planned for. That was for one obvious reason: people who would not have had radiotherapy at all were able to get it because it was closer to them. The important thing to remember is that satellite units are not just about convenience—in fact, they are not even about convenience; they are about saving people’s lives and returning people to normal life if possible. I again thank the Minister for the attention he has given this issue, and I thank everybody else here today for taking part in this debate—not least yourself, Sir John. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the accessibility of radiotherapy.