Chris Evans

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) for bringing up the case of my constituent, Owain James, whose wife is here in the Public Gallery looking upon us. I will be quick—I would love to talk more about Owain’s case, but my hon. Friend has done that quite eloquently. There should be no more cases like Owain’s. He was 34 years of age. There was an opportunity to save him. If we had frozen his tumour properly, there might have been an opportunity for more vaccines. Ellie and I recently met the Minister, who was helpful, to talk about freezers that freeze to minus 80°; I understand that NHS England is looking into that issue, and the Minister said that a mapping programme would take place. I wonder whether that mapping will take place, and how it will progress in the future. Further to that, the most important thing is updated guidance. The guidance should not compromise diagnosis, which must always come first; but once the tissue needed for diagnosis has been secured, services should be encouraged to maximise the amount of sustainable brain tumour tissue that is fresh-frozen and stored. Will the Minister confirm whether NHS England will issue or update guidance to relevant neuropathology units on fresh-freezing suitable brain tumour tissue, so that patients do not lose future options that might be valuable? Will the Minister also look at surgical consent protocols? One thing that came over from Ellie’s story is that Owain was not sure of the options available to him. Informed consent needs to be given, and it needs to be the consent of the patient. Will the Minister also look into that? On a personal point, I wonder whether, on those changes being put in place, they could be designated “Owain’s law”. That would be a tribute to Ellie, to her campaigning and above all to the daughter Owain left behind. I know the Minister is compassionate and caring—she was involved in this campaign since long before she was appointed Minister—and I know she will bring good news today.