Alison Bennett

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I would like to begin by thanking the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for securing this debate and for making such a well-articulated case for why more needs to be done to support people with Parkinson’s. I also thank him for mentioning the Big Sing, which brought to mind a brilliant event I went to in July: Picnic in the Park, hosted by the Parkinson’s UK Mid Sussex group. Their choir and their band were there, and we all had a brilliant singalong. I very much enjoyed it, and I pay tribute to the group for what it is doing—bringing people together and reducing isolation, both for those with Parkinson’s and their loved ones. There are people like my constituent Sophie, whose mum Janet was diagnosed with Parkinson’s six years ago. Janet was active, spoke multiple languages and had an impressive career in business, but Sophie says that Parkinson’s has robbed Janet of much of who she is. Despite raising the loss of her sense of smell with her GP several times, as well as other symptoms such as increasingly small handwriting, it still took more than five years for Janet to get a diagnosis. We know that Parkinson’s predominantly affects men, but much less is known or understood about Parkinson’s in women, including how symptoms might interact with menstrual cycles and the menopause. Sophie worries that the dismissive response Janet received when trying to get a diagnosis may be a very common experience for women across the board, and I think Sophie may be on to something here. The e-petition bringing forward the Parky charter matters profoundly, and it makes a lot of sense. I will not spend time repeating many of the points that hon. Members have made in the past hour.