Less Survivable Cancers

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) on securing this important debate.

It is sadly the case that one in two of us will get cancer in our lifetime. We all know someone who is battling cancer, someone who has beaten it and, sadly, someone whose life has been cut short by it. Cancer survival rates have consistently improved, but they are still far from where we would like them to be. When we talk about less survivable cancers, we refer particularly to six types of cancer with low survival rates: pancreatic, liver, brain, oesophageal, stomach and lung cancers. Over 90,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with one of the less survivable cancers every year—20% of cancer cases—but those cancers are responsible for 42% of cancer deaths in the UK.

I pay tribute to hon. Members who have shared their personal stories in this debate, because behind each statistic is an individual. As I prepared for this debate, I thought of my granda, who died of brain cancer; my Nana Burton, who died of lung cancer; and of my husband’s good friend and confidante, Richard, who died of oesophageal cancer.

A key reason for the troublingly disproportionate mortality rate for less survivable cancers is their later-than-average diagnosis. Just 28% of less survivable cancers are diagnosed at stages 1 or 2, which is well below the 54% rate for cancers as a whole. That cuts survival rates significantly. Pancreatic cancer is particularly lethal, with less than 7% of people with pancreatic cancer in the UK surviving beyond five years.

I am pleased that the last Conservative Government launched the targeted lung health check programme in June 2022. It led to more than 5,500 people being diagnosed with lung cancer by January 2025, with 75% of cases found at stages 1 or 2 through screening. That is encouraging progress, but clearly there is much more work to be done to improve the diagnosis rates for all six less survivable cancers.

I have personally been supportive of the current Government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will ban the sale of tobacco to young people born after 1 January 2009. That will tackle one of the key risk factors for lung cancer. Will the Minister update us on the Bill’s progress, given that it was introduced on 5 November 2024 and has still not passed through Parliament? Prevention is said to be a big focus for the Government, so what is the Minister doing to improve prevention and to get the Bill passed?

The APPG on less survivable cancers launched an inquiry into earlier detection and faster diagnosis in March 2025 and found that doubling early diagnosis could save an additional 7,500 lives a year. What is the Minister doing to implement the inquiry’s recommendations, which were published last June? In particular, what is she doing to explore the benefits of technology in commissioning new detection tests? What assessment has she made of the new VAPOR breath test for pancreatic cancer, which could support GPs in diagnosing less survivable cancers from unclear symptoms?

I am hopeful that many of the answers to these questions, and others posed by hon. Members, will be found in the forthcoming national cancer plan. The Government have delayed that plan, along with several others, until 2026. We are now in 2026, so can the Minister confirm when the plan will be published? Rumours were swirling that it had been delayed for presentational purposes until World Cancer Day in February, but there are now further rumours that it may be delayed until early March. Can the Minister give us a date?

It is encouraging to see that NHS staff carried out over 3 million cancer checks in 2024, double the number carried out a decade prior. However, as with much of the war against cancer, this is another case of positive progress with more work needing to be done. Much of that work is dependent on the workforce.

The last Government built five new medical schools, including one in Lincolnshire, which are now producing their first medical graduates. However, British graduates need British jobs, and heavy competition from a surging number of international medical graduates is leaving many British graduates without a job. What action is the Minister taking to improve the recruitment of British graduates from British medical schools? Can she confirm when the further delayed 10-year NHS workforce plan will be published? Can she also assure us that that workforce plan, in combination with the long-anticipated cancer plan, will make provision to increase the number of oncologists, radiologists and specialist cancer nurses across the NHS?

As other Members have said, research is absolutely critical if we are to beat cancer, particularly the less survivable cancers, where new technologies for testing and treatment could save lives. Yet the cutting-edge, world-leading research that Britain has to offer does not feel as though it has the Government’s backing. Merck has scrapped its plans for a £1 billion research centre in King’s Cross and has announced plans to make 125 scientists redundant. AstraZeneca has halted a £200 million expansion of its research site in Cambridge and abandoned a £450 million vaccine manufacturing investment in Liverpool. Eli Lilly and Sanofi have both expressed frustration at the undervaluation of innovative medicines in the UK.

When I raised life sciences in a previous debate on cancer, the Minister for Secondary Care, the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) said that the Government

“want to make this country the best place to do life sciences.”—[Official Report, 23 October 2025; Vol. 773, c. 464WH.]

What support is the Minister providing to businesses in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries to make that political slogan a reality? What work is she doing with her colleagues in the Departments for Science, Innovation and Technology and for Business and Trade to revive lost life sciences investment and to use British research, which has the world-class facilities needed to innovate and save lives? As my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) said, it is important that we work together as a United Kingdom. What work is the Minister doing with our counterparts in Scotland in particular?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) said, there is a growing crisis in the hospice sector. Hospice care, provided for those with terminal illnesses such as some cancers, improves symptom control, comfort and support—it adds life to days. What is the Minister doing to press the Chancellor to recognise that her tax and national insurance changes are creating a crisis in the hospice sector, and what is she doing to save hospices from closure in many cases?

In summary, I am concerned that, 18 months in, the absence of definitive Government action for the cancer community has left us without a cancer plan or a workforce plan, while critical research continues to be driven out of this country. I encourage the Minister to provide clarity for cancer sufferers, cancer charities and the cancer workforce, who are doing such sterling work to improve people’s lives, and to get on with innovating lifesaving treatments to improve the tragic survival rates for the less survivable cancers.