Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I join my hon. Friend in commending Lord Cameron on his openness. Raising awareness, as we know, encourages men to come forward and leads to more diagnosis. He has done a great public service in talking about his own experience. We are improving care for men diagnosed with prostate cancer and undergoing active monitoring or treatment. We will be introducing support for individuals who are on prostate cancer active monitoring pathways to enable them to order and complete prostate-specific antigen blood tests at home from 2027. As for screening and the case being made for targeted screening, I await the recommendations of the National Screening Committee. We will study those carefully. We know that this is contested within the sector, so it is important that we have an evidence-based discussion, thrash out the arguments and reach the right way forward.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s indication that he is awaiting the outcome of that report on screening for prostate cancer. If that report recommends what many of us hope it will recommend, will he act quickly to develop the report’s recommendations, whatever they are?

[Wes Streeting]

We are expecting the draft recommendations, and then a three-month consultation period will follow, but I want to act quickly on the evidence and what the recommendations contain, not least because we know that as well as it being a prevalent form of cancer, some groups—particularly black men, men with a family history of prostate cancer and men with BRCA gene mutations—are at higher risk. Black men are twice as likely to die with prostate cancer than white men. There is therefore an imperative to act. Whatever the recommendation, we need to do much better on diagnosis and treatment of this terrible condition.