Brain Tumours: Research and Treatment

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) for sharing her story and for all her endeavours in this House on behalf of her sister and others. I hope she will forgive me for saying that she has a big heart, and she expresses that in this Chamber often. The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said he was afraid; I cannot believe he would be afraid of anybody, but I am sure she was not too formidable no matter what the case may be.

For any family to receive the news of a brain tumour is instantly worrying, and we think of all who have lost their lives to this dreadful illness. Just recently we mourned with a dear friend of mine whose daughter went to hospital with a suspected stroke and within two months had gone to eternity with a glioblastoma brain tumour. She gave me an image of a red squirrel in the nearby Mount Stewart estate, run by the National Trust, and that will always have pride of place in my office.

In Northern Ireland, 2,043 brain tumour cases were diagnosed between 2017 and 2021—some 409 cases per year. At the end of 2021, there were almost 5,500 people living with a brain tumour, with the diagnoses occurring between 1997 and 2021. During that period, 53.2% of brain tumour cases were among women—as in the case that I know of and in that raised by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden.

If I was to ask for one thing out of this debate today, it would be for extra money to be made available for research and to find the cures, because that is really what we want. Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40. In the UK, 16,000 people are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year, and incidence rates of brain tumours are significantly higher in Northern Ireland and Wales than in other UK countries. Brain tumour cases are projected to rise in Northern Ireland by some 36% by 2035, which is really worrying. The Minister always endeavours to give us the answers we all seek, and I ask her to work alongside the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to see how all of us in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can work together to take on glioblastoma cancer and tumours.

Despite treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, some patients find themselves resistant to therapy and they relapse and unfortunately may face death after some 15 months. Queen’s University Belfast is making giant strides in research and repurposing existing drugs to ascertain if they can make a difference to these dreadful statistics. While it is thankful for the funding given by Brainwaves NI and other charities, the Government need to assist those charities and other groups by making funding available to the highly qualified scientists who could find a cure and have a path to take, but have been precluded from doing so due to the lack of money. The statistics are startling: more children and adults under 40 die of a brain tumour than of any other cancer, yet only 1% of national research spending goes on brain tumour research. More research and more spend could make a great difference; this must be rectified.

The difficulty is that no symptoms are unique to brain tumours. Headaches, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision or weakness of the limbs can be due to other pressure effects within the brain. A tumour can also cause seizures due to infiltrative effects on the brain substance. There are many symptoms, including deafness, visual disturbance, and problems with the sense of smell.

I want to give a wee example. My parliamentary aide had been suffering from a 10-day headache. She is the one who writes all these speeches for me every week—a very busy lady. She booked an eye test after she did some research and asked for a further intensive scan, which she paid for herself. Thankfully in a way, it turned out that her eyes had deteriorated but that the headaches were not due to anything that she had feared. There is a good point to make here: how many young people would not think to do this or would say, “I can’t afford to do that”? How much awareness is there that a headache is not always down to dehydration? How many people understand that an eye test is an essential part of our healthcare? Perhaps the Minister would consider making eye tests free at source for those who work, as well as those on benefits, to increase the number of people having an eye test who need one but just do not think about it.

In conclusion, ever conscious of time, I understand that money is not unlimited and that the Government must make effective use of funding, but when I stood at the funeral service and watched the heartbreak of my friend, I thought that there is nothing more important than stopping that heartbreak in Northern Ireland and across this great United Kingdom. Research is the key and we must find the promising research as a matter of urgency. I hope that the debate today will be a step in the right direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your kind words about Margaret. I thank everybody who has taken part in the debate. I appreciate that they have been taken from their constituencies, where there will be great celebrations for the 80th anniversary of VE Day.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the debate. I suggested to the Committee that I did not want last Thursday because it was polling day, so when I was offered 8 May, I did not really feel that I could refuse. I say to the Minister, the shadow Ministers and all hon. Members that if we rely on the system as it is, there will be no progress. The only way to bring about progress is to intervene and to challenge. To that end, I am delighted to say that in July we will be launching the first drug trial in Margaret’s memory, to try immunotherapy on people with glioblastoma. We will be doing that only on one site, at UCL and UCLH. That is because the structure of drug trials in the NHS continues to be so difficult—this was identified by Lord O’Shaughnessy in his report—that going to more sites would take years. People diagnosed with this condition have not got years, so we all have to intervene.

Most Ministers in the previous Government and those in this Government have been incredibly well organised and well motivated. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his intervention, which has made our trial possible at this speed, but unless we personally get involved, no great speeches, wishing or hoping will make a change. The system does not want change. We have to enforce change.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that Brain Tumour Awareness Month took place in March; further notes that there has been no progress in NHS treatment of brain tumours in 20 years and that they are the biggest cancer killer of people under the age of 40; calls on the Government to demand that the National Institute for Health and Care Research take action to spend the £40 million provided by the Government for brain tumour research in 2018 for innovative and meaningful drug trials, following the death of the late Baroness Tessa Jowell; and further calls on the Government to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to undertake research into the repurposing of drugs for brain tumours and to require the NHS repurposing service to consider the repurposing of drugs for brain tumours.

[Jim Shannon]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to ask this, but we need to understand what is happening about the trade negotiations and the statement that may be coming. I ask because three of us here—the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister), the hon. Member for Dundee Central (Chris Law) and I—have planes to catch. I understand that others in the Chamber have made travel arrangements as well. If the statement is not happening, let us go.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. While Members are aware that a statement is expected on trade negotiations, I have no further information on the timing. His comments are now on the record. I suspend the House until further notice. The Annunciator will give further information, and bells will be rung before the House resumes.