Cervical Cancer Smear Tests

Debate between John Howell and Helen Jones

Monday 28th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. We need people to realise that women know their own bodies and know if something is wrong, so people must listen to what they say. There are too many examples of women having to pay for a private test before finding out they have cervical cancer. If it is not diagnosed early, there is a chance it will become terminal. If it is diagnosed early, the chances of survival are much greater, so we need to ensure that people are diagnosed early.

On the question of whether the age for screening should be reduced, I am not convinced at the moment. The scientific evidence does not support it, but I hope that the Government will keep it under review. If the evidence changes, we need to change what we do. Sir Mike Richards is undertaking a review of cancer screening and is due to report by Easter. I hope he looks at the issue. Ministers must ensure that they get the best advice and they have to proceed on that advice. We have to remember that, rare as it is, in 2016, 15% of women diagnosed with cervical cancer were under 30, and last year, 12 of those who died were under 30. We can and should do much more to prevent such deaths by ensuring that women are screened where necessary, even if they are under 25. If they have indications that require them to be screened, they should be. We must ensure that we promote the HPV vaccination programme, which is one of the best things that has been done in recent years. I say to parents who worry about it, “Don’t put your daughters at risk. Get them vaccinated.” We have to do much more to convince them that vaccination is the right thing. We have to do much more to make screening accessible and easily available to women, and it must be done in a supportive environment. Let us be honest: it is a bit like a sausage machine when we go to the GP, precisely because health workers are screening all the time. To them it is not at all unusual, but it is to the people who attend; that is the difference.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I hope that, like me, the hon. Lady will support the Public Health England awareness campaign that is about to start, which will try to tackle all the misunderstandings about screenings, and to overcome the feelings of fear and embarrassment that she described so well.

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and it is not before time to have such an awareness campaign. However, it is no good having one unless we ensure that screening is easily available and that people are treated well when they go. That is vital, because one bad experience can put a woman off ever going again, which is not what any of us want.

Natasha started the petition because she wanted to raise awareness of the symptoms of cervical cancer, and to ensure that other women did not suffer as she had suffered. That was a remarkable thing to do, and I hope that today’s debate, which I know her MP, the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), would have liked to have attended—unfortunately, she has to be in Committee elsewhere—will go some way towards doing that. I hope the debate will open up the dialogue on how best to get women screened, and when they should be screened, and I hope that the Minister will commit to keeping the age of screening under review, so that, if the scientific evidence supports screening earlier, that is acted on.

Fireworks: Public Sales

Debate between John Howell and Helen Jones

Monday 26th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is right, and she anticipates a point that I will make later.

The Fireworks Regulations 2004 introduced a lot of rules about the sale, possession and use of fireworks. They introduced a licensing system for those who sell fireworks all year round, limited the sale by other suppliers to dates around 5 November, new year, Chinese new year and Diwali, imposed a maximum decibel level of 120, and forbade the possession of adult fireworks—those in the F2 and F3 categories—in a public place by anyone under 18. F4 fireworks, which are the most explosive, can be possessed only by fireworks professionals.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Jones]

One more time, but then I must make some progress, in fairness to those who want to speak.

[John Howell]

The hon. Lady is being generous in giving way. May I pick up on her point about decibels? There is now a whole generation of almost silent fireworks with a reduced decibel level. Does she welcome their introduction to the market?

[Helen Jones]

“Silent fireworks” is a bit of a misnomer, because they are not entirely silent. Clearly they are welcome, but they do not solve many of the other problems associated with fireworks.

The 2003 Act and the regulations made under it have gone some way towards assuaging public concern about the issue, as have the Explosives Regulations 2014 and the Pyrotechnic Articles (Safety) Regulations 2015, which relate to the safety of fireworks as consumer products. But—and it is a big “but”—public concern seems to have risen again recently. I regularly get letters and emails at certain times of the year, as I am sure many other hon. Members do, from people who are concerned about the noise, pollution and antisocial behaviour associated with fireworks.

GCSE English Literature Exams

Debate between John Howell and Helen Jones

Monday 26th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 200299 relating to GCSE English literature exams.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma.

The more perceptive among us will remember that we have been here before. We debated this issue just before the general election. I think it was on the last full day of business. Understandably, the debate was rather rushed and the Petitions Committee did not have time to do any public engagement on the matter.

When we received a new petition in this Parliament, we therefore decided to schedule it for debate and to conduct some public engagement. We had a huge response, showing that people believe that how we examine and test pupils’ knowledge is not just a technical matter; it says much about the things we think are important—the skills and knowledge that we value. People are also increasingly worried about the mental health of our young people. I will come to that later.

There are many exam systems throughout the world, and they do not necessarily relate to the success or failure of the education system. On the one hand, there are systems such as those used in Singapore and Hong Kong, where there is rigorous and frequent testing. Those are very good at some things—there is no doubt about that. However, when I was in Singapore some years ago, people asked us how to teach creativity, because they thought they had ironed that out of their system. On the other hand, in Finland nobody sits an exam until they are 16 and it is viewed as one of the best education systems in the world—on some measures, the best. I do not say that because I think Ministers can import exam systems from elsewhere. In fact, over the years we have had far too much of Ministers going abroad and trying to bring in a system from a completely different cultural background. I am simply saying that how we examine is a choice—one choice among many.

It is clear from the feedback that both parents and teachers are worried about the impact of frequent testing and the type of testing we have on young people’s mental health. Way back in 2016, what was then the Association of Teachers and Lecturers did a survey of its members. Over half of the respondents said that they knew one student who had tried to self-harm. One of the teachers said that there had been

“a huge increase in physical symptoms of stress and incidents of self-harm.”

On the other hand, the chief inspector of schools has told The Times Educational Supplement that it is a “myth” that children in England are over-tested. It is difficult to know who to believe: the teachers who are on the ground every day or a chief inspector with no teaching qualifications at all, whose nomination was rejected by the Select Committee on Education. I will leave people to make their choice.

It is true that there is a lot of mental ill health among young people today. The charity YoungMinds published figures showing that one in four children and young adults displays symptoms of mental ill health, and that one in 10 children and one in five young adults has a diagnosable mental health disorder.

When we did our public engagement on this subject, we found that mental health was an issue for many people. We carried out some public engagement with pupils from Christ the King Catholic High School in Preston, to whom we are very grateful. Our staff used those responses to design an online survey for students, teachers and parents. There were extra boxes for teachers to allow them to make comments. We had more than 16,300 responses. Of the students involved, 54% said that they thought about exams most of the time and 53% said that they were stressed most of the time because of their exams.

Interestingly, that was not the prime reason for people wanting a change in the system. The main reason was that they felt exams tested memory rather than understanding —77% of students and 84% of teachers told us that. That gives people like me pause. I grew up in a system—like most people here, I suspect—where memory was important. We had to remember lots of things for exams. I was lucky: I did not find it particularly difficult. However, we need to ask not what was suitable for us, but what is suitable for the next generation. We need to ask ourselves, is it really necessary to have so much emphasis on memory in a society where information is available at the touch of a button? That question hardly ever gets asked in our system.

We are often dependent—this has happened under both political parties—on the whims of whichever Secretary of State for Education happens to be in office at the time. We all remember the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who decided that history should be “our island story”, ignoring the fact that that story is probably seen very differently in different parts of these islands and by different communities within them. He also took a sudden dislike to “Of Mice and Men” being on the curriculum. I do not know why—perhaps he was hit over the head with a Steinbeck novel when he was small and has been traumatised ever since.

Because of that, we have seen frequent changes to our exam system. We had the English baccalaureate. We had tiering, which came and went. We had coursework and then the abolition of coursework. Then we had linear courses with exams at the end. It is no surprise, therefore, that the current Secretary of State has had to promise teachers that there will be no more changes, in an attempt to woo people into the profession. Frankly, I am surprised there are any teachers left. In all this noise, what does not get asked is, what do children need to learn and how do they need to learn it to fit them for the society that they are growing up in, rather than the one that we grew up in?

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I have a terrible memory problem. I can barely remember one thing from one day to another. The reason for the change we have made is to try to raise standards. Has the hon. Lady considered the impact of this change on standards?