Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will produce a new national cancer plan for the next Parliament which prioritises the importance of early diagnosis.

Achieving earlier diagnosis of cancer is key to our ambition to save an additional 5,000 lives per year by 2014-15 and improve cancer outcomes and survival.

Improving Outcomes: A Strategy for Cancer, (January 2011) set out the Government’s ambition to close the gap in survival outcomes by 2014-15 and the strategy is backed with more than £750 million over this spending review period (four years), including more than £450 million to achieve early diagnosis.

Along with NHS England and Public Health England, we will publish the latest progress on commitments and initiatives outlined in the plan in the fourth annual report.