Clive Jones MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children and Young People with Cancer · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She is absolutely right: cancer is the worst thing that can ever cross a family’s doorstep. It affects every family, every person, very differently. Financially we need something called Hugh’s law, which I will talk about later. That could give a family £700 every month from diagnosis. At the moment people have to wait at least three months, then fill in the forms and wait another three or four months. But Hugh’s law, for not an awful lot of money, could change all that very quickly. I will come on to that. I hope I have made it clear that the costs are overwhelming; and yet the existing support from the Government is woefully lacking. I would go as far as to say it is downright cruel. Disability benefits are vital for children and young people with cancer because of the costs associated with diagnosis. They come in the form of personal independence payments, disability living allowance and, subsequently, carer’s allowance. Despite those benefits’ being so crucial and the effects of cancer being so immediate, children and young people face a three-month qualifying period before they can claim PIP or DLA. I would just like to repeat that: children and young people are subject to a three-month qualifying period, which for most is from the point of diagnosis, before they can access support. The very purpose of welfare or social security is to deliver support for the most vulnerable. Young cancer patients go through some of the toughest, unimaginable pain—pain that even I, as a cancer survivor, could not contemplate. They do it with perseverance, with diligence, and somehow they do it with hope. Tragically, some families lose their child to cancer. To be told at the start of that journey through hell that patients and families need to wait three months before applying for vitally needed funds is simply inexplicable. The evidence shows that the costs are immediate, and yet patients and families are deprived of support that they urgently need from day one. Can the Minister please clarify why it is necessary to have a three-month qualifying period? Can he explicitly put it on the record whether he thinks that that is appropriate in the case of children and young people with cancer? Alternatively, could he please publish the advice from civil servants that are insisting on the three-month qualifying period? The argument has to be made that the impact of a condition needs to be evidenced for three months before DLA or PIP can be provided to avoid benefit fraud, but it is very clearly established that children and young people with cancer will be significantly impacted by their cancer from the start, even before it is diagnosed. Surely a confirmed medical diagnosis is enough. The Minister may claim that someone with cancer might have been impacted by the condition before their diagnosis was given and therefore their qualifying period will have begun prior to diagnosis. However, experts make it clear that until the diagnosis is given, it is almost impossible for children and young people to know that they have a serious condition that qualifies them for benefits and to evidence the impact. The diagnosis is key. That is simply the reality. In the experience of charities that I have talked to, children and young people who apply for disability benefits are nearly always successful. Very, very few are rejected at the point of initial application or subsequent appeal. However, I recognise that it may be concluded that that is anecdotal. Therefore it would be incredibly helpful if the Minister could confirm that the majority of children and young people with cancer are successful in their applications for PIP and DLA and that very few, if any, are rejected for benefits. If he could provide the precise statistics, I would be very grateful. Research also shows that once the three-month qualifying period has concluded, there are significant delays in applications’ being processed after they are submitted. This period currently sits at up to 20 weeks. The qualifying period and these additional delays are leaving children and young people without benefits support for several months. For the application processing, the benefits can be backdated, but only to the point of application rather than diagnosis. That leaves people missing out on benefits support for the first three months of their illness. Based on data from Young Lives vs Cancer, it concludes that children and young people with cancer and their families will have incurred additional costs of on average £2,100 before they can even apply for any benefit.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children and Young People with Cancer · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We should be doing everything, especially in the first few weeks, days and months of a diagnosis, to make it as comfortable for a child as possible. Adults who get cancer have a circle of friends around them and can cope with it. I have no idea what it is like for a child, but I can imagine that it is very difficult, so having a play area and things they are familiar with using must make that experience much easier. I want to ask the Minister if, as per the principles of the existing special rules process, he will consider using medical diagnosis to allow children and young people with cancer to apply for benefits as soon as their diagnosis is confirmed. Does he also recognise that the special rules process in its current form is flawed? One young person treated in London was awarded DLA only a few weeks before they sadly died, despite using the special rules process, which should have expedited their benefits. The stress placed on their family was significant. I pay tribute to the campaign of Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis to establish Hugh’s law, in the name of their six-year-old son, who tragically died from a rare form of cancer. Their story is heartbreaking, but is unfortunately a common reality for parents who are forced into darkness. At one of the lowest moments in their life, with the Government looking away from them, support is a struggle to access, rather than a guarantee. I personally endorse the objectives of Hugh’s law: for financial aid to be granted to the parents of chronically sick children from day one and for the removal of the three-month qualifying period, which Young Lives vs Cancer has also called for. Its research is right that, for a very small cost, the Government could transform the lives of thousands by delivering parents a limited-time, non-means-tested benefit to cope as their lives completely change. I met Ceri on Monday to discuss her campaign, and I attended the Hugh’s law event today on the Terrace pavilion. Hearing directly about people’s lived experience and from experts at that event reinforced why we urgently need change. Does the Minister support Ceri and Frances’s campaign for Hugh’s law? If not, will he explain why? PIP and DLA are not the only benefits to be severely delayed by a system that does not work. Carers can apply for carers’ allowance and other associated carer support only once PIP and DLA have been approved for the young cancer patient they are caring for. That means that carers may be caring for many months before they can apply for carers’ benefits and get what they are entitled to. I could continue. There exists a loophole in universal credit whereby young people who are at university when they are diagnosed with cancer and then defer their course, with the aim of restarting it when they finish treatment, are not entitled to student finance because they are not actively attending university. However, they not entitled to universal credit either because they are still classed as “in education”. Students should not be forced to totally drop out and start university from the beginning. To state the obvious, a cancer diagnosis is not their fault, and forcing them to disrupt their lives even further is completely pointless. Will the Minister look at the broader welfare support system in relation to children and young people with cancer, in co-operation with expert charities, to close other loopholes and ensure that the full package of support meets their needs? There are too many points to raise in just one debate, but I would like to conclude on a slightly more optimistic note, following the confirmation from the Department of Health and Social Care that the children and young people cancer taskforce will be launched this year, and that it will seek to identify ways to improve the experience and outcomes for children and young people with cancer. Although I await the specifics of the relaunch of the taskforce, the principles are of good intention. I know that the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) has been an incredible champion of this project. Will the Minister work with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that the children and young people cancer taskforce looks at psychosocial support, which is something I could not address in my speech, along with welfare. Will he also make representations to the Health Minister to ensure that this new body links appropriately with the long-term cancer strategy for England?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions: Charities · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) for securing the debate. A number of charities in my constituency of Wokingham, including The Cowshed, First Days and Citizens Advice, have been really disadvantaged by these national insurance charges, one of them by up to £16,000 a year. The Government could have been bold by taxing banks, online gambling and social media giants to raise more money. Can the Minister answer this simple question? Is she content with putting bankers’ bonuses first instead of debt advisers and support for people facing evictions, homelessness and genuine need?

• 6 Jan 2025 · NHS Backlog · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing the debate. I declare my interest as a governor of the Royal Berkshire hospital, and that a family member has shares in a medical company. It is a simple fact that as a result of the last Conservative Government, more patients than ever are waiting for hospital treatments. In October 2024, the national waiting list stood at 7.5 million. House of Commons Library data reveals that the waiting list for hospital treatment locally is seven times worse than it was a decade ago. Ten years ago, 91.9% of patients in West Berkshire waited less than 18 weeks for elective surgery; now that proportion has dropped to 75.5%, which is well below NHS targets and is completely unacceptable. Where is the acknowledgment and apology from the previous Government for the mess they created? A backlog means that people’s conditions worsen, forcing on them more complicated surgeries and leading to slower recoveries, worse outcomes and reduced quality of life. Many people in Wokingham receive treatment at the Royal Berkshire hospital, which is important to me as it is where my children were born and where my cancer was discovered. Its dedicated staff are the pride of our community, and it employs innovative practices to try to reduce the existing backlog. For example, it has expanded its virtual hospital and is now able to treat 124 patients who would normally be in hospital from the comfort of their own home. However, the hospital’s situation is continually worsened by a crumbling estate. Some 95% of its lifts are beyond their end of life, and it has had to cancel operations due to infrastructure issues. Today’s announcement that extra investment will be provided to hospitals that cut waiting times the fastest is putting the cart before the horse. How does the Secretary of State expect the Royal Berkshire hospital to meaningfully cut waiting times when the Department is unable to set out the next steps for its urgently required rebuild? I and other Members will continue to pursue this matter until we get Government action on it. Will the Minister please set out when the new hospital programme review will be published? A rebuild of the Royal Berks is especially important for the cancer centre. Some parts of that building are 164 years old—this is where people who are perhaps in the last years of their lives are being treated. Urgent investment is crucial. I was delighted to secure a commitment from the Government to a national cancer strategy for England, which is a very important step forward. The Government’s cancer strategy needs to clearly set out how it will improve cancer waiting times and tackle outcomes. I hope this can be done before the Second Reading of my private Member’s Bill on 4 July, but I fear that today’s announcement regarding the 18-week target pits knee replacements against radiotherapy. Cancer affects one in two people in the UK and is expected to increase annually, with 30% more patients with cancer, yet we have a staggering workforce shortage in almost every staffing group, insufficient capacity, and more than one in 10 referred patients waiting more than 104 days for treatment. Is the Minister still committed to meeting cancer waiting times in this Parliament?