John Milne MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jul 2026 · Lobular Breast Cancer: Moon Shot Project · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for the Lobular Moon Shot Project. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. MPs from across the House are here today to mark the anniversary of the death of my constituent Dr Susan Michaelis, founder of the Lobular Moon Shot Project. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding time at very short notice in the parliamentary schedule for this debate. Unfortunately, that short notice has prevented many MPs who would have liked to have spoken today from joining us. Unfortunately, that was a necessity. Today is a sad moment because Susan is no longer with us, but it is also a time to celebrate what she has achieved. Susan was a remarkable woman. She was warm but incredibly stoic. At no time was that clearer than on her last trip to Parliament in the summer of last year, oxygen tank in tow. Determined but evidently suffering, Susan stood for 22 minutes in a silent vigil outside No. 10 Downing Street with fellow campaigners and lobular ladies around her. We all understood that Susan was in her last days or weeks, so to watch her husband, campaigners and fellow lobular ladies rallying around her, literally supporting her, was a sight to behold. In her haste to deliver her petition to No. 10 that day, Susan had forgotten her ID. She was distraught. All that effort would be wasted, as the rules were clear: no ID, no entry. But that, of course, was not Susan’s way. Susan, with our support, blagged her way past security. Susan was never one to take no for an answer. Not long after, Susan died—just days after her meeting with the then Health Secretary. It might seem odd to say, given that I met Susan when she was already very ill with the lobular cancer that she was campaigning to prevent, but I feel that I met her in her prime. It was immediately clear to me that this was a person with an unparalleled commitment to her cause. Despite her illness, Susan never looked for the sympathy vote. She was always calm and matter of fact. She led by example. It is a reminder that her cause, while not yet complete, is a worthy one, and with a champion to match. Susan’s first campaign was in fact not lobular breast cancer; it was aviation safety. She flew commercial aircraft in the Australian outback, one of the few female pilots to take up this challenge, and piloted the first all-female crewed Qantas flight. This was before contaminated cabin air ended her flying career in 1997. She spent the following decades building the evidence base on aircraft cabin air contamination, with a PhD, an MSc, peer-reviewed research and a leading role in her home country’s Senate inquiry into cabin air quality. Her focus in her final years was on lobular breast cancer, and it is on this endeavour that I was pleased to support her as her local MP. Susan was diagnosed with invasive lobular breast cancer in 2013. It was a one millimetre mark—no lump, no pain. Two mammograms and two ultrasounds told her that there was nothing to worry about. An MRI scan found 2.5 cm and surgery then confirmed 7 cm. That gap between what standard imaging can see and what is actually there is the heart of why lobular breast cancer needs its own research programme. It behaves differently. It is missed because it is different and it is currently treated exactly the same as the most common form of the disease, because the underlying biology has never been properly funded. In May 2023, with her husband Tristan, Susan launched the Lobular Moon Shot Project in Horsham. She built it from nothing into a campaign that has cross-party support in this House, a partnership with the Manchester Breast Centre and a research plan costing £20 million over five years. In June 2025, Susan travelled to Manchester to help launch the scientific programme that she had spent years fighting for. It was a programme that, of course, she knew she would never benefit from herself. Nine days later, Susan died. She never received a reply from No. 10 and never got a chance to make her case to the then Health Secretary. So today, I will again make the case to the Government on behalf of Susan, the 22 patients a day who are diagnosed with lobular breast cancer, and the 463 MPs who have publicly supported her campaign so far, which I believe is the highest number of MPs to publicly support any individual campaign. Every day, 22 women in this country are told that they have lobular breast cancer—that is over 8,000 a year. This is not a rare disease; in fact, it is the sixth most prevalent cancer in women.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Conflicts: Impact on Older People · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate to shine a light on an important but often overlooked issue. It is strange that many of the voices who mourn Britain’s declining influence are the first to say that we should spend nothing on issues beyond our own shores, and that the 0.7% commitment to development spending was a national indulgence that we can no longer afford. However, our influence never relied on hard power alone. Our leverage in the world comes from working with others and leading by example. That is what internationalism means, and that is why the Liberal Democrats believe that the commitment to international aid is not merely sentimental, but fundamental and strategic. It rests on the simple principle of equality: that we help those who need help most. I will not create a league table of suffering, but some groups bear a heavier burden in humanitarian crises. Older people, especially those who are disabled, are almost always among the most affected. When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, 75% of those who died were over 60, despite older people making up only 16% of the local population. When the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami struck in 2011, 56% of those who lost their lives were aged 65 or over. The world today is less stable than it has been in a generation. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, older people have accounted for almost half of civilian deaths, where age could be verified. Older people, especially older women, remain at disproportionate risk, particularly in frontline areas. Given that we know all that, it is extraordinary that the FCDO confirmed cuts to precisely the funds that support the most vulnerable groups in humanitarian responses. The International Development Committee found that FCDO equality impact assessments expect ODA reductions to programmes with a strong focus on equalities to be severe. The Committee also heard that work on disability and inclusion in South Sudan specifically will cease altogether, which will have a direct impact on elderly people. UN figures show that more than 46% of people aged 60 or over live with a disability, and more than 250 million older people worldwide experience moderate to severe disability. In the UK, the House of Commons Library’s analysis shows that disability prevalence rises from 23% among working-age adults in the UK to 45% among adults over the state pension age, and 58% among those aged 80 and over. Therefore, when disability inclusion funding is cut in a humanitarian response, older people will be hit twice over. It is not an unfortunate side effect; it is a foreseeable and measurable consequence. I want to press the Government on the false choice they keep presenting between defence and development, particularly in the context of Ukraine. Official development assistance budgets are part of defending Ukraine. For example, they partly fund accessible bomb shelters and healthcare adaptions for people with mobility needs or age-related conditions. If we are serious about supporting Ukraine, are the lives of its oldest citizens not part of that commitment? Liberal Democrats reject the idea that we must choose. We have set out how defence spending can rise to 2.5% of GDP and beyond, through mechanisms such as defence bonds and a higher digital services tax on the largest technology firms—that is without hollowing out our aid budget. We advocate for the immediate restoration of ODA to 0.5% of gross national income, with a clear roadmap back to 0.7%. The American example in this is not one to follow. USAID has been gutted by an Administration that treats development spending as something somehow unpatriotic. Within the older age group, the situation of women reveals a heightened danger. Amnesty International’s submission to the UN independent expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons documents this starkly. In north-east Nigeria, older women displaced by Boko Haram faced particularly severe discrimination and invisibility. They were often unsuccessful when they tried to petition simply to be added to food distribution lists. In Ukraine, women’s pensions are on average 30% lower than men’s, which is a consequence of shorter careers and interrupted employment caused by caregiving responsibilities. Older women also experience higher rates of disabling conditions than men of the same age, such as arthritis, osteoporosis and frailty. As a result, older women are disproportionately exposed to poverty when displaced. The social role played by women as caregivers, as mentioned by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), means that if they suffer, the impact is felt by the whole extended family. If they are left without income, accessible health care or a place in the food queue, the people who depend on their care feel it also. If the Government want to talk about return on investment in their development spending, this is exactly where that return is the greatest. Supporting older women is not a niche ask; it is a multiplier for entire households and communities. I am speaking for the Liberal Democrats, but of course it is not just us. Amnesty International has set out practical and deliverable recommendations. We must disaggregate humanitarian data by age, gender and disability, so that we can see who is being missed out. We must ensure that older people are not systematically excluded from livelihood and cash assistance programmes on the discriminatory assumption that they cannot work. The humanitarian inclusion standards for older people and people with disabilities, developed by the sector’s own age and disability inclusion consortium, already exist and are freely available. Will the Minister confirm whether the FCDO is using them, and if it is not, why not? To conclude, the Liberal Democrats believe that this Government do not need new evidence to act; they need to start listening to the evidence that they already have. They need to listen to their own equality impact assessments rather than commissioning them and then quietly setting them aside, as has happened all too often in previous rounds of cuts. They need to make use of the evidence-based inclusion standards that the humanitarian sector has already built, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel—or, indeed, ignoring them altogether. They also need to restore ODA, first to 0.5% of GNI, but with a published roadmap back to 0.7%, so that the targeted programmes reaching older people, and older women in particular, are not the first thing to be sacrificed when budgets tighten. I look forward to the Minister’s response.