Siobhain McDonagh MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to amendment 12, which stands in my name. I want to be clear that a decision on amendment 12 would not be a vote for or against assisted dying. The amendment is about preventing any Government of any political persuasion from rewriting the very purpose of the NHS, using a small group of MPs in a Committee Room rather than debate on the Floor of the House. The amendment seeks to protect the foundational document of our NHS and ensure that any changes to it are properly debated in open Parliament, as the public should expect. Let me explain why that matters. In Committee, clause 38 was added to the Bill. The clause gives a future Secretary of State sweeping powers to amend existing health law through delegated legislation. Subsection (4) allows a future Government to change the very purpose of the NHS by amending section 1 of the National Health Service Act 2006.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Humanist Marriage · Hansard source

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  I do not think that I need to remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. As everyone can see, a large number of people would like to speak, so rather than impose a rigid timescale, I will be grateful if you could all be kind to one another and speak for approximately four minutes.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Humanist Marriage · Hansard source

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  Just to warn the Front Benchers, I am going to reduce your time to nine minutes in order to keep the time limit for Back Benchers at four minutes.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Humanist Marriage · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that I will now impose a four-minute limit on speeches. I apologise to people for coughing, and will endeavour not to. Please do not be too distracted by me.

• 8 May 2025 · Brain Tumours: Research and Treatment · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, 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. On Saturday 27 November 2021, Margaret collapsed in front of me without warning. She lay on the floor convulsing in epileptic fits. By 4 am, two young doctors at University College hospital told me that she had a brain tumour. On the Wednesday, as I approached her bed on the ward, she said, “Look at that doctor. He can’t look at me—the news from that scan must be really bad. Bring him over.” Of course, as you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, she was always right. My brilliant sister Margaret—the fiercest, strongest, bravest, kindest woman I have ever known—had a glioblastoma brain tumour. When it comes to such brain tumours, there is an average life expectancy of nine months from diagnosis and a five-year survival rate of just 5%; there has been no improvement in NHS treatment in 20 years; and the UK is graded 27th out of 29 comparable countries for its performance. Glioblastoma was the only opponent that my sister had never beaten, but over 18 months, she gave it her very best shot. Standing here, just six weeks before the second anniversary of her loss, I remain as determined as ever to fight for a cure for this savage cancer in the face of what can only be described as indifference from the NHS, the pharmaceutical industries, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and, I regret to say, most of the cancer charities. In fighting this, I believe that we can find a path to improved treatment for not just glioblastoma but all rare cancers. However, that will happen only if we—Members of this House, cancer campaigners, patients and the bereaved—make it happen, because the system currently conforms to Einstein’s definition of madness: it continues to do the same thing but expects different outcomes. Don’t get me wrong; the system would like to cure glioblastoma, but it is just proving a bit difficult. What is laughingly described as the gold standard of NHS treatment has not changed in 20 years. It includes surgery, which does not actually remove the tumour, a brutal eight weeks of radiotherapy, and then as much temozolomide chemotherapy as someone can take, which in Margaret’s case was not very much. Then, nothing from the NHS. Those with savings, homes, pensions or the ability to fundraise use everything they have to travel to other countries where people believe that those diagnosed with a terminal disease should have access to all available treatments. In Margaret’s case, that person was Dr Sahinbas in Düsseldorf. As for those for whom that is not an option—and there are many—our holy, revered NHS expects them just to lay down, take their fate and die. Just as I would not let Margaret lay down and die, we should not let anyone in the UK simply lay down and die from a glioblastoma. Here is how we can change things. First, we need early diagnosis. In the vast majority of glioblastoma cases, the neuro-oncology multidisciplinary teams can diagnose the tumour from an MRI scan. In most cases, they wait for surgery, which could take a full eight weeks from the MRI. Given that developing groundbreaking immunotherapy treatments are based on giving the drugs ahead of surgery, early MRI diagnosis would allow improvement in treatments and outcomes. Secondly, we need drug trials. The only way to find a cure for glioblastoma and other rare cancers is through drug trials, but as those with such cancers know, there are none. NHS trials have collapsed and the pharmaceutical industry concentrates on the large, lucrative conditions: breast, prostate, bowel and lung cancers. If we believe that no cancer should be left behind in a country with some of the most innovative pharmaceutical companies and a healthcare system as universal as ours, the Government should broker a partnership between that industry and the NHS to make sure that new or repurposed drugs are trialled for all cancers. They should share the early risk; the NHS should run the trials and the drug companies should be expected to provide the drugs. Will the Minister and the Department of Health and Social Care directly support a test case project for glioblastoma treatment, in which a strategy is developed with AstraZeneca, which has set up a rare cancer unit? Thirdly, we must keep costs down. Costs are always a barrier to more drug trials. However, trials carried out through the National Institute for Health and Care Research are conducted at a reduced cost. To keep costs down, trials into glioblastoma and other rare cancers should automatically be NIHR-badged, and all funded trials should be given access to NHS resources. Fourthly, the mission of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency should be reviewed. The MHRA is the gatekeeper of drugs licensing in the UK, and it understandably requires that all data on all trials be published, but in my personal experience from speaking with pharmaceutical companies, that is a barrier to them providing their best and most innovative drugs. While I accept that all information should be published, information on drug trials should be published for their respective cancers. If a drug that was originally for lung cancer is trialled on glioblastoma, that should be recorded separately. Fifthly, we need to change the purpose of the NHS medicines repurposing project to provide existing drugs for trial. Many of our leading medical oncologists believe that there is already a drug in use that could improve and maybe even cure glioblastoma, but it has never been trialled. That is why I am calling for the repurposing of the NHS medicines repurposing programme; we should add the aim of supplying existing drugs for the treatment of glioblastoma and other rare cancers. I have submitted these five proposed pledges to the Government’s consultation on the national cancer plan. They are born out of my personal experience of talking to anybody who moves about glioblastoma over the last two years. I am only one MP, with a GCSE in biology, but I hope with all my heart that my submission will be taken seriously, and that the Government will grab it with both hands to ensure that nobody else goes through what my sister went through.

• 8 May 2025 · Brain Tumours: Research and Treatment · Hansard source

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  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.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I have a unique case to make in this debate on behalf of my constituents and Merton council. We do not want the new emergency hospital at Belmont, which is in phase 2 of the hospital rebuilding programme. In direct contrast to the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), I have fought this scheme for 25 years against all Governments—my own Government, the coalition Government and the Conservative Government. This plan will take the hospital away from my constituents with the greatest health needs, the largest levels of deprivation, the lowest car use, the highest hospital admissions and the greatest level of chronic conditions, and take it to healthy, wealthy Belmont at a cool cost of £1.5 billion. The hospital will provide 80 fewer beds than we have at the moment, serve 83,000 fewer patients, and put increased pressure on St George’s hospital in Tooting and Croydon University hospital—both hospitals that the Care Quality Commission has said need fewer patients to arrive at their sites. This scheme would give them more patients. Worse than that, it depends on a 3% annual reduction in lengths of hospital stays and a 3% annual reduction in activity. What hospital in the country has experienced a reduction in activity? It is also based on increased access to mental health services, which should have been provided last year, the development of community paediatric pathways, a child development centre—yet to be seen—and the reopening of the Wilson hospital in Mitcham. That hospital has not been reopened; the money has not been found, so it remains closed. The scheme is also dependent on an increase in home births in Mitcham and Morden, which has the highest levels of social housing, the greatest housing deprivation and the most overcrowded conditions in the region. This is the Tudor Hart law writ large, where hospital services are taken away from those who need them most and given to the areas that need them least. I ask the Minister: save taxpayers’ money. Already £50 million has been spent consulting on this scheme. Nobody wants it and nobody supports it. Leave St Helier hospital as it is. Spend the money that the Government have on St Helier hospital and give better services to those who need them most.

• 17 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  Madam Deputy Speaker, may I, through you, wish all Members of the House a very happy St Patrick’s day? I rise to speak on new clause 14. What it proposes is not brain surgery, and it is not new or exciting, but it is an essential part of how we approach the enormous problem of children living in temporary accommodation miles away from their home, their home borough, their school and their doctor. The hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien), who spoke for the Opposition, said that he thought we would look back at the issue of mobile phones in schools and think, “What were we thinking to allow that to happen?”. We should already be thinking, “How did we come to have tens of thousands of children in temporary accommodation, which is almost exclusively in a terrible state of repair, miles away from anybody who is watching them?”. Many of the families we are talking about are not just homeless, but are the most vulnerable in our community. They include children with special needs, and children and families who experience great difficulty in their day-to-day lives. There are those who have disrupted families, those who move frequently, and those who just find things difficult. As of right now, there are 164,040 children living in temporary accommodation. On average, 54 children from homeless families are placed in temporary accommodation every day. In London, the area that I understand best, one in every 21 children is living in temporary accommodation—that is at least one in every school class. In schools in central London, 50% or 60% of children could be living in temporary accommodation. That was certainly the case for Harris Peckham. Last year, an article in The Sunday Times identified it as having 60% of its children in temporary accommodation. That school, like all schools in the Harris Federation, tries to do its best for those large numbers. It has set up a drop-in centre in the school, to allow parents to take their children to school, spend the day in school, and go home with their children in the evening. We constituency MPs probably understand a lot more clearly than most in our communities the impact of what is going on. In Merton, we have just under 700 families in temporary accommodation. That is probably the lowest number in London, but to me it is an extraordinary number that I worry about every day, every night, and at every advice surgery. Some 80% of those families are placed outside the borough. When they are placed somewhere outside the borough, the council is required to place only two notifications: one with the receiving borough and one with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government—it does not have to inform the schools or the GP—and nothing happens, so all these boroughs are taking on families that they know nothing of. Families often do not want their GP to know that they have moved, because they worry about being removed from their list. They worry that that would mean their children being removed from the children and adolescent mental health services list, which we know can be as long as 12 months, being removed from operation lists at local general hospitals, and generally being displaced along with being misplaced in accommodation. This also means—we probably consider this far less—that the health visitor does not know that a family with young children has moved into the area. I have a great friend, Debbie Fawcett, a Queen’s nurse who is the homelessness health visitor to families in Merton. Part of her job is to regularly go to hostels, converted warehouses and converted office blocks in and around my constituency to find out where these children are. She gets no notifications; she simply walks round the blocks and gets the families she already knows to be her spies, in order to find out if families are moving in. She has been known to run into flats after delivery drivers to see if she could find a baby. These families are often placed in accommodation that is so small that the children cannot learn to walk. They are displaced from the support of grandparents, churches and other community groups. They desperately need Debbie’s help, but she does not know they are there.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Rare Cancers Bill · Hansard source

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  The NHS has a drug repurposing office. To date, it has repurposed one drug, and that was for breast cancer. Does my hon. Friend think that is good enough?

• 14 Mar 2025 · Rare Cancers Bill · Hansard source

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  Through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to apologise to the young black man on the Northern line tube from Colliers Wood this morning for having to spend his journey looking at me sobbing my heart out. It must have been a very odd experience. I wanted to say to him, “I am not just sad; I am angry.” I am angry at the NHS. I am angry at the MHRA. I am angry beyond belief at the National Institute for Health Research. It should be renamed the national institute for something that does not do very much at great public expense. All these institutions are bedevilled by the desire to carry on doing what they have always done. It does not get them sacked. As the former Home Secretary John Reid—Lord Reid—constantly tells me, “Siobhan, nobody ever got sacked for continuing to do the same thing. You are only sacked if you do something different.” My God, has this morning not told us that we need to do something different? We have the tools to do something different, but the people in positions of power and responsibility choose not to. We have the best health system in the world for potential drug trials—a uniform system with well-trained doctors, great scientists, great universities and great hospitals—but do we do them? No. Do we fail people every single day? Yes. Do we threaten those doctors who try to do something different? Let me tell the House, groundbreaking oncologists are looking over their shoulder, waiting for the regulator to come and get them when one of their colleagues grasses them up. That is the atmosphere in our intellectual and health service institutions. I could feel sorry for myself and for my loss, but I do not want that; I want things to change. All of us, from all parties, need to run fast and break things, and provide a challenge to the people running our systems. We have a drug repurposing project in the most universal health system in the world, so why are we not repurposing drugs for people with rare cancers? Why is that not being done for glioblastoma? Why is it that in May, we will open a drug trial at University College London and University College London Hospitals trust in Margaret’s memory to trial one such drug that has been in the system for years? We organised a dinner with former Prime Minister Tony Blair; some ran marathons; and others sold cakes and scones in beautiful Cornwall villages. Doing those things gave us a great deal, but why, under our system, do we have to do them? Why is it that the trial in May, under the amazing Paul Mulholland, will be based in only one trust? It is because if we had negotiated with all the other hospital trusts that are experts in this field, it would have taken us two years to get started. Why are we outstripped by Israel, Spain, America and any number of countries? It is because we cannot get our act together to start a trial, as each hospital trust is arguing about and seeking to renegotiate every trial and every plan. This is not new. The issue was raised by Lord O’Shaughnessy in his great report on clinical trials. That report is two years old, but we have made no progress. We made no progress under the former Conservative Government, and we have made no progress under our Government. The £40 million given to the National Institute for Health and Care Research in 2017 for glioblastoma and brain cancer drug trials has not been spent. Can any Member of the House explain to me how that is humanly possible? Do we not have drugs that we could trial? Yes, of course we do. Trials are not that complicated; we can do them if we choose to. We have the doctors to do them. We need to want to change. I apologise to the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), because when she came to talk to me in the Tea Room this morning, she got this at a very fast pace. I have now met four wonderful cancer Ministers, two Conservative and two Labour. They have all been dedicated, and all wanted to sort this out, but we cannot do this by edict, or by hoping and wishing. Unless we change things and unless, I dare say, some people are removed, it will never happen. All the institutions I mentioned continue to exist because they do not do things differently. Someone diagnosed with a glioblastoma will get the same treatment that they would have got 25 years ago. They will have their tumour removed. They will be delighted that it is gone, but it is not gone; it is coming back. They will be given eight weeks’ radiotherapy. It is brutal. It will help them for a while, but the tumour will come back. Then they get given chemotherapy— the drug is temozolomide, which was approved at the beginning of the 2000s. It will help, but the tumour will come back. They have to be able to withstand that drug themselves. Margaret could not do that. By March, five months on from her diagnosis, she could not take it; her kidneys collapsed. What happens then? We had money and good friends. At this point, I would like publicly to thank Lord Waheed Alli for the kindness and friendship he showed us through Margaret’s journey. The treatment that he has experienced from the press is absolutely appalling. He helped us on our way. But what about somebody with no money who cannot fundraise? Their life ends at the chemotherapy. There is nothing on the NHS, but those lucky enough to have the money can find a way. I am really grateful that the brother-in-law of the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) is on the oncotherapy machine. My sister fundraised for that machine, because we had to go to Dusseldorf to have it, so we brought it here. It is great that he is receiving much benefit from it. I know that many other people are, too. Why is the NHS, which is so risk-averse that it will not allow slightly alternative therapies for cancer, happy for people who are really ill to get on a plane and go to a different country? Is it because it does not see what happens in another country, so that is okay? I have told the stories of holding my sister’s head as she was sick in a bucket in terminal 5 at Heathrow airport, of carrying her on to a plane in the hope that the air stewardess would not see how she was, of lying next to her overnight hoping that she would be alive in the morning, because what was I going to do in a hotel in Germany, where I could not speak that language? That is my experience, but I am only one of thousands and thousands of people who do this every year, including children, because our system will not allow the use of novel treatments. Why? Why can’t we change things? Why don’t we get up every single day and want to cure something? I do not know about other hon. Members, but since I joined the Labour party, and since I became an MP in 1997, I have got up every day and hoped that we could make things better in some way. I do not understand why our systems do not want to do the same thing. I want to understand, but it is beyond me. If there are drugs that could cure or give longer life to people with glioblastoma, why don’t we trial them? That is not beyond our ability. We have the money to do it. If we do not have the money, we will raise it. We just need the opportunity. I do not know why we do not have that wish to achieve. I was given some hope yesterday by the proposed abolition of NHS England, because something needs to change. I do not know whether that is the right or wrong thing to do, but we need to liberate people to do things. Let us face it: in the end, only people who are well motivated and willing to take a risk can change things. Beyond that, people will continue to die, will continue having to go to other countries, will continue having to spend large amounts of money. People not lucky enough to be in that position will just die prematurely. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for introducing the Bill and for the courtesy he has always shown me, which must have been difficult at times as I sat shouting at him in Portcullis House about how everything was useless and hopeless. In my calmer moments, I understand that progress begins with small steps. I am frustrated that those steps are too small. I am delighted that there will be one database for trials, but if there are no trials, the database does not get us very far. We will have a report on the orphan drug Act in 18 months’ time. In that period, over 3,500 people will have been diagnosed with a glioblastoma, and many of them will have died. Why is it going to take us 18 months? Why can’t we change things now? Why, in spite of the huge support we have had for the Bill from the Secretary of State for Health, could we not get something much more fierce in it? It is not a criticism; it is an observation. I know progress begins slowly, and I am grateful for my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West taking up the Bill and for having the calm demeanour that I lack, because I do not think the Whips would have accepted anything that I would have come up with as a private Member’s Bill. We need a revolutionary attitude. We either see and harness progress, or we come back next year, the year after and the year after that to ask why there has been no progress. All of us, individually and communally, need to dedicate ourselves to that progress and to keep asking the questions, being angry and simply refusing to accept that nothing can be done.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Rare Cancers Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a whole range of new modern immunotherapy drugs that could be used on these cancers? They already exist, they are used to treat other people, but they are simply not tried. The cost of those trials is not overwhelming and we can do them, and the NHS repurposing project should be doing them.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Rare Cancers Bill · Hansard source

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  I have been to see the MHRA numerous times and have asked about repurposed drugs. Many pharmaceutical companies are worried about repurposing drugs; the fear is that if glioblastoma research were to affect the main cause for having the drug, that might make the drug less successful. We have beseeched the MHRA to treat glioblastoma separately. Would the hon. Lady support such a move?

• 5 Mar 2025 · River Wandle Pollution · Hansard source

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  Like the hon. Member, I was born and brought up along the banks of the River Wandle. Today, it is a much more prestigious river than it was all those years ago. In fact, there is a connection with the Chamber today, because the leather on these seats came from Connolly’s leather factory, which was a tannery on the Wandle before Connolly’s moved down to Thurrock to continue its business. It also makes the leather for Rolls-Royce, so its service is very important. I congratulate the hon. Member on all his work on this issue. It seems to make sense as a layperson that the polluter should pay. My concern, and that of many of my constituents, is that that process will take so long that supreme damage will be done to the wildlife and to the Wandle itself unless we do that more quickly. Does the hon. Member think there is any way we can speed up the process of ensuring that those who are guilty of this spillage actually pay the costs?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for the Scotch Whisky Industry · Hansard source

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  I will call Graham Leadbitter to move the motion. Unusually, two further Members will make a contribution in this half-hour debate. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to sum up at the end.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  Order. I do not have the power to tell you to stop, but if you would not mind coming to an end, that would be good.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  Order. I ask the hon. Member to sit down. I apologise—I know that he waited a long time to make his contribution. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, who has five minutes.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. Please do not take that to be a promise. As everybody can see, a lot of people want to speak. We will endeavour to get through everybody, as is our hope. At the moment, we think the limit is around two minutes, but should it prove necessary to change that, I will let people know.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  Order. I apologise for this, but a desire to get everybody in means that I am now reducing the time limit to one minute.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  Order. Again, I do not have the power to ask you to sit down, but I would be very grateful if you did.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I clarify that I am imposing a hard two-minute limit, so I will ask hon. Members to sit down if they go over it.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  Order. I do apologise to the hon. Member, but that is not a point of order, and she knows it. I call the Minister.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  Order. The right hon. Member is a man of great of experience and he knows that this is an intervention, rather than a speech.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called to speak in the debate.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  Order. We are out of time, but I want to make a public apology to the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire). I should have allowed her to intervene, and I certainly meant no discourtesy to her. Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  Order. I remind the Member that she came into the debate very late. I do not wish to embarrass her in any way, but if she wants to intervene, she needs to be here at the start of the debate.