Why has the new Health Secretary paused groundbreaking work to shift the dial on children's cancer?

Politicians of all stripes will tell you that Parliament is at its best when a consensus is reached across parties for a worthy and important cause.

In working to shift the dial on children's cancer by establishing the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce, Charlotte Fairall and I thought we had found no better cause. Charlotte, a Stubbington resident in the Gosport constituency, established the children's cancer charity Sophie's Legacy after the tragic death of her daughter Sophie from Rhabdomyosarcoma in 2021, and had campaigned for a taskforce with me throughout the three years since Sophie’s death.

Disappointingly, in the House of Commons chamber this week, Shadow Secretary of State for Health Vicky Atkins had to implore the Government to reinstate the work of the Taskforce after it announced in September, in response to a Written Question I tabled, that the work of the Taskforce has been paused.

Now the new Labour Government ran on a promise of “change”. But if they consider groundbreaking work to improve outcomes for children with cancer as something in need of “change”, my mind boggles.

The Taskforce kicked off in the Spring with 3 ‘sprints’ featuring experts from a range of fields on research, diagnostics, treatments and suggesting meaningful ways to improve how we detect, treat and care for children with cancer, with an ambitious programme of delivery.

Yet this work has now been stalled, and not because Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has an alternative plan to allocate resources to children's cancer in a different or more impactful way.

I sincerely hope this decision is not politically motivated. My concern is for the thousands of families across the country who, like Charlotte's, have been torn apart by the news of this cruel disease. They don’t care whether the Taskforce was introduced by a Tory government or a Labour one, they just want to see it back up to speed and delivering results.

And what signal does this send about the potential for future cross-party collaboration on other pressing issues for hardworking constituency MPs across the country?

What’s certain is that Charlotte and I will not give up in our quest to get this vital piece of work back on the agenda and we will be meeting Wes Streeting in November to make our case.