Westminster Hall
26 October 2026
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Westminster Hall House of Commons
Follow its sittings00:09 - 00:12
Con Member of Parliament | South West Wiltshire
Member of Parliament | South West Wiltshire Order, order. John Lamont to move the motion.
00:12 - 00:41
Con Member of Parliament | Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Member of Parliament | Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk Thank you, Dr. Morrison. I beg to move that this House has considered e-petition 751472 relating to prostate cancer screening. It's a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr. Morrison. I begin by thanking David James, Director of Patient Projects and Influencing at Prostate Cancer Research, for creating this petition and the 101,932 people who supported it, including 195 from my own constituency in the Scottish Borders.
00:41 - 01:14
Speaker 4
Will the honorable friend give way? Gosh. Can I very much thank my honorable friend for allowing me to intervene? And will he thank the high number of West Worcestershire constituents who signed this petition, putting West Worcestershire at the top of the petition signers for this particular petition, bringing it to Parliament? And will he praise the work of the Graham Fulford Charitable Trust, which, working with the Worcestershire Ambassadors, brings so many free prostate screening opportunities to people in West Worcestershire?
01:14 - 04:05
Con Member of Parliament | Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Member of Parliament | Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk I'm grateful to my honorable friend for making that point. I think we should, it's a testament to the importance of this issue, not just to her constituents, given the number that signed, but for all of our constituents who signed this petition, that they see it as an important issue that the government needs, needs to address. And all the charities do such important work in this area. Dr., so, so I'm going to just make a little bit of progress if I may, just to let me develop a few arguments. I will take a couple of interventions, but I'm very conscious there's a number of colleagues who are keen to speak.
Dr. Morrison, the petition argues that targeted screening for all high-risk men should be the starting point for building a screening program that can ultimately protect all men. It questions the decision to exclusively offer screening to men with BRCA1/2 genetic variants. Since the petition was launched, the UK National Screening Committee, the NSC, recommendation has narrowed, and the government has now accepted screening for a small, for a smaller group than the petition sought. The question for us today is who should be included, why other high-risk groups have been excluded, and what evidence would justify widening the program. Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the United Kingdom.
More than 68,000 men are diagnosed annually, with over 12,000 dying from the disease each year. Patient survival hinges heavily on when it is diagnosed. At stages one and two, nearly 100% survive for five years or more. At stage four, only around half live for five years or more. Sir Chris Hoy, Scotland's most decorated Olympian, knows this better than anyone.
He was diagnosed in 2023, in his 40s, after a scan for shoulder pain. He had no prostate cancer symptoms at all. Yet by then, the cancer had spread to his bones and was terminal. His father and grandfather both had prostate cancer. Under the program the government has now accepted, a family history like his would not on its own qualify a man for screening.
The broadcaster Dermot Murnaghan was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer last year and sadly died in July this year. He said he fell through the gaps, having assumed that the regular health checks he received included a PSA test.
They did not. His message to other men was simple: get the test, insist on the test. Risk is not evenly distributed: age, family history, genetics and ethnicity all matter. One in eight men will develop prostate cancer during their lifetime, rising to around one in four black men. That is why the petition argues for screening to begin with men already known to be at greater risk.
04:05 - 04:18
I'm very grateful to the honorable gentleman, he speaks very powerfully on behalf of his constituents in Scotland. I've had many emails from my constituents in Wales, so does he agree with me that when we're looking at testing all men at high risk, it shouldn't be just in England, it should be all around the United Kingdom?