Glass Slipper Appeal speech

8.10.05

Ladies and gentlemen, Good Evening. May I first pay tribute to the volunteers who have put considerable and voluntary effort into both running the glass slipper appeal and organising tonight's splendid event.

I am honoured to have been asked to be an ambassador for this appeal and will do what I can to raise awareness of this important issue, as well as help to raise money for the glass slipper appeal as it seeks to reach its target of £100,000 by the end of this year; something we can work towards achieving this evening.

I am sure you don't need much convincing of the value of this fund-raising. You may already know that most of the £80,000 raised so far has gone to the Queen Elizabeth hospital which is now to be the sole beneficiary of fund-raising and which is carrying out truly ground-breaking work on breast cancer.

The work of the glass slipper appeal is truly commendable, and something we can all take pride in supporting - their volunteers are local people making up a local charity that supports our local hospital. It was founded in 1998 by Karen Taylor and her colleagues from a local software company – QSP Financial services, when three female employees faced the devastation caused by this terrible disease.

We all know the depressing numbers. Breast cancer affects some 41,000 people each year. Every week 750 people are told that they have breast cancer. One in nine women will be afflicted by the disease. That's one every 15 minutes, with all the anguish this entails for them and their loved ones.

Thankfully most survive; more now than ever, in fact - over 80%, compared to only 68% in the 1980s. But some 13,000 people still die every year from breast cancer. That's 250 people every week: 36 every day - people with lives and talents wasted forever, families and children bereaved and the community as a whole worse off.

It is fairly indiscriminate and can, I am sure, with research, early diagnosis, and speedy treatment be reduced and, I hope, eventually eliminated. The increasing range of charitable and political activity to treat and stop this cancer plays an important role in bringing this about.

I have to confess, I do have a personal reason for my commitment to the fight against breast cancer. My lifelong friend Joanne, who is with me this evening, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

It was actually during my election campaign which then paled into insignificance against what Joanne was fighting for - her life. She is only 34 years old with a 7 yr old boy and a baby girl who was two on the day she received her diagnosis. How cruel, how unfair – but these are my words – Joanne has never once complained – probably like a lot of you here tonight who are all survivors – she is too busy fighting this terrible disease and she is doing a fantastic job. She has just finished her last chemotherapy and I think she has never looked more radiant than she does tonight. I am truly humbled to be in her presence and yours.

The work of the glass slipper appeal and the wider fight to overcome cancer is therefore very close to my heart.

Since the election I have campaigned to raise the profile of the prevention and treatment of breast cancer, and fully supported my fellow MPs work to aid Barbara Clark in pressuring the government to make the drug Herceptin more widely available at an earlier stage to those suffering from breast cancer.
I am sure you were all as pleased as I was at the announcement earlier this week that Barbara had succeeded in her fight and her local health authority had agreed to provide Herceptin to her on the NHS. But, this should have been her right!

I am also backing the breast is best campaign which seeks to alert women to the benefits of breast-feeding in helping reduce the risk of breast cancer, something the Queen Elizabeth hospital is also supporting.

It's reckoned that only a quarter of mums in Gateshead breastfeed their babies. Breast-feeding needs to be made the norm, rather than something to be frowned upon. Children and mothers will benefit from this in numerous ways.

I have also raised the issue of inequality in treatment between different parts of the country in parliament and in the media, and will continue to campaign on this. For example, Herceptin was already used to treat those in the late stages of breast cancer in Britain, but only 28% of eligible women in the North received it, compared to 61% in the south east.

One of my first parliamentary questions concerned the fact that a cancer is likely to be more advanced by the time it is diagnosed in poorer areas, and that there are worrying regional disparities between survival rates, especially here in the north-east, where there is only a 68 per cent 5-year survival rate as compared with 76 per cent in the south-east.

As a North Eastern MP, I consider it my duty to make sure these regional inequalities end as soon as possible And I am pressing the government to tackle all such health deficits and prevent needless deaths in the north-east.

Another issue is prevention. Unison, the biggest trade union in the country, which I worked for before my election, has launched 'the big see challenge', for tighter controls on cancer causing chemicals.

These campaigners fear that chemicals in the environment and in everyday products such as cosmetics, toiletries, plastics, household cleaners and furnishings contribute to the cancer. The European parliament will soon introduce legislation to combat this problem.

I will press the government to recognise that prevention is just as important as treatment. Breast cancer must not become a disease women have to live with, to expect; we must do all we can to minimise those it affects at all, rather than simply working out the best ways to treat it after it is diagnosed.

This brings me to this week's historic breakthrough on cervical cancer which shows the importance of research – the announcement of 100% success in trials of a vaccine that could prevent this form of cancer and stop the deaths of 300,000 women each year, including 1100 in the UK. This is fantastic news.

On the subject of prevention - men can and should, as I’m sure some do, help their partners in checking for cancer growths, as some women help men in detecting the early signs of testicular cancer. I admit to being slightly embarrassed by saying this but the very serious point is; that all of us need to check ourselves and each other regularly so that cancers can be diagnosed as soon as possible. But not just now– I think this is best done in private don’t you?

The colour pink is most clearly associated with various campaigns on this issue but we should not forget that men also suffer from breast cancer. It's a small percentage of the total - about 1% - but should not be ignored. For instance, I don’t know if you’re aware but Michael Howard’s father, Bernard, died at the age of only 49 from breast cancer. Therefore one part of the message from occasions like tonights must be to ensure that all men are aware of the dangers.

The glass slipper appeal is part of a wider group of campaigns which all seek the same goals: the better prevention of breast cancer, earlier diagnosis, quicker treatment and eventual elimination.

Breast cancer should be close to all of our hearts and I will do my part to keep it a key issue in political life. I will raise the work of the glass slipper appeal in the Commons as soon as I can and I am sure all of you will do what you can to support the glass slipper appeal and the fight against breast cancer.

I hope that you have enjoyed this wonderful evening; some of you may even win the raffle!

But as ambassadors, all of us, have much work to do.

End