Dr Luke Evans
MP for Hinckley and Bosworth · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I applaud the hon. Gentleman for raising this topic. Although he and I are in different parties, we have long been on the same page about how important it is to have male role models and about the role of men and boys. Under the previous leadership, we were making progress, with a men and boys summit due to take place this summer.”
“This House will know that I continue to push for the issues affecting men and boys to be addressed, and we were making progress—the last Prime Minister committed to a men and boys summit. Sadly, there has been a reshuffle and that summit has not yet happened.”
“We are talking about resilience, and one of the things that has made resilience worse is Labour’s policy on mandatory advice and guidance, and single point of access. We know that secondary care doctors and GPs are struggling but, more importantly, it is causing actual harm to patients.”
“The Minister has spoken about sovereignty, and she is right, and she will be aware that under the Offshore Minerals Ordinance 1994, any decision on exploration has to come to this country. It just so happens that the very Energy Secretary who banned new licences in the UK will now be that decision holder.”
“When the right hon. Lady came to the House last year to announce her consultation, I called it a mess. Fast forward 18 months: there is now chaos in the outcome and decisions. Make no mistake, the reason we are here now is the threat of the courts.”
“We know that Labour’s NHS policy on mandatory advice and guidance and single point of access has led to deaths. We on the Opposition Benches warned about it, doctors warned about it, and patients warned about it, and we were told repeatedly that it was total nonsense, misinformation, opportunism and even conspiracy theories.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Dr Luke Evans, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 1 of 12.
“The Minister points out that this is a critical moment. If it is so critical for the national importance of this country, why is the Prime Minister not here to lead this debate?”
“The hon. Gentleman has rightly pointed out that there is a dichotomy here. His Government have come forward with a defence investment plan that is £5 billion short. Given his esteemed career as an economist, will he tell us where that money is going to come from? What is he suggesting to his Defence Secretary and the future Prime Minister about how to stop that gap? As he rightly pointed out, the cost of living is going up for the individual taxpayer.”
“The defence chief said that we needed £28 billion for defence, but the hon. Gentleman’s Government have brought forward £15 billion, of which there is a £4.7 billion shortfall. Therein lie the gap and the problem, because there is a difference between what we will need to achieve that ability to deter and actually providing it. What are his thoughts on that?”
“Fair enough, he is stepping down, but given the urgency of the situation, I would have expected the Foreign Secretary to be leading the debate, especially as she was in the Chamber earlier, but no, she is not here. Fair enough, maybe she is doing the diplomacy, but what about the Defence Secretary? No, he is not here. Instead, we have a brand-new Minister, who I welcome to his place, opening the debate. Fair enough, the Department is busy, but I would have expected the Back Benches to be full. Instead, it is a pleasant surprise to find that I do not have a time limit on my speech, given that there are only six about Back Benchers here to speak in the debate.”
“775.] He finished up by saying: “As I have said, the new Prime Minister will come to this House and set out his plans, but we deemed the crisis unfolding across the middle east to be of sufficient priority to change tomorrow’s business. I apologise that that is the case. Nobody wanted to do it, but that is what the importance of the situation demanded. I am sorry if the Opposition cannot get their head around that.” —[ Official Report , 14 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 778.] Gosh! As an Opposition MP, I heard what the Leader of the House said and thought, “Wow, I had better make sure I am at that debate.” I have only been in this place for six years, but when I walked in, I was slightly surprised that the Prime Minister was not leading the debate.”
“768.] He went on: “I remind the House that there is a crisis escalating across the middle east.” —[ Official Report , 14 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 770.] Further still, he said: “I point out to her and to Opposition Members that the situation in the middle east is unusual. We could well be in the midst of a greater conflagration in that region.” —[ Official Report , 14 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 771.] He went on: “I am talking about a situation that is erupting once again in the middle east.” —[ Official Report , 14 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 774.] He said: “Tomorrow’s business is being altered because we are on the verge of a conflagration”. —[ Official Report , 14 July 2026; Vol. 789, c.”
“I will start by spending a few minutes on the context of why we are having this debate. It was rushed in by an emergency process, meaning that two scheduled Opposition day debates had to be cancelled. I was in the Chamber when the Leader of the House made that announcement and I listened very carefully. I would like to quote some of the important points he made when he justified the need for this debate: “I appreciate the frustration of Members when business is changed at short notice and when debates are postponed, but they will appreciate the importance of the House being able to discuss the escalating and fast-moving situation in the middle east before the recess.” —[ Official Report , 14 July 2026; Vol. 789, c.”
“Amen. We on the Opposition Benches definitely agree with that. They do not make diamonds the size of bricks, and I intend to be erudite in what I say, but I still have a few more points to put on record.”
“My right hon. Friend is right. It may well be that the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary or the Prime Minister has something more urgent to deal with, but I am yet to know what. I hope that in the wind-ups we will hear why this debate was needed so urgently, rather than Opposition day business, considering that it is a highly unprecedented move to prioritise a general debate over an Opposition day debate.”
“Member for Makerfield to ask him to come to the debate, but alas, that seems to have gone amiss, but I am glad that we are having this important debate on Iran.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a fantastic point about how important it is for hon. Members to have lived experience when they come to this House, especially given that the Leader of the House said that Opposition day debates had to be cancelled to discuss this issue because it is the biggest crisis we face. The new Minister has only been in the Department for a couple of weeks, so he may not be as up to speed as the Defence Secretary—oh no, he is new as well—or perhaps the Foreign Secretary. Given the severity of what is facing the UK and the world, I thought the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) would be here. I even asked the Leader of the House if he would write to the right hon.”
“I am quite keen to understand the thoughts of the person who will be in charge in five days’ time on how to deal with that issue and grow resilience in the country. We have rightly heard from Members on the Government Benches about defence. There has been a lot of turmoil in defence under the Labour Government. We have lost a Defence Secretary. We have had a defence investment plan and, as I rightly pointed out earlier, it was expected to need £28 billion, but it has hit £15 billion. That is the funding that has been committed, but there is a gap there, isn’t there? We are £4.7 billion short. The right hon. Member for Makerfield will have to fill that gap in the handover, so how is he going to do it?”
“We have heard from both sides of the House about the impact that the situation in Iran will have on energy. Will the new Prime Minister think about opening new licences? What is he going to do about the cost of living and fuel prices? We do not know the answer, but that is going to have a big impact. We know that the cost of energy is going up in this country, despite the Government’s promises at the election that it would fall, and we do not have an answer on what the right hon. Member for Makerfield will do. We are not 100% sure what he will do on net zero. We have just had an urgent question on resilience and possible blackouts in this country, but we do not understand what he will do.”
“Au contraire—how could my hon. Friend possibly make that suggestion? The public will see what this looks like. Did Labour Back Benchers not listen to the words of the Leader of the House about how important this debate is? Clearly, other hon. Members are too busy dealing with something even more important. As I was saying, I am actually very pleased to be debating Iran, because the situation there has an impact on all aspects of our lives. The real question is not why we are debating the situation in Iran, but what decisions will be made by the man who will take charge in four or five days’ time. The Government are effectively asking us to debate a storm without understanding how the captain wants to steer us through it. That is why this debate matters. Let’s start with energy.”
“We still do not know from this Government where that funding will come from, but it has to come from the frontline when it comes to the NHS. I would love to ask the new Prime Minister what that looks like and how he will fund the new drugs that we need, but, alas, we will sadly not get that opportunity. What does the 1% off education look like for school budgets? When it comes to education, especially when we have the likes of VAT on private schools, which has meant that 100 schools have closed and we have less teachers than when this Government came in—”
“The question is: will the new Prime Minister make the same decision? Will he hold to it or reverse it? I do not know—this Chamber does not know, and that is the point. The DIP hits our domestic policies too. The funding needed to defend our nation and ensure that we are protected from the likes of Iran must mean a capital expenditure cut, which will be 1% in health and 1% in education. Which frontline services in health are going? Which hospitals in the hospital programme will not be built? There was a negotiation between the US and the UK on pharmaceuticals in our trade deal. That was signed off with the US, which has a tendency to use leverage on us when it comes to international issues such as Iran and tariffs.”
“My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I would love to put that question to the right hon. Member for Makerfield, if he was here, although I expect that it would have come more eruditely from my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) on the Front Bench. This is precisely my point: we do not know how that issue will be resolved. The hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), who spoke before me, spoke about the humanitarian situation, which is hugely important. We have no idea what the decisions of the right hon. Member for Makerfield will be when it comes to dealing with international aid. After all, the current Prime Minister castigated the previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, for making cuts to international aid, then went and made cuts himself.”
“We have had a red carpet rolled out for a coronation, but it could appear that the green Benches have been rolled up for those six weeks to allow the king in the north to come down to his United Kingdom. At some point, he will have to face his subjects and tell us how he will deal with domestic issues, international issues and Iran.”
“On that point, Iran is one of the best reasons for having this debate, because it shows the scrutiny that we need to place on the incoming Prime Minister. I am shocked, I tell you, to hear from others outside this Chamber that the Government are falsifying information and changing the rules to be able to hide from scrutiny. They are using the fog of war to dull the light of scrutiny when it comes to the new Prime Minister. I will not have that, because I trust that they surely would not be that stupid or Machiavellian. Surely they would not make the naive decision to give the public the perception that the new Prime Minister does not want to take scrutiny when it comes to topics like Iran. We are going to go six weeks without the chance to debate the likes of Iran.”
“Thank you—I will ensure Hansard corrects that. Let me point out that there are 1,900 fewer teachers under this Department for Education. I pose a question to the right hon. Member for Makerfield: how does that factor into the Iranian debate when it comes to defence and having to make cuts and other considerations? What about the reporting on Iran? The BBC has been reporting on Iran. What is the vision of the right hon. Member for Makerfield for the BBC, given that the end of the charter is coming up? We do not know the answers to these questions. We have not had the chance to ask him, and that chance was kiboshed yesterday. We could have extended parliamentary time to pose these very pertinent questions to him.”
“The previous Health Secretary told The Times before the election: “I’m minded to phase out the whole system of GP partners altogether and to look at salaried GPs working in modern practices alongside a range of other professionals.” He later clarified, saying he would “sort of” phase it out over time. He has now gone, but is that perspective shared by the new Health Secretary?”
“I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for giving the time. I thank the Minister for his answer, but he did not quite clarify the position. I have asked him this question before, in a Westminster Hall debate. He said: “I do not think it is right to say that there are any specific plans to change the partnership model, but we recognise that there are a number of other ways, and we will always keep the way in which the contract is delivered under review.” —[ Official Report, 25 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 293WH.] Given the profession is looking at balloting for a plan B for general practice akin to NHS dentistry, will the Minister clarify whether this model is under consideration by the Government?”
“On Tuesday 24 March 2026, the Leader of the House tabled a statement by the Chancellor on a Conservative Opposition day. So it does happen: he has done it himself. More to the point, however, I have always held him in high esteem for representing both sides of the House, and he has made it incredibly clear that this Iranian debate is super-important. Will he therefore undertake to write to the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) to ask him to come to the House and take part in that debate, so that at least the country has a hint of an understanding of the momentous and important discussion that is to take place tomorrow?”
“T5. The Home Secretary is boasting about the fact that hotel asylum seekers’ numbers are being reduced, but of course, they are being moved into houses in multiple occupation and the Government will not produce the figures of how many are going into HMOs. This means that places such as Hinckley and Bosworth are getting more HMOs. Will the Government commit to producing the data to show exactly where people are being moved from and to, so that we can see what is happening specifically around HMOs? That has not been released in the quarterly data, and I would be grateful for an answer.”
“I welcome the new Defence Secretary to Question Time, and simply pose a quick question to him, because we need some clarity about the Chagos deal. Will he confirm that it has been cancelled and that the money—the billions—that was going to Mauritius has now been transferred to defence spending?”
“The Fuller inquiry called for a strengthening of the safeguards and the law in relation to looking after the deceased, but last week’s mortuary report on Nottingham hospital described some of the abuses and horrors that have taken place—bodies mislabelled, or even left decomposing. Does the Secretary of State share my fear that this could be a pattern across the system, and will he and the Health Secretary look into this to ensure that it certainly is not?”
“That warning turned into decisions, with MSD cancelling its plans for a £1 billion research centre in London, Eli Lilly pausing its work on the Gateway Labs hub, and Sanofi saying that it would not make substantial UK R&D investment until it saw appropriate recognition of the value of innovation.”
“Those questions remain unanswered, which is a running theme from this Government. Since Labour took office in July 2024, the pharmaceutical sector has issued a serious set of stark warnings. In January 2025, AstraZeneca cancelled its £450 million expansion near Liverpool, citing as a factor in the decision “the timing and reduction of the final offer compared to the previous Government's proposal”. However, that was not isolated. In March 2025, the leaders of some of the UK’s biggest pharmaceutical companies warned that the country risked becoming “uninvestable”.”
“I will dispense with the formalities to jump straight in. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) asked whether the Government have a clear, funded and transparent plan. Simply put, the Government appear to have made commitments they cannot properly explain, cannot fully cost, and cannot tell Parliament how they intend to pay for. We are of course talking about the UK-US pharmaceutical arrangement, which will see 0.3% of GDP in 2026, rising to at least 0.6% by 2036—or an overall medicine spend of 10% to 12% of the UK NHS budget by 2036. That may bring benefits and investment, it may avoid tariffs, and it may help some patients get treatment faster, but those benefits do not remove the three key basic questions: what will this cost, how will it be funded, and what will the NHS have to forgo as a consequence?”
“Finally, I will turn to transparency. I want to point out that the UK-US pharmaceutical arrangement is not a treaty-based free trade agreement. It has not been through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act process. We have not seen what is going on. The Government need to publish their impact assessment, and yet they cite commercial sensitivity. Of course, there is a way round that: the Minister could redact it and give that to the Committee so that we and this House can see what is going on. I will cut my speech short there. I will simply pose—”
“As Jonathan Benger, the chief executive of NICE, put it, “If they choose to spend money on defence, they’ve got to pay for that somehow, either by raising taxes or removing money from somewhere else. If they choose to spend money more on medicines, similarly, that has to be paid for.” That is the reality. The former Secretary of State told the House that the Government would not cut NHS budgets to fund the pharma deal, but the former Health Minister, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West, later turned around and said: “The deal will be funded by allocations made at the Spending Review, where record funding for the NHS was secured. Future funding will be settled at the next Spending Review.” Those statements need reconciling. If it is funded from NHS allocations, that is NHS money. Can the Minister rule out any cuts from the frontline?”
“Why will the Government not publish the modelling so that we can see? My next question is even sharper: where is the money coming from? We know from leaked WhatsApp messages that Labour MPs have been asking who they can tax to pay for benefits, so where is the money coming from? Both the House and the public are right to ask. The Government have said that additional costs will be funded from existing NHS budgets, with future funding settled at the next spending review. However, if the money is coming from existing NHS budgets, it is coming from somewhere within the NHS. It might be the workforce, services, capital or future growth, but it will not be cost free.”
“The Government say that the total cost in the current spending review period is expected to be around £1 billion, but the former Minister, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), also said, “Total costs over the Spending Review period are expected to be approximately £1 billion. The final costs will depend on which medicines NICE recommends and the actual uptake of these.” That is an important admission, because the final cost depends on future NICE decisions and uptake, and other estimates are higher. The Library briefing cites analysis suggesting that spending could be around £1.7 billion by the end of 2028, and around £14 billion by 2036, depending on the assumptions. Is the £1 billion the central estimate, and if so, what are the lower and higher ends of the estimate range?”
“Or guesstimates day, for want of a better pun. That is part of the problem. If the Government are so confident, why do they not produce the impact report so that they can justify this? At the end of the day, we have seen that those decisions are not isolated; they are different companies, making different decisions, but all with the same concern. It is a pattern: tax rises, more regulation, more red tape—a more toxic concoction. The Government will say that the deal is part of the answer, but Ministers cannot point to potential benefits while avoiding certain costs. The House of Commons Library is clear that the Department’s main estimate for 2026-27 does not include budget cover to meet the expected increase in pharmaceutical spending associated with the UK-US arrangement. That is the central problem.”
“The Minister would save a lot of time simply by publishing the impact assessment, which would answer every one of the questions that she is trying to find the answers to in her folder, so will she—yes or no?”
“They have committed to developing modern service frameworks for frailty, dementia, mental health and cardiovascular disease—just a few areas—so I ask the Minister directly: will the Government develop a modern service framework for respiratory disease? If not, how do they intend to drive the same level of improvement for a condition that affects millions and underpins outcomes in lung cancer? We are all serious about improving cancer survival. Across this House, we all have that ambition, but we must match our ambition with delivery. Just like the 10-year plan, the delivery chapter is missing. I worry that the same could be argued for respiratory conditions. I just hope that I am proved wrong.”
“Under the last Conservative Government, there was a clear attempt to take a more joined-up approach to the country’s biggest killers through a major condition strategy, which was announced in 2023. It explicitly placed chronic respiratory diseases, alongside cancer and cardiovascular disease, as one of six national priorities, recognising both its scale—it affects millions—and its contribution to avoidable ill health. A detailed framework, setting out a shift towards prevention, early diagnosis and management of those conditions, was published later that year. However, although the direction of travel was established and widely consulted on, the strategy never reached full publication or implementation, because there was a general election. This Government have taken a different route, with modern service frameworks.”
“England is now rolling out a full national programme; Wales has committed to an implementation, with the first invitations expected from 2027; Scotland remains at a pilot stage, with a national roll-out likely to be years away; and Northern Ireland is still in the early planning phases, without a programme in place. Given that variation, will the Minister set out what discussions are taking place across all four nations? Most importantly, what lessons are been learned from the English experience that can be actively shared to support a faster and more consistent delivery and roll-out across the UK? More broadly, this issue speaks to the need for a coherent approach to respiratory disease.”
“Can the Minister set out what specific interventions the Government will introduce to increase uptake, particularly among the most deprived and hard-to-reach groups? To that end, can he confirm how the Government plan to deliver targets set in the national cancer plan, including the allocation of resources and funding for the lung cancer screening programme, over the next few years? As my new Scottish Conservative colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden), may rightly point out, progress on lung cancer screening is uneven.”
“Some 6,000 to 7,000 cancers have been detected, roughly three quarters of which have been identified at stage 1 or 2, the earlier stages, in comparison with fewer than 30% before the programme started. About 1.4% of the scans lead to a diagnosis, demonstrating a targeted and efficient approach, and uptake stands at about 60%. In short, the programme is not only reaching those most at risk, but consistently shifting diagnosis to an earlier, more treatable stage and saving lives at a national level. As I say, we welcome the proposed expansion of the lung cancer screening programme, but it is vital that steps be taken to improve the uptake of screening and lung health checks. The fact that uptake stands at 60% means that 40% of those invited are not coming forward, and they are often the ones at highest risk. The question is why.”
“On the back of that success, and with a formal recommendation from the UK National Screening Committee in 2022, the Government announced a national roll-out in June 2023, committing to expand the screening across England and ultimately to reach full coverage by 2030. Since then, the programme has transitioned from pilots to a full national screening service and now forms a central part of efforts to improve cancer survival. I am pleased to see that the Government are continuing on that trajectory. Why does this matter? The NHS lung cancer screening programme is now delivering at scale and showing clear results. About 2.8 million people have been invited, with 1.5 million checks completed and close to 1 million scans carried out.”
“That matters because, when it comes to diseases like lung cancer, early diagnosis is everything. The sooner we can identify a problem, the sooner we can act, and crucially, the better the chances of survival. There is a real success story to talk about. The NHS lung cancer screening programme has its roots in work started by the Conservative Government, building on more than a decade of UK research and pilot studies. Following successful trials and local pilots, NHS England launched the targeted lung health check programme in 2019, focusing on high-risk groups in areas with the worst outcomes. That approach, using mobile scanners and proactive interventions, proved effective in detecting cancer earlier and reaching underserved communities.”
“There are now more than 170 centres across England, expanding capacity and bringing scans closer to where people live. Nationally, they have delivered millions upon millions of additional tests and have helped to ease pressure on acute services, with the clear aim of diagnosing conditions such as cancer faster and improving patient outcomes. Only this month I went to the first year anniversary of the opening of the CDC in Hinckley, a £24 million investment that has seen 59,000 patients through its door and is expanding. That means patients do not have to travel as far into Leicester or Nuneaton, and that they get their diagnoses more quickly and in a modern tech building. That is absolutely fantastic for my community, but I know that is replicated 170 times across the country.”
“It is great that the hon. Member for Wokingham secured the debate, and great to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) secured the debate, because it is a good debate—it is a good day. This is really a success story. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), rightly told us John’s story; because of the screening that has been put in place, there will be plenty more Johns in the future, which is exactly what we want to hear. Often we talk about the problems, but this is a really good example of something positive that has come forward, and it all started under the previous Conservative Government. The roll-out of community diagnostic centres has fundamentally changed how we diagnose disease.”
“It is a pleasure to be here in an air-conditioned room while we continue this debate. It is poignant that it is so hot today, because we know how that can impact people with respiratory illnesses; we are probably talking about this issue at a very useful time. I too thank the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this important debate. As has been said, lung cancer remains a leading cause of cancer death in the UK, but it is also one of the cancers where early detection can make the biggest difference. I know that at first hand from my first year as a junior doctor working on a respiratory ward. It was eye-opening and harrowing, but also sometimes successful. I urge anyone who has the chance to visit a respiratory ward to see how important it is—and I believe that would make a difference to smoking rates.”
“I appreciate that this is not part of the Minister’s brief. The speed of the programme’s roll-out is fantastic, but there remains a concern that if 60% of people have taken it up, 40% have not done so, despite having had an offer that could have been given to someone else who wanted to go. Can the Department take that point away and work out what is being done to close that gap of more than a third? There is clearly a greater opportunity to get more people in and get them detected sooner.”
“T3. Will the Chancellor explain why she is now clawing back VAT on the compassionate medicines scheme, which means that this Labour Government are taxing free cancer drugs given to children? Will she reverse that decision? Patients are starting to miss out on the treatments they really need.”
“Certainly, from what we are hearing on the ground, the ICB changes—losing 50% through redundancies—are having a significant impact on the way in which services are planned and delivered. I am therefore keen to understand the rationale behind that statement. To finish where I started, community hospitals really are the healthcare that feels human. They are local, they are close to home and they are something that we across this House should aspire to. That family approach is where we all want to be; it is how we get there that is the question for the Government.”
“On that point, when it comes to delivery, I would like to pose something to the Minister: it was reported in the news over the weekend that NHS capital spend could be under threat to fund the defence investment plan. I hope she will be able to stand at this Dispatch Box and say that that is categorically not true—but that is going to be important. That leads me on to another question that I would like to pose to the Minister. The response to a written question about the abolition of NHS England and its impact on services stated: “The abolition of NHS England is causing no disruption to the development of new services.” Will the Minister state that from the Dispatch Box?”
“I must admit that, when I look at community hospitals, I am never quite sure what the definition is; looking into the detail, I struggle to find any definition that the Government have come up with. Those are key questions about the leftward shift. I think we all agree that that would be welcome, but it is about the delivery plan. Of course, the 10-year plan has no delivery chapter, which again leads us back to the questions for the Minister today. I appreciate that this is not her portfolio, but these questions will keep coming time and again: how do we actually deliver, and what does this look like in the guise of neighbourhood health centres?”