“Spoke at 2 fringes, had 11 meetings, 3 receptions and 1 dinner. Pity I didn’t have time to get into the conference hall”. Such is a day in the life of an MP at conference, according to this tweet by Anne Begg MP, Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee. (Macmillan must take some responsibility for Anne’s hectic schedule – we met with her to talk about our Working through Cancer campaign that will launch in October, as well as welfare reform, GP commissioning and other issues). Conference days are packed full meeting MPs and colleagues from other organisations, attending fringe events and drinking inordinate amounts of tea and coffee. By Wednesday it certainly feels like the end of the week should have arrived. This Labour party conference has been very interesting, and the atmosphere has been –as I overheard one MP say – pretty strange. A new leader has been announced, a “new generation” is in control, and everyone awaits with baited breath the appointment of a permanent shadow cabinet. Jobs are likely to shuffle but it seems the Opposition have recognised that the health landscape is changing and they are gearing up for a fight. In his conference speech Andy Burnham, shadow Secretary of State for Health (a position he holds for at least one more week!), said the Government’s health reform proposals are a “£3 billion political experiment” without a mandate and called for the coalition to “give the NHS the stability it needs”. As Lucy said yesterday this Opposition Labour Party are in “listening mode” as they develop their health policies going forward. We have used conference to meet old Parliamentary friends and to introduce ourselves to some of the ‘class of 2010’. As well as discussing our campaigning priorities of cancer survivorship, access to treatments and end of life care we talked about the major proposals within the health white paper, such as GP commissioning. I’ve heard that a health bill is expected around November in draft form, to allow for pre-legislative scrutiny. This means a committee of parliamentarians will scrutinise the draft bill before it goes through the usual process in both Houses. Conference is a great place for us to start discussions to make sure that when Parliament returns in October all three major political parties are thinking about how their policies and decisions will affect people with cancer. Next up: Conservatives!
