I do indeed join my hon. Friend in those comments.
A new and ambitious Scottish cancer strategy, launched in 2016, aims to stop anyone dying from breast cancer by 2050, and breast cancer is of course a priority in the Scottish Government’s detect cancer early initiative. We need to do many things to move forward in that direction.
No debate seems complete these days without reference to Brexit, and this issue is no exception. The Health Secretary has stated that the UK will not be in the European Medicines Agency. If so, there could be implications for the way in which medicines are regulated, and marketing authorisations will be required from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency for the UK. I am in no doubt that the implications will be less efficiency and possibly longer processes for obtaining authorisations, resulting—I fear—in innovative drugs taking longer to reach patients. Some industry leaders predict delays in the region of 150 days, based on the examples of Switzerland and Canada.
According to a piece that appeared last year in the Financial Times, when Sir Michael Rawlins, chair of the MHRA, was asked whether it would be able to take on all the extra work registering new drugs and medical devices currently carried out by the EMA, he said, “Certainly not”. It seems that considerable investment and recruitment will
be required to re-establish it as a stand-alone national regulator. I am keen to hear from the Minister how delayed drug access for UK patients will be avoided.