Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank all those who contributed to the debate. As many Members made clear, everybody knows somebody who has been affected — a friend, sibling, loved one, child, parent. I have spoken previously of my paternal grandmother and her slow, painful and, frankly, undignified death from bowel cancer. It impacts, as Mr McGrath hinted, on mental health, finances and life choices. It impacts on oh-so many others: family members who become carers; and parents who have to tell their six-year-old that their mother passed away in the night. To Mr Sheehan, I extend my total sympathy.

As Health Minister, I am committed to doing everything that is within my power to ensure that we can improve outcomes for those who are impacted on by cancer. "For better outcomes": those three words will be my mantra, my test and my yardstick to judge everything that I do. It is clear that Northern Ireland must find new and innovative treatments and care pathways if it is to improve outcomes for cancer patients. I am also clear that we cannot work in isolation if we want to achieve that aim. Collaboration is essential, and that includes collaboration with our neighbours, North/South, as well as east and west. For the avoidance of doubt, I have no political or ideological objection to North/South cooperation. As the Committee Chair said, we have to take politics out of healthcare, and I am determined to do that.

I am becoming familiar with the work of the All-Island Cancer Research Institute. It published in recent months, calling for greater cooperation across the island on cancer research, innovation and care. One of my first meetings as Minister was with Professor Lawler as we celebrated 30 years of the Cancer Registry. I am pleased to be able to advise that my Department is already working closely with the Department of Health in the Republic to look at ways in which we can cooperate to deliver cancer services. The North West Cancer Centre, as was mentioned, is a key example of that, with patients from the Republic accessing services there. Likewise, we have patients travelling to Dublin for specialist treatment.

We opened the North West Cancer Centre, at Altnagelvin Hospital, in 2016. It provides outpatient systemic anti-cancer therapy and radiotherapy services to approximately half a million people, including patients from County Donegal, with the centre treating approximately 250 people from the Republic every year. In June last year, Stephen Donnelly, the Minister for Health, announced funding for a new Daisy Lodge short-break centre in Cong, County Mayo, for children with cancer and their families. The centre will welcome 30% of its visitors from Northern Ireland, just as our centre in County Down welcomes 30% of its visitors from the Republic.

Cancer care should not be about politics. Decisions should be made on the basis of what is best for patients. We have a tripartite partnership between the Governments of Ireland and Northern Ireland and the National Cancer Institute in the United States. That partnership commits us to working together to reduce cancer incidents and mortality across the island of Ireland through cross-border and transatlantic collaborations in cancer research and education. It has been pivotal in many of the positive steps that we have taken against cancer on this island over the past 20 years. Collaborative cancer research has doubled, delivering cancer clinic trials to over 35,000 patients, North and South.

We have the All-Ireland NCI Cancer Consortium, which has established clinical trials infrastructure on this island; an all-island cancer atlas; and the training of some 500 clinicians, healthcare professionals and scientists. The consortium has funded fellowship programmes in cancer prevention and in health economics. There is also ongoing collaboration between the Northern Ireland Cancer Trials Network and Cancer Trials Ireland to increase the number of cancer trials available across the island.

Cancer research is another key element on which cross-border collaboration is vital. The Health Research Board in Ireland is partnering with the Health and Social Care research and development division and the US National Institutes of Health to provide funding to support cancer research. The All-Island Cancer Research Institute's recent paper, 'Landscape Review and Economic Potential of the Oncology and Allied Digital Health Sector on the Island of Ireland', calls for us to go further on North/South collaboration. Its proposed oncology innovation clusters would help to bring together all the key cancer research bodies in Northern Ireland and the Republic to consolidate knowledge, resources and infrastructure, with the combined goal of finding innovative approaches to gain better outcomes for patients here in Northern Ireland, on the island of Ireland and globally through their research.

The All-Island Cancer Research Institute states that the global oncology market is expected to reach $690·4 billion by the year 2032. Its advice is that research stakeholders in Northern Ireland and the Republic should work together, alongside public bodies and industry, to be a part of that growth. The institute has conducted comprehensive research, identifying all the key stakeholders in both jurisdictions.

Of course, those proposals to bring together the major players in industry, academia and the public sector are not new. We have city deals that seek to deliver exactly that, and it is important that we seek to use the leverage of those deals to bring about the greatest benefit for Northern Ireland. I know that my ministerial colleague Conor Murphy is fully aware of the potential economic benefits of having a thriving health industry operating in Northern Ireland. Organisations such as Invest NI and the Health Innovation Research Alliance Northern Ireland are working hard to develop the sector.

The economic benefits are, of course, important and of interest to everyone here. However, my priority is to deliver the best health and social care outcomes for the citizens of this place. Research by the institute emphasises the importance of population health and well-being to the economy. It calls for increased investment in oncology research and innovation. Regrettably, though, that comes at a time when my research and development budget is fully committed and I am facing calls to cut core health and social care services.

Proposals such as this are timely. As we are all fully aware, cancer services here are under enormous pressure. In the quarter ending in December 2023, 89% started treatment within 31 days of the decision to treat; the target, however, is 98%. Some 30% started treatment within 62 days of a referral, but the target for that is 95%. Of those referred on the breast pathways, 52% were seen within 14 days, but the target is 100%. Those figures are unacceptable and have been at unacceptable levels for too long. There have been many causes, including rising demand — for example, demand for chemotherapy has increased by 41% over the past five years and the number of first-diagnosis cancer patients treated has increased by 25% in the past 10 years — but we have also been slow to transform and accept new ways of working.

I do not underestimate the enormous pressure under which cancer staff and the wider HSC family are working. However, despite their best efforts, many parts of the current system are not ready to deliver the cancer services that we will require in the next five to 10 years, so we must be proactive and ambitious in delivering the equitable and resilient cancer services that the people of Northern Ireland deserve.

The cancer strategy published by the Department of Health in 2022 seeks to effect the transformational change that is needed to change how cancer is managed. That includes recognising the opportunities for collaboration across this island, with Great Britain and further afield to deliver better cancer care and better research and innovation. Although the strategy is not fully funded, we are already starting to see the benefits. We have rapid diagnostic centres that now deliver a vague symptom pathway across Northern Ireland. That is available for patients who have vague but worrying symptoms. They are typically patients who would have ended up with a late diagnosis and, consequently, very poor outcomes. Northern Ireland was the first part of the United Kingdom to commit to implementing an optimal care pathway for pancreatic cancer, and work is progressing well to implement that pathway. Reviews of haematological cancers and cancers affecting adolescents and young adults have also been completed, and recommendations are being implemented.

A cancer research strategy, as Mrs Dodds referred to, was a core commitment in the cancer strategy, and I assure the Member that it is under development. It will seek to establish the infrastructure required to support cancer research and innovation and translate that into improved outcomes for patients — a bench-to-bedside approach that focuses on what we need to address the biggest issues facing our cancer services. It will require additional investment, and, for that reason, I welcome the establishment of the All-Ireland NCI Cancer Consortium's research and innovation grant scheme, which will provide vital funds to support cancer research and innovation to institutions across the island of Ireland. I also commend the All-Island Cancer Research Institute for the work that it has done to bring together 10 universities across the island in a combined fight against cancer.

The way in which healthcare is delivered is continually changing. We must be ready to test and adopt innovative ways to treat and support those who are impacted by cancer. New technologies, new medicines and new techniques provide opportunities to measurably improve cancer survival rates while significantly improving the quality of life for cancer patients. It is essential that we grasp those opportunities.

Greater specialisation of cancer treatment means that it is increasingly important that we adopt a collaborative approach to delivering cancer services with our nearest neighbours. We need to enhance collaboration, North/South, east-west and globally. That is particularly important for cancers that require specialist treatment that cannot be delivered in Northern Ireland or for rare cancers where clinicians must have access to a larger population to develop and maintain the expertise to treat patients. Therefore, in answer to the motion, I am open to all discussions, ideas and proposals that enable us to deliver better cancer services for the people of Northern Ireland. Where collaboration with other jurisdictions can achieve that, we must take those opportunities, where possible, and, on my watch, we will do that.

I will touch on a couple of Members' comments. Danny Donnelly talked about cooperation with the Minister from the Government of Ireland, Stephen Donnelly. I am scheduled to have a meeting with Minister Donnelly before the end of the month, and I very much look forward to that. I hear what Mr Dickson says in his assessment of the state of cooperation with the Republic. "Could do better" might be a summary of his remarks, and I very much will take that on board. As for sharing the registry, yes, I think that data is absolutely critical in improving how we deal with the health service and getting better outcomes. We must base it on data while remembering that, behind every data set, there is the human cost of some disease, be it cancer or whatever.

I bring my remarks to a close by, once again, thanking the mover of the motion and those who tabled the amendment, which we support.