Goodburn, who was diagnosed with inoperable brain tumours two years ago, tearfully addressed Andy Burnham<\/a> directly, saying he was \u201con his knees begging\u201d for the government to put more money and resources into brain cancer research.<\/p>\n Replying to the video on TikTok, Burnham said: \u201cArchie, thank you for this. I know how hard it must have been.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat you\u2019re doing for other people while you\u2019re going through all this yourself shows the best of us.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d really like to meet you and hear from you directly and I\u2019ve asked my team to get in touch.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Arthur<\/a>, who has served as Labour MP for Edinburgh South West since 2024, has since weighed in on the discussion, as he promoted the Rare Cancers Bill at Westminster as a Private Members Bill. The legislation\u00a0came into effect on 5 April this year.<\/p>\n The new law is designed to tackle disparities in cancer care and funding, with its core mandates including faster research, the improvement of clinical trials, a review of \u201corphan drug\u201d regulation to ensure new treatments are evaluated and reach patients faster, and the creation of specific roles to coordinate research and treatment efforts.<\/p>\n However, Dr Arthur suggested the Scottish Government is lagging behind its counterpart, highlighting key areas for improvement such as Scotland\u2019s cancer<\/a> strategy and its lack of genomic testing.<\/p>\n Speaking on Thursday, Dr Arthur said: \u201cIt was quite difficult watching [Archie\u2019s plea]. I\u2019ve met him half a dozen times and he\u2019s always respectful, clear, focused and unflappable so it was quite hard to see him so emotional.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kind of tumour that killed my father-in-law is the most common type, glioblastoma, and that has an average life expectancy on diagnosis of nine months, and treatments for that haven\u2019t changed in 30 years.<\/p>\n \u201cThirty years ago or more, conditions like leukaemia were seen as being a death sentence but now, because of treatments, these conditions can be survivable.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so, Archie looks at the progress made in leukaemia, breast cancer, lung cancer, all these other cancer types and we\u2019ve just not seen anything like the same progress in brain tumours and that rightly really frustrates him, and that\u2019s why he wants to see progress.\u201d<\/p>\n Goodburn had said in the same speech that he was \u201cextremely grateful\u201d to Dr Arthur and the work he had done, saying that the Bill was a \u201cstep in the right direction\u201d but claimed that the Act<\/a> was not going to make the changes needed.<\/p>\n On this, Dr Arthur said: \u201cI do hope that ultimately it will drive the change that we need. Obviously it was a private members\u2019 bill so I had to negotiate with the government and try to build a cross-party consensus.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Act I pushed through had the backing of about 40 cancer charities and all of them think it\u2019s a massive step in the right direction. One of the things the Act did was it forces the government to appoint someone to oversee research in the rare cancer space, and rare cancers include brain tumours.<\/p>\n \u201cArchie\u2019s key ask on the TV the other day was that an additional lead is appointed which looks specifically at brain tumours. So my Bill was all rare cancers, including brain tumours. We don\u2019t know who that person is \u2013 it may well be a brain tumour specialist. We don\u2019t know yet.<\/p>\n \u201cThe person\u2019s been appointed, but it\u2019s not been confirmed yet, that\u2019s my understanding.<\/p>\n \u201cArchie\u2019s ask was that someone should be appointed to organise research in the brain tumour space, and he\u2019s right to ask for that of course. Ultimately, however, what he really wants is more money spent in this space and I don\u2019t want to put words in his mouth, but he sees the appointment of that person as being a driver for doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n On the communication between himself, Goodburn and Prime Minister Burnham so far, Dr Arthur added: \u201cWe\u2019re in the process. I contacted Archie this morning just to figure out what we could do to support him with that.<\/p>\n \u201cThe new Secretary of State for Health, Yvette Cooper, has also asked to be part of that meeting with Archie. We wrote to her a week or two ago, just after she came into office. The Act has three key focuses, and we\u2019ve written to her on each of those focuses.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re now in our fourth Cancer Minister since Labour took power in July 2024. We wrote to the Secretary of State that we were slightly concerned with the change of Prime Minister, the change of Secretary of State for health, and the change in Cancer Minister.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does that mean for the delivery of that cancer plan? Because my Act is entirely within the cancer plan, and one of the three measures is appointing that national cancer lead. We\u2019re slightly concerned that it\u2019s only half a day per week for that person \u2013 we want it to be more.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Act asks that all cancer trials go in a single database and that all rare cancer patients go in a separate database. This is for NHS England and the idea being that on the NHS England app, when a trial becomes available for you, you press a button and it activates and you get access to the trial that way.<\/p>\n \u201cThat linkage is probably a year to 18 months away, so we wrote saying we want that to happen sooner.<\/p>\n \u201cThe third thing was around a review of how we incentivise rare cancer treatments to come to the UK for trials. That\u2019s currently on a three-year timeline and we\u2019re asking if that can happen sooner as well.<\/p>\n \u201cThese things come at no or low cost. It\u2019s not necessarily that this is about spending huge amounts of new money, although that would be great. It\u2019s also thinking about what we can do within the existing systems just to fine tune things to make them happen quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Arthur proposed the idea of introducing tax incentives to pharmaceutical companies to bring trials to the UK, citing an example of one constituent of his who had had success in getting funding for a \u00a370m trial.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cWe\u2019re working within a finite budget, but I think there\u2019s more the government could probably do to bring international work to the UK through tax incentives.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be really good if, as a result of Archie\u2019s meeting, we see in the budget at the end of this year that the government\u2019s going to offer tax incentives for pharmaceutical companies to come to the UK.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a fantastic woman in my constituency called Faye Robertson who is a medic at Edinburgh University and NHS Lothian. She\u2019s running a trial on brain tumour treatment for glioblastoma and she\u2019s just won \u00a370m to run that trial here in Edinburgh. They\u2019ve already done some initial testing on models, and it shows that it\u2019s extremely effective.<\/p>\n \u201cThe work could have started already, but it would have started overseas.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead, she waited to get funders who were willing to fund it in the UK, and that slowed it down a bit. The government has to think about why that is. Why is it that things are a little bit slower to get started here?<\/p>\n \u201cWhy could a pharmaceutical company take that work overseas and get it started more quickly? The government\u2019s already doing some stuff on this, but there\u2019s probably more it can do.\u201d<\/p>\n Bringing the topic onto a more local level in Scotland, Dr Arthur continued: \u201cWe do have to think about the wider support for people with rare cancers and brain tumours in Scotland.<\/p>\n \u201cIn February, the UK Government launched its 10-year cancer plan. It\u2019s full of targets which the government has to meet, about England competing with European countries and getting them into the top quartile.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no similar plan in Scotland. I think the cancer strategy expires this year. There\u2019s no replacement yet and there is a feeling within the sector that the Scottish strategy was more about a press release rather than something that was actually going to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Arthur also highlighted the difference in cancer treatments available in Scotland and England, adding: \u201cFor that trial that Faye is running in Edinburgh, one of the things they have to do is genomic testing to test you and also your tumour.<\/p>\n \u201cThat testing isn\u2019t really available in Scotland. A lot of the work has to get sent to England. It\u2019s a real postcode lottery in England, but it is available.<\/p>\n \u201cMy point about the app and connecting people with trials and their own medical record \u2013 in Scotland, we don\u2019t even have an app. The Act is great for patients in England and Archie\u2019s right to say it could go further and do more, but we also have to think about what more we can do in Scotland. I think there\u2019s much more to be done.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the government in Scotland is not responsible for is funding that discovery science in our university labs because that\u2019s a reserved matter, but the clinical work which is happening in hospitals in Scotland, how trials work and how people access trials inside Scottish hospitals is absolutely a matter for The Scottish Government.<\/p>\n \u201cDepending on the cancer type, sometimes you\u2019re better off living in Scotland, or sometimes you\u2019re better off living in England because of the availability of drugs in the NHS.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve met people in Scotland who say they\u2019re thinking about moving to England because they can access a drug that would save their lives, and I\u2019ve met people in England who say they\u2019re thinking about moving to Scotland because a different drug is accessible here.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re on the wrong side of a border when it comes to accessing a drug, it\u2019s the worst thing in the world. When you cross the border, your physiology doesn\u2019t change, which means that a drug is magically no longer effective for you.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr Scott Arthur, MP for Edinburgh South West, has said there is still \u201cmuch more to be done\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1134638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8816],"tags":[308622,748,308623,1102,4884,712,202092,16,15],"class_list":["post-1134637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edinburgh","tag-archie-goodburn","tag-britain","tag-cancer-treatment-scotland","tag-edinburgh","tag-great-britain","tag-scotland","tag-scott-arthur","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117050838734302097","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1134637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1134638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1134637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1134637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1134637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Archie-Goodburn-British-champion-and-Scottish-record-holder.-Image-Euan-Cherry-1.jpg\")
Archie Goodburn. \u00a9 Euan Cherry for Edinburgh University<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Scott-Arthur-MP-A740119120250119.jpg\")
Dr Scott Arthur, MP. \u00a9 2025 Martin McAdam<\/p>\n![\"image_pdf\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786053922_568_pdf.png\" "\\"View")
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