With a time limit of four minutes—the clock is counting backwards—I call Jim Shannon.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) for bringing forward this very important debate. The UK currently has the largest gender health gap in the G20 and the 12th largest in the world.

It is high time that we focus on these disparities. Let me start with breast cancer. Breast cancer does not only affect women, of course, but the vast majority of cases are in women, with one woman being diagnosed with breast cancer every 10 minutes.

Over the last 20 years, the prognosis for women diagnosed with breast cancer has improved significantly. Women diagnosed with primary breast cancer today are 66% less likely to die from the disease within five years. That is encouraging news, but we cannot stop there.

Detecting breast cancer in its early stages drastically improves a woman’s chances of survival, but young women face huge challenges when it comes to being diagnosed.

That is particularly harmful, because younger women are more likely not only to develop aggressive forms of the disease, but to be diagnosed at a later stage when the tumours are larger and have spread to the lymph nodes.

As a result, younger women have a significantly worse prognosis, a higher risk of recurrence, and a greater chance of death compared with older women. Even more alarmingly, cancer cases in women under 50 have increased by nearly 80% worldwide over the last 30 years.

In the UK, breast cancer diagnoses in women under 50 have been steadily rising, and in 2013, we saw over 10,000 cases for the first time. Yet despite that growing trend, routine breast cancer screening still does not begin until women turn 50. Why do we start so late?

It is an alarming trend and the Government must look at it. I know that the UK National Screening Committee advises on the decision about who to screen, and I have been assured that it will be looked into, but I mention it today to urge the Government to make progress.

Another issue affecting many women in Bath is gynaecological care. A new report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said the UK has a “gynaecology care crisis”, with over 750,000 patients currently waiting for treatment for a serious condition.

I could not agree more. We already have a crisis, which that will only exacerbate, so I thank my hon. Friend for rightly highlighting that issue. My Bath constituents are at particular risk.

A recent report said that appointment waits have doubled since the pandemic—another serious trend that the Government need to look at. A constituent recently reached out to me about the length of time it takes to get an endometriosis diagnosis in the NHS, which has already been mentioned today.

That is not only a problem in Bath; far too many women wait far too long. The Government need to look at that. In better news, the national maternity survey 2024 found that Bath’s Royal United hospital received a top Care Quality Commission rating over its treatment of patients.

The survey found that those giving birth felt confidence and trust in staff during their care at the RUH. There was also praise for the dignity and respect people that were treated with.

I am grateful to the RUH and all its staff for setting such a brilliant example, and offer them my congratulations. In such a debate, I cannot, as chair of the eating disorders APPG, leave out eating disorders. Although they affect more women than men, it is not only women who suffer from them.

One issue of particular concern is online platforms recommending harmful eating disorder-related content to young users.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, whose representatives I met this week, recently published research on the dangerous eating disorder videos recommended by the YouTube algorithms.

It set up an account for a 13-year-old girl searching for body image and dieting content, and found that, of the next videos recommended by the YouTube algorithm, one in four was harmful eating disorder content. That is alarming.

I urge the Government to look into that and to hold these powerful digital platforms to account. In 2025, it is not acceptable that there are continuing disparities in women’s health and, in particular, young women’s health on this issue. I urge the Government to take action.

I am sorry to do this, but I am imposing a newly reduced time limit of three and a half minutes.

Will the hon. Member give way?

Finally, for what we think is her first outing as a Minister in Westminster Hall—although she is a veteran of the Chamber already— I call Ashley Dalton.

I do not mean to be pompous, but the Minister did not mention me—it was me who mentioned the online harm.

I am getting there.

May I ask whether the Minister would meet the eating disorders APPG to talk about online harm, particularly in relation to sufferers of eating disorders?

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, and I will get there and mention her. I am more than happy to have that conversation with her. For the benefit of the shadow Minister, the hon.

Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), I would like to clear something up and dispel some misinformation. We have not scrapped the women’s health strategy, nor have we abandoned women’s health hubs—far from it. We are using women’s health hubs to beat the backlog.

The future funding decisions around those health hubs will be taken in due course. I can also confirm for the shadow Minister that Baroness Merron is the Minister with responsibility for women’s health, and she regularly meets Dame Lesley, the women’s health ambassador.

Dame Lesley attended the 10-year plan round- table in January, which was chaired by Baroness Merron. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman on that. When we came into government, we inherited an appalling legacy of nearly 600,000 women on gynaecology waiting lists.

That is why the Prime Minister kicked off 2025 with our elective reform plan. The plan states our commitment to offer women gynaecological care closer to home, an approach that has been pioneered by those women’s health hubs.

As of December, nine in 10 integrated care boards had at least one women’s health hub, and some have more.

In Norfolk we had a virtual health hub. When we look at whether the health hubs are working and share best practice, can we talk about whether that is the best format for a health hub or whether a physical one would be better?

That is something that we will take on board and consider as we move forward. We have heard a lot about menopause and peri- menopause from many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell). We are supporting women through the whole menopause process.

Menopause and perimenopause symptoms can be wide-ranging and debilitating.

NHS England is developing a range of tools and interventions to help upskill more GPs in menopause care, including awareness of mental health symptoms during menopause, and developing a menopause workforce support package for employees.

I can also confirm that we are using community diagnostic centres to pilot pathways for women who suffer from post-menopausal bleeding.

Can the Minster comment on HRT medication and making sure that there is equal access to it across the country?

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on that, but I thank him for raising the issue. We have also talked a lot about what underpins this topic: research and innovation, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford raised that point in particular. We are taking strides in vital research.

By the spring, the NIHR expects to launch its sex and gender policy, which will ensure that research is designed, conducted and reported in a way that accounts for sex and gender—a point raised by the hon. Member for Canterbury.

That will support our understanding of how women might be impacted differently by health conditions. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) talked about eating disorders and also about breast cancer, which a number of people raised. As I am sure the hon.

Lady appreciates, that issue is important to me, as I was diagnosed with a breast cancer when I was under the age of 42. It is an important issue.

Health in the workplace continues to be an important issue for us, and we are dealing with that through our make work pay strategy and the Employment Rights Bill, which will set out some of those steps, including support for women experiencing menopause in the workplace.

On sodium valproate and pelvic mesh, the Cumberlege review made nine recommendations, of which the then Government accepted seven. I can confirm that the national pause remains in place.