Labour’s shadow child poverty secretary, Wes Streeting, is to step back from frontline politics for a period to have treatment for kidney cancer, he has announced. The Ilford North MP, 38, whom Keir Starmer moved into the shadow cabinet role days ago as part of the party’s frontbench reshuffle, said the prognosis was good because the cancer had been detected early, but that the diagnosis was “an enormous shock”. Streeting, a former head of the National Union of Students who has been an MP since 2015, announced the news in a video message posted on Twitter.
He said: “Back in early March, I went into hospital with a kidney stone and, at the time, a scan identified a lump on the same kidney. Around a month later, in April, unfortunately that lump was diagnosed as kidney cancer. “While receiving a cancer diagnosis at the age of 38 has come as an enormous shock, the good news is because of that kidney stone the cancer has been caught early, my prognosis is very good, and I should make a full recovery. “But it does mean I have to take time off work for treatment. My family have made it very clear – and actually so has Keir – that I will not be coming back until I’ve made a full recovery. “Hopefully that won’t be too long but in the meantime, bear with me and thank you very much in advance for your support.” Streeting also thanked party colleagues and activists who had worked with him during this month’s local election. “I also want to say thank you to all of the Labour candidates and activists I joined on the doorstep because, without knowing it, they made such a difference to me during what was a really difficult time, taking my mind off things and helping me to crack on as normal,” he said. Starmer tweeted: “The thoughts of the whole Labour party are with Wes and his family at this difficult time. “Wes is a friend and a colleague and I know he’ll come back from this even stronger and more determined than ever before. I can’t wait to see him back in parliament as soon as possible.” A former councillor, Streeting was a regular critic of Starmer’s predecessor as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, particularly over issues connected to antisemitism. He became a shadow minister when Starmer took over the party leadership, firstly in a Treasury role and then as shadow schools minister.