NHS Dentistry

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Seema Malhotra

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes a fair point about measuring within the system how much work NHS dentists are doing. As I say, we are looking at all of this in the work that we are doing on the dentistry recovery plan. I repeat that I want to make it as simple as possible for dentists to register with the NHS, to continue offering the care that we all want them to, so I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Victoria Atkins]

I am going to plough on, I am afraid.

Earlier, Labour Front Benchers—perhaps not understanding that they were doing so—set out the philosophical difference between our two parties on how to grow the economy. As our economy grows, we on the Conservative side of the House want to attract the best and the brightest from around the world to work in our NHS, in our tech sector, in our life sciences industry, in our movie industry—hon. Members may know that it filmed “Barbie” this year—and in many other thriving industries. Labour, however, apparently wants to shut the door by taxing such people on earnings they make outside the UK. I speak, of course, of non-domiciled tax status.

If I may correct the hon. Member for Ilford North, because I appreciate that he has not spent any time on the Front Bench, last year alone non-domiciled taxpayers paid £8 billion in UK taxes on their UK earnings. That is equivalent to more than 230,000 nurses. Labour wants to put that at risk and put the UK at a disadvantage in the highly paid, highly competitive, highly mobile international labour market. This really is yet another branch of the magic money tree that Labour has always been looking for, to which they apparently want to add £28 billion a year of taxes or increased borrowing and increased inflation.

How they want to spend this money is interesting as well, because in 2022 Labour promised that their non-domiciled taxation would fund a workforce plan. Last September, it became breakfast club meals. Then, by October, it had morphed into 2 million hospital appointments and MRI and CT scanners. Now, apparently, it is funding a dentistry plan. One wonders how all these magic branches on the magic money tree will add up to all the promises made so far.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I think the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) was raising her voice at me, but it was not me who heckled her. I recognise the passion she brings to her intervention, and I simply made the point that this is an Opposition day debate. The hon. Member for Ilford North understandably set out some of his plans, which is his job, and I was merely questioning him on the detail of those plans. Sadly, he was not able to provide that detail.

The long-term workforce plan is about not just training more staff but delivering value for hard-working taxpayers. Currently, around a third of dentists do not carry out any NHS work. This simply is not fair on the taxpayers who fund their training, which is why, through the long-term workforce plan, we are exploring the introduction of a tie-in period that encourages dentists, after they graduate, to spend a minimum proportion of their time delivering NHS care. We have also made it easier for experienced dentists from around the world to come to the UK to ply their trade, which is apparently something with which Labour Members do not agree.

Last year, we brought forward legislation to give the General Dental Council greater flexibility in administering the overseas registration exam. The Government welcome its decision to triple the capacity of the next three sittings of part one of the ORE, from August last year, and to increase the number of sittings of the second part of the exam from three to four, creating an additional 1,300 places. Ministers will continue to meet the GDC to discuss how we can make these flexibilities as effective as possible, to get more dentists into the NHS workforce delivering care for patients.

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. It is worth repeating that the Nuffield Trust has warned that NHS dentistry is at its most perilous point in its 75-year history. That goes alongside recent Healthwatch polling suggesting that one in 10 people in England have ended up paying for private dental treatment in the last 12 months because they could not find an NHS dentist. It has been the same in my constituency, where the majority of dental surgeries are not taking on new patients. Can the Secretary of State explain how on earth things have got this bad?

[Victoria Atkins]

I trust that the hon. Lady has been listening to the whole debate, because I set this out in some detail at the beginning of my speech. I will not repeat the impact of the pandemic, but I hope she has taken on board the £1.7 billion of investment that has already seen a sizeable increase in the number of adults and children being treated by NHS dentistry.

I do not pretend that this is the full stop at the end of the sentence. We have a plan and I look forward to our debate when that plan is published, because I suspect it will be welcomed across the House.