NHS Dentistry

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

The sound you can hear, Mr Speaker, is the scraping of the barrel. How has the hon. Gentleman got the brass neck to stand up, after 14 years of his party in government, and say that a contract agreed in 2006 is the problem? If only the Conservatives had been in government for 14 years to sort it out.

Here is the other rub: we do not pretend that everything was perfect under the last Labour Government. In fact, reform of the NHS dentistry contract was in Labour’s 2010 manifesto, because we recognised that it needed to change. Had we been elected in 2010, we would have delivered. It was also in the Conservatives’ 2010 manifesto and 2015 manifesto. It was probably in the 2017 and 2019 manifestos, too, and they have not delivered. We have 14 years of Conservative failure. How dare the hon. Gentleman have the brass neck to stand up and blame someone else.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is of great interest, is it not, that there is not one Member from the governing party in Scotland present for this debate? I can tell the House that dental services in my constituency in remote Scotland have gone backwards in a big way, and I am shocked that none of them are here to hear this.

[Wes Streeting]

It is deeply disappointing. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that as with the last Labour Government—13 years that created a rising tide that lifted all ships across the country, when we had an NHS with the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history—the next Labour Government will deliver a rising tide to benefit people across the country.