Department of Health and Social Care

Steff Aquarone Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)]

In the limited time available, I want to press the Government on a very live and urgent issue, which is the establishment of a dental school at the University of East Anglia. Currently, there is no dental school in the entire east of England. The Government accept that Norfolk is the Sahara of dental deserts. My constituents were excited by the prospect, as early as next September, of Norfolk training its own dentists. Just last week, the General Dental Council gave its approval for the new dental school and work is already under way at the UEA to create the facilities for this training.

Things ground to a halt, however, when the Government were unwilling to allocate the funding to ensure that places would be available in time for the UCAS deadline for 2026 entry, saying that we all needed to wait for the spending review. A frustrating delay, lost time to prepare and perhaps a lost year, but we reluctantly accepted the need to wait to receive this good news. And then the spending review came. And went. And we heard nothing: total radio silence from the Government on the future of this much-needed dental school. I tabled a written question to the Government directly after the review and they have refused to answer it. The silence is causing worries to increase.

There is a clear link between the lack of training opportunities in the east and the massive oral health inequalities we are facing. If we do not train in Norfolk, we cannot retain in Norfolk. People love our area. When they study here, many stay. It would be just the same with dentists. And we need it to be, because in Norfolk and Waveney we have so few dentists that each new one would be required to serve 3,000 people, based on current ratios. It is not tough maths to realise that, with the number of hours in a day and days in a year, people will go a long time without seeing a dentist, if they can get on an NHS list at all.

These are not just numbers and stats, these are real people: the people in my community. I would welcome anyone who is moving the money around spreadsheets in the Treasury or the Department of Health and Social Care to come to explain the dither and delay to their faces—some of which can no longer manage to muster a smile.

The situation has become untenable, but we have the opportunity for real improvement. We have cross-party support across Norfolk’s MPs from all parties, and I know that the Minister responsible, the Minister for Care, gets it—he has heard the stories, and I truly believe he cares. I hope that he can now deliver on the concern and warm words that we have welcomed and deliver us the dental school we need now.