Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the budget is for the Smile for Life programme, and if she will publish a breakdown of costs.

To improve prevention for our youngest children, we will roll out support education targeting one to three year olds in the new Smile for Life programme. We will work closely with local areas to ensure our national advice and educational materials are tailored appropriately for nurseries and other early years settings.

The Dentistry Recovery Plan is fully funded with £200 million, and will deliver new initiatives to address the challenges facing National Health Service dentistry, including an additional 2.5 million appointments.

Overall NHS spending totals will be set at budget in the usual way. We are committed to protecting funding for dentistry purposes and will ringfence dental funding in 2024/25. We will issue guidance to integrated care boards shortly, through NHS England’s 2024/25 revenue finance and contracting guidance.