Date: 2023-04-27
Judith Cummins: I beg to move, That this House has considered progress on reforms to NHS dentistry. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for once again granting this important debate, and my co-sponsor, the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), for all his work in helping to secure it. When preparing for the debate, I thought it was useful to consider and reflect on the foundations of our NHS in the Beveridge report, which was published 80 years ago last November. Although it would be an understatement to say that the world has changed since its publication, the identity of this country is still proudly centred around our national health service--an idea so powerfully contained in the pages of the report. For the great British social reformers of the 20th century, dentistry was not some Cinderella service of secondary importance. Beveridge concluded that no one could seriously doubt that a free dental service should become as universal as a free medical service. Eighty years after the report's publication, it is time that the House reaffirmed our commitment to universal dental care in this country. It is worth noting that the Beveridge report, in its proposition for universal access to NHS dentistry, was published by a multi-party coalition Government. As I stand here today, Members on both sides of the Chamber will agree that the crisis in NHS dentistry deserves the same cross-party attention that it was afforded 80 years ago, because the system has decayed: access has fallen to an historic low, and inaction over the past 13 years has caused untold damage. There can be no more half measures or excuses. Now is the time to establish a new preventive dental contract that is fit for the 21st century. The words of my campaigning over the past eight years now serve as a compendium of forecasting doom. In 2016, I warned of a mounting crisis and drew the Government's attention to a digital report warning that half of dentists were thinking of leaving the profession. Between 2017 and 2019, I warned that 60% of dentists were planning to leave NHS dentistry. In 2020, after years of repeated warnings, I once again informed the Government that 58% of the UK's remaining dentists were planning on moving away from NHS dentistry within five years. The Government once again fudged and ignored, and more than 1,000 dentists left the NHS. This NHS dental crisis has been a devastating slow-motion car crash of the Government's own making, yet year after year, Minister after Minister, they have assured me of their commitment to reform. Last year, when I pressed the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), for action on this matter, she informed me that she had started work on a dental contract reform. However, just yesterday, we became aware that after 13 years in power, the Government are once again starting with an announcement of a plan to publish a new plan to improve access to NHS dentistry--a plan for a plan. We would all welcome further clarification on what that plan might involve. I can only hope that sustained campaigning on this issue by me and other Members will mean that the plan will result in positive change for my Bradford South constituents.