Oral Answers to Questions

Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I begin by welcoming the Secretary of State and her Ministers to their posts.

Last year, the Prime Minister pledged to restore NHS dentistry, including a specific promise to protect its budget, yet last month we learned that he will break that promise and allow ICBs to raid dentistry budgets to fill the gaps. Labour has a plan for 700,000 extra appointments, supervised toothbrushing in schools and a targeted dentistry recruitment scheme in left-behind areas. It is all fully funded by abolishing non-dom tax status. We have a plan, but the Government’s plan is four months overdue. Where is it?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her warm welcome. I look forward to discussing these matters with her over the Dispatch Box.

Over the weekend, I was rather pleased to see the Leader of the Opposition’s damascene conversion to the Conservative cause. As the shadow Secretary of State is on his world tour investigating what other health systems are doing, the Labour party may wish to bear in mind the words of wisdom from the great lady herself: “The problem with socialism is that at some point you run out of other people’s money.”

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Thanks to their own internal chaos, the Conservatives have utterly failed in their promise at the last general election to fix the crisis in social care once and for all. We now have over 150,000 care vacancies and 390,000 care staff leaving their jobs each year, meaning that 60% of patients in England who are fit for discharge are being kept in hospital each day. Will the Minister therefore back Labour’s plan to deliver a fair pay agreement, with better terms, conditions, training and pay, to ensure that we have the staff required to care for all those who need it?

[Helen Whately]

Labour really have not got a leg to stand on when it comes to social care reform. They did not do anything the last time they were in government, and they still do not have a plan for social care. In government, we are reforming social care careers—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady will take a look at what we are doing, we are introducing a new career structure for people working in social care, introducing new qualifications and investing in training for social care. We are doing what needs to be done to ensure that social care as a career works for UK workers. [Interruption.]

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Under the last Labour Government, there was no winter crisis. Under the Tories, we have gone from no winter crisis, to an annual crisis, to a crisis all year around. Rather than tackling the crisis at source, this Government have only sticking-plaster solutions for a few months at a time. How will patients know that a winter crisis has been avoided if problems persist into the spring?

[Helen Whately]

I am really sorry, but the hon. Member’s memory appears to be very short. I was working in healthcare when there was a Labour Government and I remember very well problems for the NHS during winter. She does not even need to look back into the past; she can look at the Labour-run NHS in Wales, where they are having so much difficulty with A&E performance that they even fudged the figures and hid a whole load of patients so people would not notice what was going on.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

The Care Quality Commission now says that almost two thirds of England’s maternity services are rated inadequate or requiring improvement in safety, up from 55% last year. The Government have been told time and time again to recruit more midwives, and to value midwives so that they do not want to leave the profession in the first place. As a result of ministerial failure, mothers—especially those from black and ethnic minority groups—do not get the safe, good-quality maternity care that they deserve. What is the Minister’s plan to properly improve maternity care?

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Lady may not have listened to my first answer. We have increased the number of midwives—it is up 14% since 2010—and increased the number of midwifery training places by 3,650. We have also introduced a maternity support programme that is providing intensive support for the 32 trusts that are going through it. The hon. Lady may want to speak to her ministerial colleagues in Wales, where Labour runs the health service, because Healthcare Inspectorate Wales recently issued an immediate improvement notice to Cardiff and Vale University Health Board for its maternity services.