Oral Answers to Questions

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I am sure the people of Wakefield are as frustrated as I am that the Labour dental contract, put in place in 2006, is the nub of the problem. If the hon. Lady were to meet with dentists, she would hear loud and clear that the dental contract is causing the problem. [Interruption.] She might not have listened to my previous answers because she is not listening now, but we will be announcing changes before the summer recess.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

At the start of this year the Government announced £50 million to create some new dentistry appointments, but that money resulted in exactly zero new appointments in my constituency. I wrote to every single dental practice in my constituency and they said that was because the funding offer was too limited in scope and time and they were given only a week to reply.

On 25 April, I wrote to the Minister asking how many appointments had been created from this money across England and where that money had gone. I have not received an answer. Will we get one today?

[Maria Caulfield]

I am very disappointed: that £50 million of funding was for dentistry to access and be able to afford more appointments, and if local commissioners in an area did not bid for that money or ask dentists to take that money on, that is extremely disappointing—those in other parts of the country certainly did. We are putting £3 billion a year into dentistry. Local MPs have a role to play in this: if there was a problem, I would have expected the hon. Lady to have come and seen me before now to lobby for more funding for her local area.