Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Victoria Atkins

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

9. What steps she is taking to tackle health inequalities.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)]

We are committed to levelling up health, narrowing the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030, and increasing healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035. That aligns with our mission to reform our health and care system to be faster, simpler and fairer.

[Debbie Abrahams]

In January, Professor Sir Michael Marmot published “Health Inequalities, Lives Cut Short”, which confirmed that between 2011 and 2019, driven by political choices, 1 million people in 90% of areas in England lived shorter lives than they should. The inequalities were amplified by Covid. These lives cut short are matched by shorter lives in good health. Does the Secretary of State believe in evidence-based health? If so, does she accept the overwhelming evidence that current levels of ill health reflect 14 years of escalating poverty, services that have been run into the ground, including the NHS, and the Government’s failure to do what they promised in 2019: level up?

[Victoria Atkins]

No, I do not, and I would point to the legislation that the Government brought forward last week, which is the largest and most significant public health reform that we can make to help the hon. Member’s constituents and those in other parts of the country who face inequalities. We know that smoking rates are disproportionately higher in poorer communities, which is one of the many reasons why we introduced such landmark legislation. It is just a shame that the Labour party felt that they had to whip their Members to get them to vote for it.

NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Victoria Atkins

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The criteria that will apply to the areas covered by vans are clearly set on dental need and other factors such as distance from an NHS dental practice. We have been able to identify areas of particular need, where we want to get that help as quickly as we can through the dental van initiative and the other ways detailed in the plan.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Last year, about half of my constituents were able to access dental services—well below pre-pandemic levels. Under the plans, what proportion of my constituents can now hope to access NHS dental services within the next six months?

[Victoria Atkins]

The dental recovery plan sets out immediate-term, medium-term and long-term plans. In the immediate term, we have the new patient premium that will be live from next month, the increase in UDA value to £28 and the golden hellos that I have described to under-served parts of the country. There is a batch of measures throughout the plan to address the concerns from colleagues across the House.

NHS Dentistry

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Victoria Atkins

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Again, cutting through the froth, the hon. Gentleman called this debate and has not set out his plan. He knows full well that this is an Opposition day debate and I am responding to Labour’s motion by moving an amendment. He has no plan on dentistry. When I asked him to clarify whether he will follow the capitated system in Wales, he declined to answer. I assume that is because he knows we tested a prototype system based on the Welsh capitation approach here in England, and the results were clear. It worsened access and widened oral health inequalities.

The hon. Gentleman quoted the Nuffield Trust, placing great emphasis on it, in his opening speech. As he agrees so much with the Nuffield Trust’s report, does he also agree with its former chief executive who said that his ideas on general practice represent

“an out of date view”

and “will cost a fortune”?

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Labour party’s approach to our NHS is empty words about reform followed by the phrase “funded by non-doms.” We are very lucky in this country—on this side of the House we consider ourselves blessed—to have incredible dentists working across the NHS.

Here are some facts for Opposition Members. There are now 1,352 more dentists working in the NHS than 14 years ago, thanks to the stewardship of this Conservative Government. I thank them and their colleagues for everything they do, and we are backing them to build a brighter future for NHS dentistry by taking concrete steps to improve recruitment and retention. That is why our long-term workforce plan, the first in NHS history, will expand dentistry training places by 40%, providing more than 1,100 places by 2031, which will be the highest level on record under any Government.

Over the same period, this Government’s plan will also increase training places for dental therapists and hygiene professionals to more than 500. The importance of the long-term workforce plan to dentistry’s future was recognised across the sector, and Professor Kirsty Hill, who chairs the Dental Schools Council, backed our plan:

“Expansion is a significant and positive development, and we commend the government for recognising the importance of increasing dental hygiene and dental therapist positions. These roles play a vital role in enhancing capacity and improving care.”

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I find it absolutely extraordinary that the Health Secretary lectured the shadow Health Secretary on calling a debate to hold this Government to account. Twelve million people are not able to access dental care, including thousands in my Oldham constituency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Victoria Atkins

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

9. What steps she is taking to help reduce health inequalities.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)]

I am pleased to reiterate to my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) that Essex is receiving funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research, which is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, to promote research into health inequalities and support better health outcomes for her constituents and all residents in Essex.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for her kind words. She will remember how much I enjoyed sitting on the Front Bench alongside her when we were in the Home Office. In terms of her work in Essex, she is a formidable campaigner and she will know that the decision on such a healthcare centre lies with her integrated care board, to which the Government have given some £183 million of capital funding between 2022 and 2025. I am sure she will make a compelling case to the ICB for such a centre in her constituency. Interestingly, the Mid and South Essex integrated care board is one of seven sites receiving additional support and funding from NHS England to address health inequalities, and I know she will pay close attention to how that is spent.

[Debbie Abrahams]

There were multiple warnings from experts such as Professor Sir Michael Marmot of the widening health inequalities that started in 2015. Covid just exposed and amplified those inequalities, so that in the north there were 17% more deaths, or more than 2,500 avoidable deaths. While I welcome the new Health Secretary to her post and I welcome her announcement this morning, what else is she going to do to address in particular the socioeconomic inequalities that drive those health inequalities?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome. Having grown up in Lancashire myself, I very much understand why she is speaking up on behalf of her constituents. There are many different ways that we deal with this, but let me use a couple of headline points. First, we are increasing the public health grant to local authorities, providing more than £3.5 billion this year, so per capita public health grant allocations for the most deprived local authorities are nearly two and a half times greater than for the least deprived.

There is also interesting work going on with family hubs. Indeed, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my right hon. Friend for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), who has responsibility for start for life, is leading on that. The family hubs and start for life programme will deliver a step change in outcomes for babies, children and parents in 75 local authorities in England with high deprivation. We believe strongly that if we can give the best start in life to our babies and children, it will bode extremely well for their future years.

Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Victoria Atkins

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Male colleagues are in attendance today, although perhaps not quite as fully as in previous debates, but in fairness male colleagues across the House have accepted their role and are very much working with us to tackle this. I have one slight caveat, though: when we talk about sexual violence, we know that it disproportionately affects women and girls, but I want us to acknowledge that men can be victims of sexual violence as well. We will be addressing that in our male victims paper in due course, but it is very important that we are clear about the causes and themes that run through this behaviour.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford rightly challenges us to share what we have done so far. I agree that we want to look over not just the next decade, but the past few months and what we have done. We have funded local projects and initiatives across England and Wales, totalling more than £27 million, to improve the safety of women in public places, particularly as we come out of covid restrictions on social distancing and so on.

Through round 3 of the safer streets fund, we are providing more than £650,000 to the west midlands to provide interventions, such as the bespoke VAWG public spaces-tailored programme offered to all schools in conjunction with the mentors in violence prevention programme and the violence reduction unit place-based pilot, to address harmful sexualised attitudes in boys. In West Yorkshire, we are providing more than £650,000 to implement interventions such as Student Safe Spot, safe routes and sexual assault referral centre walkthroughs.

Further to the point that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) made, relationships, sex and health education became statutory in schools from September. We are putting support in place to improve the quality of teaching so that we support children and young people through school.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) talked about online crimes. The Online Safety Bill is coming to the House shortly. Precisely because we wanted help, assistance and input from Members of both Houses, and indeed from charities and campaigners, we opened the Bill up to pre-legislative scrutiny. We are going through that scrutiny at the moment and are very respectful of the Joint Committee’s efforts to draw our attention to parts of it. We are working with determination to make the online world as safe as we possibly can.

[Debbie Abrahams]

rose—

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

rose—

[Victoria Atkins]

I will give way to the hon. Lady and then to my hon. Friend.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I was on that Joint Committee, and I have heard some worrying concerns that some of the recommendations that we made will be watered down. We took evidence that a large proportion—I cannot remember the figure, but a majority—of primary school-age children are being sent unsolicited extreme porn images. As great as the “Enough” campaign may be, how on earth do we combat that unless we have strong legislation?

[Victoria Atkins]

The world in the 21st century is having to grapple with some of those factors that we have seen emerge on the internet over the last two or three decades. I genuinely think this is the moment for our country to draw a line in the sand and say, “Enough is enough. We expect better from tech companies and we expect better in terms of regulation of tech companies.” That is what the Online Safety Bill will involve.