Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson]

But the underspend is not being used on dentistry—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

No, no—you do not get another supplementary question. I was about to call Layla Moran for Question 16, which is grouped with this one, but unfortunately she is not present so I shall go straight to the Chairman of the Health and Social Care Committee.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

The Government previously committed to publishing a dental recovery plan, which the former dental Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), said that the Government would publish shortly. He also told my Committee:

“We do want everyone who needs one to be able to access an NHS dentist”.

We were surprised, but he said it. We were told that the plan would be published during the summer or before the summer recess. When will the plan be published, if that is still the intention? Presumably it will come alongside the response to our “Dental Services” report, which was due on 14 September.

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[Victoria Atkins]

A theme is emerging of underspend in dental work, which is one of the things that the ministerial team and I are looking at. NHS England emphasised in its guidance to ICBs that the funding should be ringfenced. I very much understand the pressures that my hon. Friend and other south-west Members have been raising over many months on the care that their constituents are getting. To ease pressures in the south-west, NHS England has commissioned additional urgent dental care appointments that people can access through NHS 111.

[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?

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[Helen Whately]

The hon. Member refers to yesterday’s announcement on migration. First, I am very grateful to all the international workers who come here to help in our health and social care system and to care for our loved ones. Clearly, we must get the balance right between migration and making sure that our health and care system has the workforce that it needs. That is what we are doing, both with the migration changes announced yesterday and with our reforms to the social care workforce to ensure that working in social care is appealing to home-grown talent.

[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.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. You won’t get your turn if you shout from there.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

4. What steps her Department is taking to reduce pressure on NHS services in winter 2023-24.

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[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about the additional challenges in rural areas. I want to ensure that this winter people get care when they need it and get it faster. We are already seeing progress on that. For instance, we are investing in making sure there are more ambulance hours on the road, and we are seeing ambulances get to people quicker—in fact, this October, they got to people 20 minutes faster than last October. Ambulance handover delays are reducing and we are already seeing progress in A&E, where people are being seen faster, too.

[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?

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[Maria Caulfield]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in this place. She will be pleased to know that we are rolling out perinatal pelvic health services in every part of England, which should be in place by the end of March next year. In addition, we are rolling out obstetric anal sphincter injury bundles, which my hon. Friend raised in her debate on birth trauma; those have the potential to reduce the number of tears by 20%. She is absolutely right to be driving this issue forward. It will be covered in the women’s health strategy, but we are not waiting for the second year: we are already making progress in this place.

[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.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We will have to go a bit faster.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What steps she is taking to improve access to mental health services.

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[Maria Caulfield]

I have outlined some of the financial support that the Government have given during covid and the cost of living pressures. I also point to schemes that the Treasury has rolled out, such as the Breathing Space programme, which sees enforcement action from creditors halted, and interest frozen for people with problem debt who are experiencing mental health issues, and covers a 60-day period. That is the sort of practical help that this Government are giving to people.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We now move to topical questions. We are running late because questions have been too long, as have answers. I often make this plea. In any case, Members should not be reading their questions—questions are not meant to be read; they are meant to be questions. Can everybody please cut out those bits that say their constituency is beautiful, for example, and just ask a question? We all believe that our constituencies are beautiful, and none more so than mine.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

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

My priority as Secretary of State is to reform our NHS and social care system to make it faster, simpler and fairer. Since my appointment, we are making progress. To make our system faster, we have hit our manifesto target to recruit and retain 50,000 more nurses for our NHS, and to deliver 50 million more GP appointments, achieving both commitments months ahead of time. We have made an offer to health unions that I hope will end the consultants’ strike, which has disrupted care for the public and put a strain on staff. To make our system simpler, we have announced Pharmacy First, which will make it quicker and easier for millions of people to access healthcare on the high street. To make our system fairer, we have agreed a deal with pharmaceutical companies that will save the NHS £14 billion in medicine costs and give patients access to more life-saving treatment. The NHS is one of the reasons I came into politics—[Interruption.] I know Labour Members do not like to hear that, but I look forward to working with patients and staff across the country—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I do not need any help, thank you. The Secretary of State has answered the first question at length. I am sure that means she will answer the other questions much more briefly.

[Marion Fellows]

People with disabilities and serious health conditions already have higher living costs, and the proposals in the work capability assessment activities and descriptors consultation will mean that if they are reassessed they will lose £390 a month. I appreciate that the Secretary of State is new to her role, but will she commit as a priority to taking this up and consulting Cabinet colleagues, to ensure that people who are disabled and have serious health conditions are not pushed even further into dire poverty?

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[Victoria Atkins]

I would be very pleased to meet my right hon. Friend, the families and other Essex MPs to discuss that important inquiry.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow spokesman.

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[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

My constituent Dan Archer runs the highly successful Visiting Angels care agency, which has an annual staff turnover rate of just 13%, compared with an industry average of 60%. The secret to his success is very straightforward: paying decent wages, investing in training, valuing staff and prioritising client satisfaction. As a consequence, an enormous amount of money is saved on recruitment and invested into training and retention instead. Would the Minister meet my constituent to learn more about the success of Visiting Angels and how it can be shared more widely to help solve the shortage of workers in the care sector?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Can Members please cut their questions in half? Otherwise, I will have to stop this questions session and people will not get a chance at all.

[The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend’s constituent. What the employer does is really important for retention and recruitment of adult social care staff, along with our ambitious workforce reforms for the care workforce.

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[Andrew Stephenson]

Yes.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Excellent—that is how to do it.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

Cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease in children and young people, with nearly 500 dying every single year, yet the Government continue to reject calls for a dedicated children’s cancer plan. Why is that?

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[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. We have gone considerably over time because I have endeavoured to ensure that everyone whose name is on the Order Paper has had a chance either in substantive questions or in topical questions to ask questions on these important subjects on behalf of their constituents. Again, I appeal to Members: they are not meant to read questions, they should just ask them. It is not meant to be a speech, and it is certainly not meant to be drafted for Twitter or Instagram. It should be a question to the Minister. Let us hope for some improvement.

I apologise to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) for keeping him waiting to ask his urgent question.