Oral Answers to Questions

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

I welcome the right hon. Member and his new team to their places in the Department. The shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), prioritised access to care, including NHS dentistry, when she was Secretary of State. The dental recovery plan that she launched announced new dental vans to provide access to care to our most rural communities and coastal communities in England. We had agreed with NHS England that the first vans would be on the road by this autumn, and I know that that timescale was welcomed by colleagues across the House. Will he confirm that dental vans will be on the road by this autumn?

[Wes Streeting]

I could not have picked a better example of the previous Government’s desperately low ceiling of ambition than the fact that, after 14 years, they laud their triumph of dental vans roaming the country in the absence of actual dentists and dental surgeries. What an absolute disgrace. I accept that the shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was just the last in a very long list of Health and Social Care Secretaries who had the chance to fix the problems. It was not all on her, and it is important that I say that—not least because of the Conservative leadership election that will be taking place soon.

I congratulate the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), on his appointment, but he sat behind Secretaries of State as their Parliamentary Private Secretary year after year, week after week, looking at the utterly abysmal failure of their record. When it comes to criticising this Government on the actions that we will take, the Conservatives do not have a leg to stand on.