Terry Jermy
Main Page: Terry Jermy (Labour - South West Norfolk)Department Debates - View all Terry Jermy's debates with the Leader of the House
(1 day, 18 hours ago)
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Lucy Powell
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. Our rural and wildlife crime strategy will be published in due course, and I will make sure that he and other colleagues have a chance to discuss it with Ministers.
Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)
The Health Secretary has rightly described Norfolk as
“the Sahara of dental deserts”—[Official Report, 23 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 506.]
I very much welcome the 700,000 extra dentistry appointments since Labour took office, as well as the money for supervised toothbrushing, but East Anglia is the only region of England without a dental school, and consequently it struggles to recruit and retain dentists. Would the Leader of the House support a general debate on dental care so that we can discuss funding for dentistry schools, and what more can be done to improve access to dentistry across the UK?
Lucy Powell
We still have far too many dental deserts in this country, and I am sorry to hear of the situation in East Anglia. My hon. Friend is right that the Government are committed to creating more dental appointments, but it is also vital that we have dentistry schools to make sure that we can train and retain the dentists of the future.