Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the proportion of five-year olds eligible for free school meals with severe or extensive tooth decay.

Public Health England (PHE) has produced guidance to support local authorities in their responsibility to improve dental health and reduce inequalities among children in their area. PHE has also developed guidance for dental teams on preventing dental disease in their patients. Advice has recently been published by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence.

The Department will be launching the Childhood Obesity Strategy in the summer. It will look at everything that contributes to a child becoming overweight and obese, including sugar which is a cause of tooth decay.

Overall, children’s access to National Health Service dentistry remains consistently high, with the number of children seen in the 24 months to December 2015 by an NHS dentist standing at 8.1 million or 69.5% of the population. 104,000 more children saw an NHS dentist in England in the 24 month period ending 31 December 2015, compared with the same period ending 31 December 2014.