Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 12 October 2015 (HL1940), what assessment they have made of the reasons why systematic scientific reviews, such as Cochrane reviews, adopt "specific and relatively narrow criteria".

The 2015 Cochrane review Water fluoridation for the prevention of dental caries was an update of a Cochrane review first completed in 2000. A panel of experts agreed the search criteria in the original review, and the update kept these largely unchanged.

The National Institute for Health Research is currently funding an evaluation of a water fluoridation scheme in Cumbria. This started in 2013 and the final report is expected to be published in 2021. Findings from the evaluation will be available for consideration in any subsequent systematic reviews relating to water fluoridation.