Gideon Amos

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), my constituency neighbour, on securing this important debate and on all his campaigning. I began my campaign in my part of Somerset’s dentistry desert in 2021, when I was not an MP. My survey found that just under half had access to an NHS dentist. When I surveyed 2,000 people last year, things had got worse and only 35% of children in Taunton and Wellington could access an NHS dentist. The House of Commons Library has pointed out that from 2015, the last Government cut funding for NHS dental services by a sixth in real terms. I start by welcoming some good news. Thanks to the campaigning by my hon. Friend and me, and many others, we can confirm the news from NHS Somerset, published today, that 10,000 more units of dental activity were delivered last year in the county than in 2024-25. Let us hope for more improvement as this financial year progresses. In addition, I had the privilege of cutting the ribbon at Wellington’s new NHS dental practice in October. I thank the Minister for the work he does. His commitment to this issue is genuine. I thank the Dentistry For You team and all those in the NHS locally, because they are achieving these things against a background of limited resources and a broken funding system.