Stephen Kinnock

I congratulate the University of East Anglia on its accreditation through the GDC as a dental school. That is a huge step in the right direction, and we strongly support it. The next step is that the Office for Students has to allocate places. The Government have not funded any new dental school places since 2007. I am fighting hard for those dental places to be made available. We are quite close, I hope, to being able to share some positive steps on that. The OfS makes the decisions about allocating the places, but it does take advice from Ministers. My counterpart in the Department for Education and I will be sending a letter to the OfS, with some advice on how it should make decisions about where dental places should be made available, and the fact that UEA has a new dental school is an important factor in those considerations. I welcome the General Dental Council’s recent announcement confirming the appointment of a new provider for the overseas registration exam—the ORE. The new arrangements are set to more than double the annual number of dentists able to join the register via that route, and it represents a significant step forward in addressing workforce shortages and NHS patient access. I met the General Dental Council at the end of last year to discuss its comprehensive plan to address the current ORE waiting list, and to urge it to get that waiting list sorted, because frankly the backlogs were not acceptable. We are looking at an increase in the supply of overseas qualified dentists joining the GDC register. I expect the measures to be taken by the GDC to deliver substantial improvements to the international registration processes, enabling increased numbers of overseas qualified dentists to join the register more swiftly and efficiently. We know that prevention is better than cure. Alongside urgently needed reforms to treat existing poor oral health, I am committed to improving oral health in this country, not just for children, but the wider population too. Water fluoridation is an effective public health intervention for reducing the prevalence of tooth decay and improving oral health inequalities. Under this Government, we will see much needed expansion of water fluoridation in the north-east of England, with further feasibility studies for other parts of the country. We are already investing in integrated care boards to support supervised toothbrushing for three-to-five-year-old children, and our innovative partnership with Colgate-Palmolive will support up to 600,000 children to develop good oral health habits for life. We are working with all sectors of the food industry to make further progress on reducing levels of sugar in the everyday food and drink that people buy. This is to ensure that it is easier for people to make healthier choices. Oral cancer and periodontal diseases are directly caused by tobacco. Dental teams and local stop-smoking services can work collaboratively in a variety of ways. We have already made important progress, but I accept that there is still a lot more to do and a long way to go. We are determined to ensure that everyone who needs an NHS dentist can secure one. Delivering that ambition will take time, and it is vital that we put in place solutions that work for both patients and the dental professionals who care for them. Question put and agreed to.