Stephen Kinnock
MP for Aberafan Maesteg · Labour · United Kingdom
“I thank the shadow Secretary of State for her kind words and look forward to our exchanges across the Dispatch Box. I am ready to engage with her on getting the maximum benefits for the people of Wales.”
“I thank the right hon. Lady and look forward to working with her. My understanding is that there were challenges around the helicopter capability. Decisions were taken by Natural Resources Wales some time ago to change the way that the tendering for helicopter capability works. We certainly need to look at that.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. Like him, I pay tribute to all those involved in the collective and heroic response to the wildfires.”
“I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. Many of the ideas coming forward for devolving power right across our United Kingdom, beyond Cardiff Bay and Holyrood, are very exciting, and I look forward to exploring them with her.”
“Just to be clear, this is not about staying out of the issue; it is about respecting the devolution settlement, but being prepared to work constructively where we can in partnership with the Welsh Government. The hon.”
“I know about and welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s strong connections to Wales. I recognise the connectivity benefits that WSMR’s proposal could deliver, particularly for passengers in Wales and the west midlands.”
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“I strongly echo the hon. Lady’s congratulations to Chichester college. Of course, technicians, nurses and therapists play a crucial role; dentists’ practices function not just because of the dentist but because of the whole team. It was, frankly, a travesty that the hon. Lady’s local area did not have a dental school, and it was a problem that Governments ignored for far too long. I am delighted that we have put that right, and hope she will recognise what a game changer it is. Whereas before, people had to train elsewhere and make an active decision to move to Chichester to practice dentistry, we hope that local people can now train up in the area and stay there if they wish to. That is a real incentive for people in Chichester to choose a career in dentistry, and to stay and serve in Sussex among the people they grew up with.”
“We are not rushing these changes, because the dental system is complex and we have to get this right.”
“Those have been delivered thanks to our work on cutting the underspend; in July 2024, we inherited shocking annual underspends in dentistry—money that the previous Government could not even get out of the door due to their sheer incompetence.”
“1 cause of hospital admission for children aged five to nine. Once again, it therefore falls to a Labour Government to fix the problem, and our job is twofold: to get NHS dentistry back on its feet and to make it fit for the future. We will continue the shift to prevention by backing supervised tooth brushing, water fluoridation, and healthy food and drink for children. We will be consulting on long-term reforms to the dental contract. We have been cracking on with our plan for change to end the misery faced by hundreds of thousands of people unable to get urgent care. To start with, we are on track to have delivered more than 2.5 million additional dental treatments compared with the same period before the general election.”
“I congratulate the hon. Members for Yeovil (Adam Dance), for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) and for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on securing this important debate. When we came into office, we inherited an appalling situation not just in dentistry but right across my primary, community and social care portfolio. The last Government tinkered at the edges—for example, taxpayers footed the bill for their new patient premium to the tune of £126 million, but it had no impact on patients, so we cancelled it as a total waste of time and money. What is more, the previous Government utterly failed to reform the contract, to set up any new training schools or to expand any training places. I am afraid that the end result is this Dickensian state of affairs, where people have been resorting to DIY dentistry and tooth decay is the No.”
“Somerset is an outlier. There are significant problems in Somerset due to access to dentistry, for all the reasons we have talked about in this debate, which are particularly acute in Somerset. I have had calls with a senior official from the ICB there to try to figure out what is going on, because it is an outlier. We have seen a reduction in the underspend of more than 90%, because under this Government, every penny allocated for NHS dentistry is being invested in NHS dentistry. We are committed to reforming the dental contract within this Parliament, with a focus on matching resources to need, improving access, promoting prevention, rewarding dentists fairly and ensuring that we use the skills of the whole dentistry family. We will publicly consult on future proposals. There is no such thing as a perfect payment model.”
“Thirdly, from this month, those requiring complex care, such as treatment for severe gum disease or decay in multiple teeth, will be able to schedule a single, planned package of treatment and pay one patient charge for that, rather than having several courses of treatment. That could save them up to £200 a year—that is money going straight back into the pockets of working people.”
“I thank the hon. Member for that. As I have said, the contract will be reformed within this Parliament. I would be happy to receive a letter or representations from him with a suggestion along the lines he just set out. In the meantime, while we are working on long-term reform, our 2026 reform package includes a range of elements, but here are the three highlights. First, we have embedded urgent dental care into NHS practices, making it easier for patients to get support when they need it most. Secondly, dentists can now receive higher payments for treating patients who need urgent care. That means they have extra incentives to provide urgent care on the NHS for issues such as severe pain, infections or dental trauma.”
“Our proposals from December will see better support for staff, with improved access to discretionary payments such as long-term sick pay, funding for annual appraisals, support for career development, and clearer guidance about their benefits and contracts. At the same time, we will now make it a requirement for newly qualified dentists to practice in the NHS for a minimum period, intended to be at least three years. We are laying the foundations of dentistry recovery. We have put a floor under the decline that began in 2010.”
“We are absolutely committed to making sure that we are training for the future. That is why we have announced the accreditation of two new dental schools, at Portsmouth and the University of East Anglia, and I am delighted to say that each has been allocated 25 new places per year from 2027. This is the first sustained expansion of new dental school places in nearly 20 years, driven forward by this Government and backed by £11 million per annum. There will be a new generation of dentists, training in state-of-the-art facilities. While I was on my visit to Portsmouth, I told students that this Government would back them once they graduated.”
“I suspect that the entire country blames the situation far more on the 14 years of neglect and incompetence from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. We are absolutely committed to delivering a domestic pipeline of dentists. That is vital, but we know that it will take time, so to address the immediate workforce challenge, we have reformed the General Dental Council’s exam process for fully qualified dentists from overseas, so that they can register to practice in the UK. Thanks to the action we have taken, over 2,000 extra dentists per year will be registered every year from 2028. They are generally already living here and waiting for the opportunity to get accredited and start practising; they are being blocked only by the uselessness of the previous Government.”
“I will continue to work with the sector to understand its concerns, and to listen to patients, and I will ensure that the contract reforms we have introduced this year are just the start of building an NHS dental system of which we can all be proud.”
“We are bolstering the workforce with thousands more dentists, delivering more dental school places in underserved areas, and reinvesting nearly £400 million back into NHS dentistry, thanks to our work on the underspend. We are also on the path to delivering 2.5 million additional courses of treatment compared with the same period before the general election. None of this happens by magic. It is thanks to the decisive action and hard work of this Government. And this is just the beginning. As I have stated many times at this Dispatch Box, I am personally committed to consulting on and delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract by the end of this Parliament, but I make no apology for taking time to get this right. The issues are complex and there is no consensus on the perfect approach.”
“It is because we have to work out, particularly with employment lawyers, exactly how the modalities of a three-year tie-in would work. It does impinge on employment law, so careful thought and consultation is required; it will kick in for the 2027-28 academic year. We cannot repair 14 years of neglect and incompetence overnight, but this Government have begun the process of rebuilding NHS dentistry, including through reforms to the dental contract that prioritise patients with the greatest needs. We are taking important steps towards improving access in dental deserts and rural areas, and delivering a better deal for dentists.”
“We know that some patients prefer not to use online services. Online tools complement rather than replace existing routes, such as telephone or walk-in access. The GP contract requires online access to be available during core hours, which eases pressure on phone lines and reception staff as non-digital routes to access care. Under this Government, patient satisfaction with GP access has risen from 61% to 75%.”
“I am in violent agreement with the hon. Gentleman, which is quite unusual. We are clear that patients should not be digitally excluded. The contract is clear that patients should always have the option of telephoning or visiting their practice in person. All online tools must always be provided in addition to, rather than as a replacement for, other channels for accessing a GP. In the past year, since April 2025, some 11.5 million more GP appointments have been delivered.”
“Once again, my hon. Friend has done a great job promoting Harlow, as we are all familiar with him doing in the House. We are improving GP access across the board. We have over 2,000 more GPs since July 2024 and we are launching a £102 million fund to build more clinical space in over 1,000 GP practices across England. A lot has been achieved, but a lot more needs to be done.”
“For 2026-27, NHS mental health spending is forecast to reach a record £16.1 billion, representing a real-terms increase compared with the previous year. That is supported by £473 million in capital funding over the next four years, including investment in new mental health emergency departments and community-based mental health centres. Dorset is one of the places across England to benefit from an expanded urgent and emergency mental health offer, with new mental health emergency departments planned.”
“My hon. Friend is right that his constituents will be able to access care at the new facilities in Poole and Bournemouth thanks to the Government’s investment in the new hospitals programme, but there is more to do. We are committed to addressing poor-quality NHS infrastructure and ensuring that facilities such as Forston clinic are safe, comfortable and capable of high-quality care. That is why we are investing £30 billion over five years for the maintenance and repair of the NHS estate. We would be delighted to meet the hon. Members and local NHS leaders to discuss the issue further.”
“I pay tribute to Anya for the outstanding work she is doing. We are providing early intervention for children’s mental health and wellbeing by rolling out mental health support teams to every school by 2029. We are also investing £13 million to pilot enhanced training for staff so that they can offer more support to young people with complex needs such as trauma, neurodivergence and disordered eating. If the hon. Lady writes to me with further details of Anya’s work, I am sure that we can continue that conversation.”
“This Government are rebuilding England’s broken NHS dentistry system. The dental recruitment incentive scheme encourages dentists to work in underserved areas. Data on the scheme’s effectiveness will be published later this year. We are taking steps to increase the supply of dentists. For example, last week I was very proud to announce the first sustained expansion of dental school places since 2007, backed by £11 million a year. A total of 50 dental school places a year have been allocated.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for that question, and she is absolutely right to raise the issue of the contract. The fundamental problem is that the units of dental activity system is a contractual system that does not work for NHS dentistry. That is why we had the absurd situation when we came into office in July 2024 of a £392 million underspend on NHS dentistry, because dentists were not incentivised. We are changing that. I have got the underspend down to £36 million. There is still a very long way to go and we need to reform the long-term contract to incentivise dentists to do NHS dentistry.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right that, as we know, there are areas in the country that are known as dental deserts. We have to fix that. It comes back to the fundamental issue of how we incentivise dentists to do NHS dentistry regardless of where they are in the country. There are particularly acute pressures in constituencies such as the one she so brilliantly represents, and I would be happy to meet her to discuss them further.”
“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work she did formerly as a care worker. The Government inherited a social care system in desperate need of reform. We are taking action, including by providing over £4.6 billion of extra funding for adult social care by 2028-29 and developing the first ever fair pay agreement for care workers. Baroness Casey will submit her first report this year with recommendations on the further action we should take to move towards a national care service.”
“As I said earlier to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), the fundamental long-term reform of the dental contract is vital to incentivising dentists to do NHS dentistry. I am pleased by how we have really put downward pressure on the underspend. As a result of that, we are on track to deliver more than 2.5 million extra dental treatments than in the same period before the general election.”
“Importantly, we have the £102 million utilisation and modernisation fund to enable more GP primary care estate. We have also committed to delivering 120 more neighbourhood health centres by the end of this Parliament, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s integrated care board has put in an expression of interest for that scheme. I am, of course, prepared to discuss that with him further.”
“As I have said to hon. Members across the House today, there is a fundamental challenge around the dental contract. Units of dental activity do not work as a way of incentivising dentists to do NHS dentistry, so that, fundamentally, has to be fixed. I am proud that, thanks to the measures that we have put in place, 2.5 million additional courses of treatment have been delivered, compared with the same period before the general election.”
“The hon. Member and I have discussed this issue, and I absolutely recognise the need to ensure that social care is provided in the most convenient way possible to his constituents and as close as possible to home. Obviously we are fixing a broken system, but we have delivered £4.6 billion more in funding, we are delivering the fair pay agreement, and we are working hard to ensure that we get adult social care back on its feet and fit for the future.”
“I am delighted that my hon. Friend has submitted that expression of interest. We are now assessing proposals against criteria that include: a fit with our national neighbourhood health strategy; sound estate planning; deliverability; sustainability; and, critically, local need. We will be prioritising areas where there is low life expectancy and higher deprivation. I would be delighted to meet him to talk about his expression of interest and about our programme for revolutionising care in our country through the shift from hospital to community.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right that unpaid carers are the lifeblood of our care system, and we pay tribute to them for the compassion that they show. I was very pleased yesterday to accompany the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), to the launch of the new paid carer’s leave consultation document. I am also pleased to chair the cross-ministerial group that will produce an action plan for unpaid carers, addressing exactly the issues that the hon. Lady mentioned about respite care.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that getting the link between high street optometrists and secondary care working more effectively is vital. That is why I was pleased to announce the £20 million e-referral investment earlier this week. We are also working on a single point of access, to get the digital interface working far more effectively. He is right that we should be focusing on that more; there is a lot more to do.”
“In fact, just last week, I was in Bristol visiting the fantastic Concord pharmacy, which is at the forefront of our efforts to shift care from hospital to community. I thank Saeed and his team for the warm welcome they gave me. I saw how they are delivering blood pressure checks, vaccinations and Pharmacy First services to the people of north Bristol. For too long, community pharmacies such as Concord have been held back from realising their true potential. It is why the Government have given them a central role in our 10-year plan to shift the focus of the NHS from sickness to prevention, from hospital to community and from analogue to digital.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) on raising this important issue. The number of hon. Members present shows how vital community pharmacy is right across our country. Since coming into office, this Government have continued to reverse the decades of cuts to community pharmacy, and have frozen prescription charges for the second year in a row to help our constituents with the cost of living. Wherever they live in the country, women can now get emergency contraception from their local pharmacy free of charge on the NHS. That work has only been possible thanks to the tireless efforts and dedication of pharmacy teams in supporting patients in their communities, delivering a wide range of NHS services, not least in the west country.”
“I also note that the latest data shows that there are 199 pharmacies in Devon, with 914 across the south-west. The Government are committed to supporting the critical role that they play in serving their communities.”
“In areas where there are fewer pharmacies, our pharmacy access scheme provides additional financial support to eligible pharmacies. The scheme helps pharmacies that are critical for patient access to stay open and provide local communities with continued access to medicines and excellent healthcare advice. In certain rural areas where there are no pharmacies, dispensing doctors can supply medicines to patients directly without the need for a pharmacy. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead will be aware that there are currently 14 pharmacies in her constituency. I am aware of the closure of two pharmacies in her constituency since 2017, and that the local population instead get their medicines from the neighbouring dispensing GP or from one of the over 400 distance-selling pharmacies available nationally.”
“Patients across the country can also choose to access over 400 distance-selling pharmacies, which deliver medicines to patients’ homes free of charge, playing a vital role in reaching the most isolated members of our society. However, I acknowledge that access is not the same in all areas of the country. Rural areas often have fewer community pharmacies, so people have to travel further to access a pharmacy as well as other services. Colleagues have also been right to raise concerns about pharmacy closures in the past. Local authority health and wellbeing boards are responsible for assessing whether local needs are adequately met by the existing providers, and what improvements are needed to ensure that people can access services. Those assessments inform integrated care boards’ commissioning decisions.”
“My hon. Friend makes a vital point. It appears that the Scottish Government are stuck in the analogue age, and we need digital solutions. I join him in encouraging the Scottish Government to get with the programme, get with the NHS app and get moving on some of these important initiatives. We all know that we simply cannot make the shift from hospital to community without our community pharmacies. I am not the only one to see that—I am sure that all of us have made use of community pharmacies in our constituencies, and that colleagues will know the importance of the accessibility of pharmacies in towns and villages across the country. There are over 10,000 pharmacies in England. They are busy dispensing medicines, offering advice, and delivering care and services to support our communities.”
“Trust in the advice given by the pharmacy team increased from 61% to 70%, and intention to use the pharmacy if people had conditions covered by Pharmacy First went up from 32% to 37%.”
“We have already begun making huge progress in rebuilding primary care and fixing the front door to the NHS by ending the 8 am scramble, whether through extra funding for general practice, hiring more GPs or the introduction of online services. We will go even further to ease the pressure on GPs by making sure that pharmacists are making the most of their clinical abilities. That is why the Government have been promoting the Pharmacy First campaign, although I take on board some of the very interesting suggestions about the rebranding. I will have a think about that; I am not going to make any rash decisions today. The most recent data shows that the number of people polled who knew that their pharmacy would treat Pharmacy First conditions rose from 71% to 79%.”
“That has included our secondary legislation to enable the expansion of hub-and-spoke dispensing between different pharmacies, to make it possible for more pharmacies to use automated dispensing, realise economies of scale and increase efficiency and productivity. Additionally, GPs cannot currently see live national shortages when prescribing, but this year we will make it possible for GPs to be aware of these shortages in real time. That will mean that patients no longer have to go from pillar to post looking for medicines that are not available, because GPs will be able to prescribe an antibiotic unaffected by supply issues. In the NHS that is fit for the future, pharmacies will play a key role in the shift from hospital to community.”
“Last year, a new Amazon-style prescription tracker went live on the NHS app across nearly 1,500 community pharmacies in England, enabling patients to check on their prescriptions through real-time updates. This year, we want to make digital access even easier, with stronger links between pharmacies and general practice as we build stronger neighbourhood health teams across every community. That will make them match-ready for the introduction of pharmacy prescribing as part of NHS services from this autumn. Digital also has a huge role to play in our supply chains and improving the public’s access to the medication they need.”
“When we talk about prevention, we are not just talking about vaccines, because community pharmacies are also delivering the hypertension case-finding service, which spots people at risk and helps to prevent cardiovascular disease. Nearly 3.6 million free consultations were delivered in the 12 months to February this year. That is a great example of the sickness to prevention shift in action. Turning to our shift from analogue to digital, so many pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are not working with technology that is equal to their skill, talent or ambition. I am afraid to say that it is a similar story across other parts of the NHS, where the outdated technology is holding staff back from realising their full potential. We are supporting pharmacies through digital transformation.”
“Alongside a core offer of vaccination in GP practices, we are making sure that vaccines are offered through sexual health services, maternity services, schools, health visitors and community pharmacies. Selected community pharmacies across the country have already been commissioned to provide MMR and RSV vaccines. The expanded vaccination programmes make use of pharmacy teams’ expertise in delivering vaccines, releasing pressure on GPs and helping to protect the most vulnerable members of our society. We have also seen a significant increase in the provision of flu jabs within community pharmacies, with approximately 4.7 million people being vaccinated by pharmacists in the 2025-26 seasonal flu vaccination programme up to February 2026. That is up by around 600,000 vaccinations the previous year, showing the progress that has been made.”
“That will include supporting the introduction of pharmacist prescribing as part of NHS services in autumn 2026, to expand access to NHS care and strengthen support in communities across England, delivering upon the commitment made in our manifesto. That 10% uplift is almost three times the growth of the overall NHS budget, and it shows that when we talk about making the left shift, we are putting our money where our mouth is. I will start with the shift from sickness to prevention, because community pharmacies will be vital in making sure that vaccine coverage reaches every part of our country. The NHS vaccination strategy in our 10-year health plan commits us to increasing vaccine uptake through primary care. One way that we are getting that done is through the national vaccinations programme.”
“I absolutely commit to writing to the hon. Gentleman with more detail. He raises some important points, and I will get back to him. The Government have always been clear that investment must come with modernisation, and our 10-year health plan and our three shifts set out a clear pathway to getting there. In her 2024 Budget, the Chancellor took important decisions that enabled us to give the sector a record 19% uplift across 2024-25 and 2025-26. It was the largest uplift of any sector across the NHS in that spending review period. I am proud that just a few days ago, we announced another significant uplift in funding for community pharmacies. That means a further £340 million uplift for the sector this financial year, to support the supply of medicines and delivery of vital services across our country.”
“We are in discussions, and I am looking forward to a meeting very soon with Community Pharmacy England. I want to put on the record my thanks to it and, in particular, to Janet Morrison, for the incredibly constructive way in which it has engaged with me and my team on the contract negotiations and the strategic thinking that needs to go into long-term reform. Our latest deal with the sector shows that this Government are in it for the long haul and are fully committed to putting pharmacies right at the heart of getting our NHS back on its feet and fit for the future.”
“It is good for busy pharmacists, who will have more time for clinical services, and for pharmacy technicians, who will be able to use their skillset as qualified professionals. Pharmacies are a massive untapped resource. The NHS that we are building puts them front and centre of care in every community, whether on the local high street or as one of the more than 400 distance-selling pharmacies that can reach across the country, including rural areas. This year, I plan to spend a lot more time with our partners in the sector to seize every opportunity to go further, and I am always keen to work with colleagues across the House on this. As the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) said, there is a clear commitment to long-term reform. Some of the issues that are holding the sector back require fundamental thinking.”
“As announced last week, the new community pharmacy contractual framework for 2026-27 will focus on implementing what we have learned from the pathfinder programme as we roll out NHS pharmacists prescribing nationally from autumn this year. That will deliver the 10-year plan’s ambition for pharmacies to go beyond dispensing and to offer more clinical services as part of an integrated neighbourhood health team. We have also introduced legislation to enable pharmacy technicians to manage dispensing processes that would otherwise be undertaken by pharmacists, and to allow checked and bagged medicines to be handed out in the absence of the pharmacist. That saves time for patients, who will not have to queue for as long to get their medicine.”
“We do indeed have an excellent relationship. If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will go back into some of the discussions that we have been having and write to him with an update on the latest thinking. A second public advertising campaign ran from October 2025 to this January, and I look forward to updating the House when data about its impact becomes available. Another thing to watch is the independent prescribing pathfinder programme, through which 200 sites have delivered 34,000 consultations. About 60% resulted in a prescribing decision, and 90% of those prescriptions were completed without the need to refer to a GP. When it comes to relieving pressure on other parts of the system, the pathfinder programme shows immense promise.”
“Members for taking part in this important debate.”