Anna Sabine MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I take the hon. Lady’s point, although the same would apply if someone were face to face with a doctor; for example, I could get abortion pills and then give them to someone else after my appointment. I represent a semi-rural constituency, where we struggle with lack of bus routes and medical facilities. I understand her concerns about coercion, but there will be lots of women in my constituency who are victims of domestic violence and coercion for whom it will be significantly harder to access telemedicine were her amendment to be passed. A point was made about middle-class people, but it would be poorer people who struggle to access the service as a result of her amendment.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Yeovil Hospital: Maternity Unit · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend mentions the Somerset NHS foundation trust, which made a decision recently to reduce the number of beds and associated staff at Frome community hospital. Does he agree that those decisions really need wide consultation, allowing for boundaries and relationships with hospitals such as the RUH, as well as proper consultation with staff and the community before they are undertaken?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Cuckooing is the offence of exercising control over the dwelling of another person to carry out illegal activities. As this legislation is drafted, the person whose dwelling it is has to not have given consent for it to be an offence of cuckooing. Amendment 5 would strengthen protections for vulnerable individuals by modifying clause 33 to clarify when a person is presumed unable to give valid consent in certain situations involving potential exploitation. Cuckooing is pervasive in our society. Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan) was in the news discussing a young man with autism who was found dead in his flat after a criminal had moved into his flat and stabbed him. Despite attempting suicide, being a victim of theft, being rescued by the emergency services after accidentally causing a fire, and being assaulted and exploited on numerous occasions, mental capacity assessments were not carried out because the authorities assumed he had capacity. His mother visited him as often as she could, asked the police for welfare checks and urged the authorities to help. My hon. Friend is campaigning with cross-party MPs to amend the Mental Health Bill. Given that the Crime and Policing Bill will provide a new offence for cuckooing, that case shows that we also need to strengthen the protections for vulnerable individuals who may be mentally incapacitated or in vulnerable situations, as amendment 5 would do. It would shift the burden of proof, so if someone were deemed to be in an impaired state, they would automatically be presumed unable to give informed consent unless proven otherwise. It would expand the definition of vulnerability to cover not only legal mental incapacity, but those in exploitative situations such as coercion, abuse or extreme distress. The amendment would help to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable individuals, especially in criminal policing or safeguarding contexts. It also aligns with broader safeguarding laws and human rights protections, and would make it harder for perpetrators to claim that a victim gave valid consent when actually in a compromised state. I urge the Committee to support amendment 5.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Access to Dentistry: Somerset · Hansard source

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  Yes. That is one of the things I have talked about extensively—or rather I have been talked at extensively by my dentist friend about the way in which we manage staff and who does which bits of work in dentistry. It is really important that the Government engage with the British Dental Association about that to understand some of the complexity of how the contracts are working at the moment and what could be improved. If we do not deal with people’s dental pain, we get more pressure on the NHS in the long term: cancers go undiagnosed, and people are forced to use 111 or A&E. It cannot make sense that people have to use 111 to organise their dentistry if they do not have an NHS dentist. People are simply being pushed around the system instead of being treated and instead of illness being prevented. I absolutely understand and appreciate the financial situation the Government inherited from the Conservative Administration, but I am concerned that not enough is happening fast enough on dentistry.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Access to Dentistry: Somerset · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered access to dentistry in Somerset. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. My grandfather might not have been a toolmaker, but he was dentist. He worked near Slough, and as a child I loved visits to the dentist because we got to play in the electric chair and dissolve bright pink mouthwash tablets in plastic cups, and we always got a Lambrusco and lemonade afterwards, which was of course entirely appropriate. That regularity of dental treatment means that, at 45, I am lucky enough to have no fillings at all, and I am not particularly scared of dentists. Many children growing up today in my constituency of Frome and East Somerset are not so lucky: one in five children in Somerset has tooth decay by the time they are five. Although we know that difficulty in accessing an NHS dentist is a nationwide challenge, data reveals that the south-west is particularly neglected. The most recent Office for National Statistics data shows that it has the worst access problems of all regions in England, with 99% of people without a dentist failing to secure the NHS treatment they needed in the last month. Furthermore, only 32% of adults in Somerset saw an NHS dentist in the two years to June 2024, which is much lower than the national average of 40%. The picture for children in Somerset is equally shocking: only 42% were seen by a dentist in the year to June 2024, well below the national average of 55%, and way below pre-covid averages.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Access to Dentistry: Somerset · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. Given the time limitations, I have not come on to discuss the challenges that places such as Somerset face due to their rurality, including the difficulties in getting to services, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The BDA’s asks and policy proposals are clear: the Government must invest in dental services and secure a long-term funding settlement for NHS dentistry that keeps pace with demand, and budgets allocated to NHS dentistry must be ringfenced. The BDA also agrees with the Liberal Democrats that NHS dental practices must be offered relief on the national insurance contributions rise announced in the most recent Budget. The Lib Dems believe that such relief should be extended to the wider health and social care sector, including GP surgeries, care homes, hospitals and pharmacies. Parents and families across Somerset are crying out for extra support with accessing affordable and reliable dentistry, and access to an NHS dentist should be guaranteed to everyone needing urgent and emergency care. To catch up with the national average, Somerset needs extra investment, and it needs it quickly.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Access to Dentistry: Somerset · Hansard source

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  We can absolutely carry out more research, and I urge Members to go and talk to their local school teachers. Yesterday, I found that teachers in Frome have a very clear understanding of why certain children are not going to the dentist. Sometimes that might be down to parental choice, and it is really important that we understand why that is happening as well as why there is not sufficient access to dentistry. To catch up with the national average, Somerset needs extra investment, and it needs it quickly. We need more NHS practices that are financially viable and exempt from the NICs rise, and we need more dentists who are remunerated and well treated in their work. We cannot let Somerset slip further and further away from the national average, which is already a low bar, and create more pain, misery and costs for generations to come.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Access to Dentistry: Somerset · Hansard source

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  That sounds very frustrating, particularly when, as we are seeing, there are so many crises in our dental services. A constituent emailed me in February to say that four weeks previously her husband, who is in his late forties, had had a massive stroke. He collapsed into the sink in the kitchen and hit his face on the taps, breaking his teeth. He was discharged from hospital on 14 February, but cannot speak, is partially paralysed, needs continuing care, rehabilitation and adjustment, and is suffering dental pain. He is not registered with an NHS dentist and cannot afford private dental care, so they called 111 and, after four calls, drove to an appointment where the dentist was given just 30 minutes to treat only one tooth, which he had to remove. My constituents will have to call 111 again to get treatment for the next tooth. The husband needs dentures, is on soft foods and is still in pain. As that case shows, and as my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) pointed out, a failure to invest now in dentistry not only causes more pain for the individual, but gets more expensive and adds to pressure on other areas of the NHS in the longer term.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Access to Dentistry: Somerset · Hansard source

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  Yes, there are certainly some horror stories about tooth removal. It does beg the question as to why NHS dental services in Somerset and the wider south-west have deteriorated in the last seven years. It seems to me that that is symptomatic of a lack of investment in the region, in terms of not only health and social care but withdrawn levelling-up funding and diverted rural England prosperity funding.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Access to Dentistry: Somerset · Hansard source

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  I do agree. Golden hellos are all very well, but the challenge—as I hear from dentists in my constituency—is that once dentists leave NHS dentistry and go into the private sector, which more and more are doing, nothing will ever get them back again. That is a loss that we do not recover from.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Access to Dentistry: Somerset · Hansard source

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  Yes, I absolutely agree, and I will talk later about how poor access to dentistry impacts other parts of the health sector. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to visit a local primary school in Frome, along with a friend who is a dentist. We started with an assembly about the many superpowers the mouth has, in which I was delighted to be given the leading role of saliva. Then we moved on to taking two reception classes through a supervised toothbrushing session. The school is part of the Government’s supervised toothbrushing scheme, an initiative I welcome. Sadly, of the 30 children in the room, 10 did not have consent for the toothbrushing—some because forms had not been returned, and some because there was a parental objection to the activity or to the use of fluoride. To ensure that they did not feel left out, my dentist friend played a game where they counted their teeth instead. She said that, based on what she could see from that game, that group of 10 children had 50 obviously decayed teeth, and one child had at least 10 teeth that would need to be removed under general anaesthetic. Those children were four and five years old. Although the scheme overall is to be welcomed, I hope consideration will be given to having an opt-out rather than an opt-in, to ensure that the children who most need the scheme are actually benefiting. Somerset used to be well above the national average on access to dentistry. As recently as 2018, 55% of adults were seen by an NHS dentist in a two-year period, compared with 50% nationally.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  After such a huge election victory by a supposedly progressive party, it was disappointing to me and many of my constituents that, despite the financial situation that the Government inherited, one of their first acts was to strip vital support from many of the poorest pensioners in our society. I am sure that many of us across the House had hundreds of emails from concerned pensioners, worried about how they would afford their energy bills this winter. Stripping pensioners of this allowance was the wrong thing to do. The Government said that the removal of winter fuel payments would allow money to be spent in other areas, but as with other attempts to raise money such as increasing employers’ national insurance contributions, any savings will be offset, as pointed out by the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), by cold, hungry and unwell pensioners adding to the strain on GPs and social services. It is morally and economically a poor decision. One of my constituents, Patricia, wrote to me about how furious she was that the winter fuel allowance had been taken away. She is no longer eligible for winter fuel payments, but neither is she eligible for benefits or pension credit. She worked in the NHS for over 40 years, but her NHS pension is not large, and she has been a widow for over 10 years so she is managing on a small, single income. Because her husband died when she was 54, she was not entitled to a widow’s pension, either. She wrote to me saying: “It is always the middle people who are squeezed, whose pips are made to squeak, the easy targets”. I could give numerous other examples of pensioners in a similar position to Patricia who do not know what to do. In January, I held a cost of living advice surgery in Midsomer Norton where I brought together organisations and charities such as Wessex Water and Mind to provide a one-stop shop for constituents to come to me with their concerns about bills and benefits. The majority of those who attended the surgery were pensioners anxious about the cost of their utility bills or confused about their eligibility for various payments. More than 2 million pensioners currently live in poverty—that is unacceptable. The pressure that they are feeling will only be heightened by yesterday’s welfare reform announcements. I have already received a deluge of emails from constituents worried about the likely impacts. Loss of winter fuel payments, changes to personal independence payments and increases to national insurance for charities and social care providers all pile the pressure on the least well-off in our country while the Government kick tricky decisions like fixing social care into the long grass. The cost of living crisis is going nowhere, and removing winter fuel payments is just another example of a decision that penalises some of the most vulnerable.

• 5 Feb 2025 · Maternal Mental Health · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for calling this debate, which is clearly so important to her. In my constituency there is an excellent charity called HeartTalks that works with mothers who have experienced baby loss. Would she agree that post-partum check-ups are really important for all women, but particularly those who have suffered baby loss, regardless of the trimester it occurred in?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Accessibility of Radiotherapy · Hansard source

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  On that specific point, I do not want to show off about who has the worst travel times for radiotherapy, but nobody in my constituency of Frome and East Somerset who does not own a car lives within that recommended 45-minute NHS travel time. Does my hon. Friend agree that reliable, quick and affordable public transport is key, and that the recent increase to the bus fare cap has not helped with the situation?

• 12 Nov 2024 · NHS Dentistry: South-west · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) for securing the debate. As the MP for a rural constituency in Somerset, I do not need to repeat the well-known fact that the south-west is one of the worst dental deserts in England. As a mum, and as someone who received excellent dental care as a child because my grandad was a dentist, I particularly worry about the effects on children. With such a scarcity of NHS practices accepting new patients and with the rising cost of living, working families simply cannot afford to go private. More often than not, that means that parents have to unwillingly forfeit their children’s health. This is a topic that people care about up and down the country. The regular emails I receive about it from my Frome and East Somerset constituents normally describe the same regrettable situation: they cannot get a space, there is no room anywhere in the vicinity and they are forced to go to hospital. However, one recent casework email was particularly stark: it was from a retired man and his wife who have recently become kinship carers for their two grandchildren following the sudden death of their daughter. Although one child had “luckily” already started orthodontic treatment prior to their mum’s death, the grandparents cannot find a single NHS practice that will onboard the other child. They receive the state pension and one child benefit. Luck should never be a factor in the question of children’s health, let alone set two siblings apart. NHS dentistry should be there to level the playing field and give access to all, regardless of background or family set-up. I know from having met local dentists and national dentist groups that the growing consensus is that there are two reasons why there are so few spaces in NHS dental practice. One reason is budget; the other is the availability of NHS dentists, many of whom are leaving the NHS or leaving dentistry altogether because of low morale and stress. Recruitment is already difficult, but retainment is even more so. NHS dentistry has been chronically underfunded. The UK spends the smallest proportion of its health budget on dentistry of any European nation, and England spends almost half less per head than other parts of the UK. Just as working families in the south-west are struggling with the rising cost of living, high inflation, energy costs and the cost of everyday household items, so are NHS dental practices. The chronic underfunding has coincided with rising overheads. Most notably, the rise in employer’s national insurance contributions announced in the Budget will have a severe impact on NHS dental practices, which are already on their knees. That tax rise will significantly affect health and care services for patients. The Liberal Democrats fear that it will only make the crisis in our NHS and social care sector even worse. We have urged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to urgently rethink the rise in employer’s national insurance contributions, either by cancelling it for all employers or at the very least by exempting those employers that provide vital health and care services, including GP services, dentists, social care providers and pharmacies. Without that exemption, the health and care crisis will only worsen and regional disparity will widen. Children in the south-west region will depend on good fortune. Parents will feel helpless and will be forced to make sacrifices. It risks setting apart and setting back thousands of children.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Access to Primary Healthcare · Hansard source

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  Before I make some brief comments about dentistry, I must say that some Government Members seemed genuinely confused about our claims that the Liberals had anything to do with the founding of the NHS. I urge them to google the Beveridge report. My grandfather was a dentist, so as a child I was privileged enough to have access to dental care as and when I needed it, although when I was eight I did fall down the stairs at his surgery and break my arm while he was doing my dad’s fillings, so possibly his health and safety was not as good as his dentistry. Many children nowadays do not have the same access to dentistry as I did as a child. In the past year in Somerset, the percentage of children seen by a dentist was just 42%, when the English average is more than 55%. The percentage of adults seen in the past two years is still only 32%. The Darzi review revealed that only about 30% to 40% of NHS dental practices are accepting new children and adult registrations. That is leaving many with no option but to go private. My constituency of Frome and East Somerset is also considered a dental desert. It is predominantly rural, which means that access to services is even more limited. The lack of public transport means that accessing dental services is difficult already, and with practices not taking on new patients, they are pushed even further afield. I had an email from two constituents from Frome earlier this month. They have been unable to see an NHS dentist for four years due to a lack of availability for new patients. They said in their email that “it not only affects our oral health, but contributes to broader health issues that can arise from neglecting dental care”, and they are anxious about potential long-term impacts. Getting a dentist appointment should never be as hard as it is now, and I urge support for our motion to help reduce dental deserts and rescue NHS dentistry from disaster.