Gregory Stafford MP: speeches

Speeches

• 23 Jun 2026 · Puberty Blockers · Hansard source

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  There is a third option, which is to get NHS England to motor ahead with the data-linkage study, so that we can use the data that has already been collected to find out the answers to the questions that the Secretary of State is posing. Only then, if the information is not there, should the trial go ahead. Why is he not pushing that third way?

• 16 Jun 2026 · Access to Dental Services: West Sussex · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for securing this important debate, and for outlining the issues that her constituents—and, indeed, many constituents across the country—are facing. It is something of an irony that I find myself speaking on NHS dentistry for the second time in as many days, having co-sponsored yesterday’s Backbench Business debate on precisely this issue, but if anything, that underlines the scale of the issue we are dealing with. The hon. Member for Chichester will know that West Sussex borders my constituency, which spans Surrey and Hampshire. Many of my constituents in Haslemere and the surrounding villages routinely access services across that boundary, and would regard West Sussex as part of their natural health economy. I am sure the same is true vice versa, because dentistry does not respect administrative lines, and access to care either exists or it does not. Let us be clear about the scale of the problem. Oral health is not a luxury issue; as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths) set out so clearly and passionately, it is fundamental to dignity, confidence, employability and overall health, yet access to NHS dentistry has become a postcode lottery. Nearly 14 million people are struggling to access care, and in many areas more than 70% of practices are not accepting new NHS patients, including children. As far as I can tell, not a single dentist in my constituency of Farnham and Bordon is accepting new NHS patients. It is often suggested that we simply have a workforce shortage, but the issue is not that we do not have enough dentists; it is that, understandably, too few are willing to work within a contract that no longer makes sense. The 2006 NHS dental contract, introduced under the last Labour Government, is based on units of dental activity. It pays the same whether a dentist carries out one filling or six, rewards volume rather than complexity, and actively discourages preventive care. That contract is central to why the system is struggling. The Government came into office promising a dental rescue plan, including urgent appointments, contract reform, workforce expansion and a greater focus on prevention. Those commitments were clear and repeated, yet delivery has not matched the rhetoric. In practice, the additional appointments that have been rolled out amount in many cases to only a small increase in urgent capacity. According to the British Dental Association, they are equivalent to a couple of extra slots per dentist per month. At the same time, the long-promised NHS workforce plan has still not been published and, without it, there is no credible road map for how capacity will be met. Warm words about recruitment are no substitute for a clear and funded strategy that tells practices and patients what the future looks like. We also need to recognise inefficiencies within the current system. In some practices, around one in seven NHS appointments is missed, costing individual surgeries tens of thousands of pounds a year. That is not just a frustration for clinicians—it is lost capacity in a system that is already under extreme pressure. However, rather than addressing the structural incentives that contribute to this, the Government’s response has been piecemeal. The consequences of all this are not evenly distributed; rural and coastal communities are particularly badly affected, with some having as few as 10 NHS dental practices per 100,000 people. These so-called dental deserts are not accidental, but the predictable outcome of a system that does not align funding, workforce planning and local need. There is a striking example of underused capacity in my local area. In Haslemere, the hospital contains a fully equipped dental suite that remains unused despite clear local demand. That facility could serve patients across the West Sussex border, given the natural geography of where people access care. Instead, it sits idle. I think everyone in this Chamber agrees with prevention in principle, and with the need to move away from a purely treatment-based model. The challenge is delivery. Likewise, workforce expansion is essential, but announcements without a credible plan do not translate into appointments. Ultimately, what is required is straightforward in principle, but urgent in practice: a properly funded and credible workforce plan, contract reform that rewards prevention and complexity rather than volume, and a serious strategy to address dental deserts that reflects real geography and need. We should also acknowledge the previous efforts of the Conservative Government, including the dental recovery plan, which did attempt to address these issues through recruitment incentives, training expansion and support of overseas qualified dentists. I accept that some measures had limited uptake, but they were at least an attempt to respond to a growing crisis. The question now is whether this Government build on what works or continue to drift without clear direction. Patients do not care which Government designed which contract or which plan; they care about seeing a dentist when they need one. I end with three straightforward questions that I asked the Minister in yesterday’s debate, but to which I did not get an answer. When will we see a fully funded and credible NHS dental workforce plan? How many additional dentists, hygienists and therapists are required to meet demand? What is the plan to ensure that dental deserts do not become a permanent feature of our healthcare system? Patients deserve these answers not in the future, but today.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I think the answer was, “We are.”

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Dr Dash, in her evidence, said that—I am slightly paraphrasing, so I hope I have not got this wrong—NHS England has a number of investigatory bodies that it has established recently, and that although they were not perfect, they were much better, and they could be doing this job. What is your response to that? Dr Benneyworth: NHS England has an investigations unit that commissions regional and national investigations, sometimes from private organisations. We work very closely with the NHS England patient safety team. As I said, we have supported their work in rolling out local investigations around the patient safety incident response framework. We have been instrumental in supporting the training and education around that. We are the only safety investigator with protected disclosure. There is no other body that is like us and can do the same type of investigations in this country, and we are internationally looked at. In fact, I am doing a podcast with Canada tomorrow. Numerous countries are looking at us and saying, “We want the same thing.” There is a handful of investigators like us in Finland and Norway, and they have excellent safety outcomes for their patients, but the rest of the world is looking at us and trying to learn from us, and I am frequently asked to speak internationally about this.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Would you agree with that, Mr Lant? Jacob Lant: Yes. I kind of think, as the debate goes on, that—with the changes to Healthwatch in particular—you could achieve so much without legislation. You could beef up the internal functions for listening to a patient and engaging with them without legislation—there is no requirement for that. You could invest more resource in that, and you could do the same with Healthwatch. You could think about the resourcing of the structures and the support they receive, so you could make that whole system better without legislating to get rid of it. As Sarah said, the NHS changes are a distraction at a time when we should be moving on with focusing on patient care.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I should declare that I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety. Apologies, Dr Dash, I have questioned you on this many times, but I am going to continue to do so. When the King’s Fund, the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation were in front of the Health and Social Care Committee and they talked about bringing HSSIB into the CQC, all three of them said very clearly: “Don’t do it.”. In fact, I can find almost nobody apart from you and the Department who thinks that moving HSSIB into the CQC is a good idea. Does that give you any pause for thought about whether you are recommending the right thing? More specifically, if, as you said to the Health and Social Care Committee, the safe space element would be retained and HSSIB would operate as an independent organisation, how can you square the fact that it would remain independent and yet be part of the CQC? If it does remain independent, what is the need to bring it into the CQC? Dr Dash: The point of bringing it into the CQC, as I said before, is that we are trying to simplify this landscape. There are so many different organisations continually commenting and doing reviews—often replicating the same reviews that other people have done. The concern is that it is distracting rather than enabling. The hope that I had when I made the recommendation, and still have now, is that by bringing HSSIB into the CQC, you can align the work of the two. For example, if the CQC is going round the country and spotting a particular problem with the way in which anaesthesia is being given or with managing patients post-surgery, the CQC could then say to HSSIB—that team of people with specific expertise—“Can you go in and take a look at this? Can you do a detailed focus review of this particular area of care that we are spotting through our visits and which seems to be a particular challenge?” It is that bit about enabling the CQC to identify a problem and then asking HSSIB to review it in detail, and HSSIB bringing its expertise in investigations into the CQC to enable the CQC to go deeper and then come back to the NHS with particular areas, but also to supplement the work of the NHS. I would like to point out that since HSSIB was established, the NHS has established its own much more rigorous, much more robust investigatory teams and processes. Of course, I am not saying that they are perfect—we can all see that—but I encourage all colleagues here today to look at the work they are doing, the specific areas they are reviewing, the outputs of those reviews and the ways in which those are leading to improving care. That feels to me to be a much more systematic way of addressing the concerns of patients, families and staff in the place where those concerns happen, having mechanisms to escalate those through the NHS so you can bring them to regions—some investigations get done at the NHS England level—and having the CQC as an independent body that can separately review and spot if there are problems but also ensure that those investigations within the NHS are happening well.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q What happens if the problem is the CQC? Dr Dash: Well, we then have to deal with that as a problem. That is the same as saying, “What happens if the problem is this organisation or that one?” We have 150 organisations—150. What if the GMC is a problem? What if the Nursing and Midwifery Council is a problem?

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Just so that I am clear, you have internal protocols that would raise stuff if you saw something criminal, and if you were investigating something and potentially could not share the information, that would not prevent any of the multitude of other regulators that we have out there from investigating on their own something similar. Your investigation would not preclude them from being able to investigate as well. Dr Benneyworth: No.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q You are saying that you are a world leader. Dr Benneyworth: We are—

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Sarah, when we were at the Health and Social Care Committee, you and your fellow panellists seemed to suggest that the Government could achieve what they needed to in the 10-year plan without this reorganisation. Could you delve into that a bit more and tell us why you think that is the case? Sarah Woolnough: The Government have an incredibly ambitious agenda, which is partly articulated in the 10-year plan. Our ongoing concern has been that some of the biggest-ticket items that the Government rightly want to achieve to fundamentally shift power to patients—delivering a shift towards prevention, moving care closer to home and allowing more digital enablement—do not require this kind of legislation or a reorganisation. I go back to my first answer: what is honestly the opportunity cost of doing some of this at the expense of more focus and attention on, for example, delivering care closer to home? There is a lot of energy and activity in that area, but the Government want to make really good progress over the next few years. To take that example, if you are really serious, you need to understand what the barriers are to delivering more care in the community, closer to people and patients, and wrapping services around patients. It requires you to flow money differently and to have a different incentive scheme, but that is nowhere near this piece of legislation. Our worry has been about what is not in the Bill, and what is the rightly and fantastically ambitious agenda to improve health for people and patients, versus the opportunity cost of a largely technical piece of legislation that reorganises some central functions.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I reiterate that I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety. Dr Benneyworth and I have had many conversations about this issue. I have two questions. The first is about the safe space. We have seen written evidence, and we have heard when others have attended the Health and Social Care Committee, about the fact that if HSSIB is placed inside the CQC, you could have the farcical situation of one set of CQC lawyers, who are representing HSSIB, suing or attempting to sue another set of CQC lawyers, who are looking out for the CQC situation, because they are trying to get information out of part of their own system. Is that parody or is it a possibility and real problem? Dr Benneyworth: It is a problem and something that potentially could happen. I hope that we would work effectively to try to avoid that. Essentially, and just to reassure the Committee, if we see something of a criminal nature, if there are significant regulatory concerns, we have protocols in place to be able to escalate that. But there is a real risk that potentially, if we held information that the CQC needed in part of its regulatory function, in its enforcement function, we would not be able to share that, because of our legislation, and we would not want to share it, because we want to maintain the trust in the system. It would need to go to the High Court to be able to get hold of it.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Russian Oil Sales · Hansard source

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  4. What diplomatic steps she is taking with international partners to help prevent the sale of Russian oil to companies in China, Turkey and India.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Russian Oil Sales · Hansard source

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  While diplomatic pressure on China, India and Turkey is essential, we must also do more militarily to disrupt the shadow fleet carrying Putin’s oil. I pay tribute to our armed forces who, this weekend, boarded a Russia-linked tanker in UK waters under new Government powers. Since those powers were announced in March, 184 sanctioned shadow fleet vessels have made 238 journeys through UK waters, including 94 journeys into territorial waters, without a single interdiction until now. What is the Department doing with the Ministry of Defence and international partners to ensure that this is a sustained approach, rather than a one-off?

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Can you give a couple of examples? Maria Higson: To take one example, I would love to see an NHS where we step away from short-term activity metrics, and towards outcomes—that is mentioned in the Bill. The constant firefight on activities is quite challenging, so how can we move that dialogue to ensure genuine transformation? That is an example of where we could potentially go further than the Bill suggests, but I am conscious that I am supposed to comment on the Bill, not give my own random thoughts.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q This question is to the Royal Berkshire. In response to my colleague, you talked about the benefits of your council of governors. As a foundation trust, you have significant autonomy. The Bill will allow the Government to cap your day-to-day spend, strip away your FT status and make governance changes. What impact will that have on how your boards can carry out their duties? James Blythe: With a lot of foundation trusts, as the NHS has moved into a period of increasingly tight financial control and as we have needed to recover from the covid pandemic, far closer working has been required between all NHS providers and the centre, to manage both the financial implications and the pandemic’s implications for patient access and patient quality. Having recently moved from a senior leadership, board-level role in an NHS trust to two roles as chief executive in a foundation trust, I do not feel that in the day-to-day relationship with the centre and with our local and regional representatives there is an enormous difference in how we balance quality, finance and performance now. Those foundation trust freedoms were most relevant when we were in a system in which expenditure on health could grow and we were not trying to recover from the challenges that we have had recently. Day to day, the relationship between NHS trusts and foundation trusts feels quite consistent now, so I am not sure that the changes proposed in the Bill will necessarily make a huge difference. As I said in response to an earlier question, it depends entirely on whether the provisions of the Bill are used to set a small number of priorities and let NHS organisations get on with delivering them, or whether they are used more regularly to intervene more directly in our day-to-day operations. A lot comes down to how the regime is operated.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Ms Higson, given that you are a director of transformation, and that this is, in a wider sense, a transformation of the NHS, if you had the money, resources and political capital that the current Government have, would you do this or would you do something else? Maria Higson: Any time we go through an NHS reorganisation, it is distracting—that is the reality of such situations. It is unfortunate that, over the past 15 months, this has been a large distraction for people who are genuinely trying to deliver the three shifts—prevention, digital and neighbourhoods. It is true that it has been a distraction. I am not sure that this Committee is the right space to go into these, as I am aware that we are here to discuss the Bill, but there are probably opportunities to go further on some elements, which may help us in future.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Health Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q On the streamlining point, you have articulated very clearly why you think it is inappropriate, as have members of this Committee, and most of the evidence we have received suggests that it is not appropriate. What do you think is the reasoning behind the Government’s real push for this, when the evidence against it is so clearly strong? Is it simply that they want to save money, in your opinion, or is there an alternative motive? Professor Croisdale-Appleby: If we talk about money— I will be quantitative here—Healthwatch England currently costs £3 million per year and the network receives £25 million per year. To people like me, £3 million and £25 million is a lot of money, but in the greater scheme of things it is not a significant amount, particularly when you think what is being produced for it. I cannot speak appropriately, in my role as chair of Healthwatch, about Government policy. It is not my job to do that; it is the Government’s job. If you want to ask me a question on a purely personal basis so I can step outside of that role, I will be happy to answer, but I always have to draw a very distinct line on anything that I say. Everything so far has been said in my formal position as chair of Healthwatch as opposed to any personal views, because I certainly do not want to comment on Government policy.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head, and as in so many healthcare cases, rural constituencies, and rural and coastal constituencies, are often hit the hardest. In my view, that is where the Government should be spending their efforts and money, in order to ensure that we get the same level of service in those areas as in large urban population centres. That brings me neatly to my constituency, where the consequences are very real. One family contacted me about their daughter, who lives with a long-term eating disorder and developed a serious dental infection. Despite seeking help, they faced delays, long waiting lists and limited access to specialist care, with treatment stretching close to a year. Another constituent raised the case of his wife, a head and neck cancer patient. Following chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, she now faces severe and ongoing oral health complications, yet access to appropriate NHS dental follow-up has been extremely limited, forcing reliance on expensive private care. Those are not isolated cases; they are emblematic of a system that is failing those who need it most. We must also recognise the financial and operational pressures facing dental practices. Rising national insurance contributions, increased wage costs and high levels of missed appointments all add further strain. In some practices, missed appointments alone cost tens of thousands of pounds a year. In Haslemere in my constituency, the local hospital has a fully equipped dental suite that is, unfortunately, entirely unused despite clear local demand. That is not inefficiency; it is systemic failure. Incremental change will not fix this. We need a credible workforce plan, genuine contract reform that rewards prevention, and a strategy for dental deserts that goes beyond short-term fixes. We need a system that aligns capacity with need, rather than relying on historical allocations drawn up nearly two decades ago. More fundamental proposals are also on the table, including models that would extend coverage and give patients greater choice and control. Whether or not every element of that is agreed by the House, what is clear is that the status quo is failing too many people for us simply to continue as we are. I have a lot of respect for the Minister—I am not entirely sure it is mutually given—and I have some questions for him. When will we see a fully funded and credible NHS dental workforce plan? How many additional dentists, hygienists and therapists are required to meet demand? What is the Government’s plan to ensure that dental deserts do not become a permanent feature of our healthcare system? Unless we answer those questions honestly, the Government are not reforming NHS dentistry; they are supervising its managed decline.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is precisely right. The BDA is absolutely right to call for those two things; they are what the Government should be working towards. As my right hon. Friend said, the contract started in 2006 under the last Labour Government and was based on units of dental activity, and it is fundamentally misaligned with clinical reality. For example, it pays the same whether a dentist does one filling or six. Essentially, it rewards volume, not complexity, and it actively discourages preventive care. We also had covid. We have to remember that around 4 million adults struggled to access dental care before covid, and that figure has now risen to nearly 14 million. Of course, covid alone did not create the crisis, but it did significantly accelerate and expose it, and we are still dealing with the aftermath. This Government came into office promising action, yet nearly two years on, the gap between promise and reality is difficult to ignore. The roll-out of additional appointments was delayed, and even where appointments have been delivered, the British Dental Association has noted that they amount to only around two extra urgent slots per dentist per month. That is not transformation; it is marginal adjustment. At the same time, the long-promised NHS workforce plan remains unpublished. The ambition to expand access depends entirely on having enough clinicians willing and able to deliver NHS care. Without a credible workforce strategy, the objectives of reform remain difficult to assess, let alone achieve. As has been mentioned, that pressure is not evenly distributed. In parts of rural England, there are as few as 10 NHS dental practices per 100,000 people. These so-called dental deserts are not random but the predictable outcome of a system that fails to align funding with need.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  I thank my fellow sponsors of this debate: the hon. Members for Yeovil (Adam Dance) and for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay), and the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson), who is not in his place. Oral health is fundamental to dignity, confidence, employability and overall health. The ability to see a dentist when needed should never be treated as a luxury within a universal healthcare system, yet that is precisely what has happened. The consequences of that are not abstract but real, painful and increasingly visible. Tooth decay remains the leading cause of hospital admissions for children aged five to nine—though clearly poor parenting holds a lot of blame. A growing number of people are turning to so-called DIY dentistry because they have no other option. That alone should give this House pause for thought. We must be clear about what is driving this problem. It is often said that it is simply a workforce problem, but that is only part of the truth. As the Policy Exchange report “Pulling Teeth” sets out, there are over 37,000 dentists in England, yet only around 10,500 full-time equivalent NHS dentists. There is not a shortage of dentists but a shortage of dentists who are willing to work under the NHS contract.

• 10 Jun 2026 · Renewables Sector: Employment · Hansard source

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  We are losing over 1,000 jobs a month in our oil and gas industry, and despite what the Secretary of State has just said, we are not seeing a similar uptick in green jobs. Skilled workers are losing their jobs in oil and gas, and are actually leaving the country. The Government’s actions are making the United Kingdom poorer and less secure, and we are waving goodbye to highly skilled jobs. How can the Secretary of State honestly tell this House that there is a transition going on?

• 10 Jun 2026 · Renewables Sector: Employment · Hansard source

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  8. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on levels of employment in the renewables sector in Scotland.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Identity Fraud · Hansard source

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  At my constituency surgery on Friday, Mr De Mesquita spoke to me about his concerns that Report Fraud was not passing on to local police forces information about victims of identity fraud. Given that those victims are often vulnerable and likely to be victims of other crimes, will the Minister let us know what he is doing to ensure that Report Fraud is passing on to local police forces the details of victims of such crimes?

• 1 Jun 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I have asked this question both as a member of the Health and Social Care Committee and on the Floor of the House to the Secretary of State’s predecessor. Given that the new Secretary of State is a numbers man, I hope that he can answer it where his predecessor could not. How much in redundancy payments will this measure cost the British taxpayer, and can he confirm that no person currently employed by NHS England will be fired, paid a redundancy fee, and then rehired by the Department of Health and Social Care?

• 1 Jun 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  On the point of accountability and scrutiny, the Government are looking to abolish HSSIB or bring it into the CQC, they are getting rid of Healthwatch—which serves my constituents so well—in places such as Surrey and Hampshire, and they are getting rid of governors from the boards of foundation trusts. That does seem to suggest that they have not really thought the accountability point through. Would not this be the occasion for the new Secretary of State to stamp his mark on this Bill by conceding that some of the changes in the Bill are not what was intended, and to take this opportunity to give confidence back to the public that they will have the accountability and scrutiny that they deserve?