Stephen Kinnock MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 23 Jun 2026 · Puberty Blockers · Hansard source

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  I would like to start by declaring an interest, because my son Milo, of whom I am extremely proud, is a trans man. I have listened to colleagues very carefully over the course of our proceedings. There have been some truly heartfelt speeches, and this strength of feeling is certainly warranted wherever children are concerned. The Government welcome this scrutiny, and I want to thank Members from all sides of the House for the constructive tone and substance of this debate. I am not the Minister who is responsible for leading on this policy in the Department for Health and Social Care. Nevertheless, I feel a great deal of responsibility for the health and wellbeing of children in our country. As the Minister of State for Care, I am, for example, responsible for making sure children at end of life are receiving the right palliative and end-of-life care. And tooth decay, for example, has an appalling effect on children’s wellbeing. When it comes to gender incongruence, I cannot help but think of those children suffering in great distress, who may even be watching our proceedings this evening, and I want them to know that all of us in this Chamber want what is best for them. We might disagree about how we get there, but I do not doubt the sincerity of anyone who has spoken today. Fundamentally, our approach on this side of the House is to be led by the evidence, and on this I pay tribute to Dr Hilary Cass, who has taken on one of the most sensitive and polarising issues of our times with such courage and professionalism. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson)—I hugely respect her expertise as a paediatrician—has said that our decisions could be motivated by “fear and hostility”, but that is not a charge that anyone could level at Dr Cass, who has shown the utmost courage and professionalism from the moment that she was appointed. It was on the strength of her independence and integrity that the previous Conservative Government, of which the hon. Lady was of course a member, accepted her recommendations. One of those recommendations was for a regulated, robustly safeguarded trial. Yesterday, Dr Cass said that she is “absolutely convinced that more children will be harmed if we don’t do the trial than if we do.”

• 23 Jun 2026 · Puberty Blockers · Hansard source

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  This is a debate about hormones for suppressing puberty, and is related to the matter that the hon. Lady raises, but it is important that we get the sequencing right. Let us look at the trial and the evidence. That is part of the process of understanding the milestones and the forks in the road faced by children who are experiencing gender incongruence. Let us do this one step at a time. We are proceeding carefully, cautiously and under the mantra that the safety and wellbeing of children are non-negotiable, and with clarity that a robustly scrutinised trial with rigorous safeguards is the only way of establishing a robust evidence base for puberty-suppressing hormones. Many hon. Members have asked about safeguards, so let me remind the House what they are. A child can participate only with the consent of a parent or guardian and the child’s own consent or assent, and only if they have had a diagnosis of gender incongruence for at least two years; if they are of stable physical and mental health; if they are not subject to any safeguarding concerns; if they and their parents demonstrate sufficient understanding of the nature of the treatment, including its potential advantages and disadvantages; if they have been deemed clinically appropriate by both their NHS care team and the national multidisciplinary team; and if they are already accessing NHS gender services, including participation in a tailored package of psychosocial care.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Puberty Blockers · Hansard source

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  As the right hon. Lady will know, a lot of this is about the distress and the tremendous mental health pressure that young people going through gender incongruence feel. Clearly, one of the outcomes that we will look for from the trials is an alleviation and an amelioration of those significant mental health issues and distress. Those are the kind of outcomes we want to see to help some of those young people who often end up in awful situations, leading to self-harm and other terrible situations. Some colleagues have asked about the wider support we are providing for children and young people with gender dysphoria and incongruence. I am pleased that the Pathways study is just one part of the wider work being done to ensure that the support is there. For example, Pathways Horizon is an observational study of all children and young people attending NHS children and young people’s specialist gender services. Pathways Connect is a brain imaging study, Pathways Voices will interview young people, and Horizon Intensive is about ensuring that there is a comparison group of 300 participants who are expressing gender incongruence. Furthermore, NHS England has opened three new children and young people’s gender services in the north-west, London and Bristol, with a fourth planned for the east of England this year. I can confirm that the Government aim to have a service in every region of England in the coming years. These services use a different model with multidisciplinary teams, including mental health support and paediatrics, within specialist children’s hospitals to provide holistic care. The new services will increase clinical capacity and reduce waiting times so patients can be seen sooner and closer to home. I can update the House that waiting lists for children and young people’s gender services have come down since this Government took office. As of April, nearly 3,000 fewer children and young people were on the waiting list compared with September 2024. This Government stand by the principle that we will always be led by clinical advice and clinical evidence, but that does not mean we take these decisions lightly, and it does not mean that we are abdicating our responsibilities either. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has requested monthly updates on the progress of the trial, including any emerging risks. Throughout this process, he has immersed himself in the detail, scrutinised the issue and sought the strongest assurances from his most senior clinical advisers. We have received those assurances and are proceeding on the basis of evidence, not ideology. I end with regret that it appears that the cross-party consensus on Dr Cass’s expert review has been lost, but also with hope that colleagues can get behind Dr Cass’s work again. We will move forward on the basis of taking decisions based on the expertise of clinical and medical professionals, and acting within clearly defined safeguards and robust oversight, including in this House, to provide the best quality of healthcare and support for all children and young people to access what they need. On one level, this is a specific debate about a specific issue, but when we zoom out, we see that it goes to the heart of what our NHS is about, which is how best to do the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number of people. When we look at this through that basic ethical prism, there can be no doubt that this Government’s position is the right one. A small cohort of vulnerable children are struggling, and it is our job to help them—it really is as simple as that. I therefore urge colleagues to oppose the Opposition’s motion. Question put.

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

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  I am so delighted that the hon. Lady intervened, as I was about to come to that. We have reduced the underspend—one of the many utterly shocking things I found across my portfolio when we came into office in July 2024 was a £392 million underspend on NHS dentistry. We had an absurd situation where demand for NHS dentistry was going through the roof, but because of utter incompetence, the previous Government were underspending by £392 million. We were hands-on on that. We have the ICBs commissioning; we have micromanaged this. I am delighted to say that we have got the underspend down to just £36 million in 2024-25. That is how we have managed to massively boost the number of treatments. According to the most recent data available, the Sussex integrated care board, which serves the constituency of the hon. Member for Chichester, has delivered over 67,200 more NHS dental treatments. That is 11% more treatments between April and October last year compared with the same period before the general election. I hope that answered the question from the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths). While we have made significant progress, I do not downplay for a second the issues faced by the constituents of the hon. Member for Chichester. Whenever I reel off these statistics in a debate or on the morning media round, I can hear people saying, “Okay, you say that, but where is my dentist appointment?” I understand that there are pockets of progress and areas where we are not at all where we need to be. But it is important to be realistic: 14 years of neglect cannot be put right overnight. The result of that neglect has been people doing DIY dentistry, and the No. 1 reason why children aged five to nine are going to hospital is tooth decay. It is a shocking and Dickensian state of affairs, frankly, and the Government take it very seriously. As I said in the main Chamber yesterday, the solution is not to bring out sticking plasters and press releases, and to tinker around the edges. The sector needs long-term reform, and the Government have laid the groundwork for a recovery that is based on solid foundations, not the sort of gimmicks that we saw under the previous Government. For example, the patient premium cost £126 million and we did not see any increase in new patients. We had to scrap that because it was a waste of time and money. The most important thing we can do to end dental deserts is train the next generation of dentists in the relevant areas. We are taking steps to increase the supply of dentists across the country. Earlier this month, I announced the first sustained expansion of dental school places since 2007. Let that sink in for a minute. It is 20 years since we had any increase at all in dental school places, apart from a one-off increase after covid. Backed by £11 million, a total of 50 dental school places per year have been allocated equally to the University of Portsmouth and the University of East Anglia.

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

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  It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for securing this important debate and I am delighted to wish her a happy Sussex Day. We may come from different political traditions, but she occupies Gillian Keegan’s former parliamentary seat, and I occupy Gillian’s former office in the Department of Health and Social Care, so we at least have that in common. This is the second debate that I have responded to on dentistry in as many days—I was in the Chamber yesterday, and I am here in Westminster Hall today. That shows what a critical matter this is to our constituents, which is why this Government are taking clear action. On access to NHS dentistry, I point to 1.8 million extra treatments in the first seven months of the last financial year. In fact, taking the last full year into consideration, we are on track to deliver more than 2.5 million more dental treatments than in the year leading up to the general election.

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

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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. It will also attract young people from across the country, who may choose to continue their careers, make their homes and put down roots in the area. Similarly, the most important thing we can do for the long-term dental health of the hon. Lady’s constituents is to make the shift from treatment to prevention. In 2024, more than one in 10 children aged five years old in Sussex ICB had experience of tooth decay, despite it being largely preventable. We are backing supervised toothbrushing through a national programme that will reach up to 600,000 children in the most deprived areas of England, backed by £21.5 million. Over £290,000 has been invested across West Sussex, East Sussex and Brighton and Hove, and over 45,000 free toothbrushes and toothpastes have been delivered through our innovative partnership with Colgate-Palmolive. We are beefing up the soft drinks industry levy to remove more sugar from children’s diets and updating standards so that there is healthier food and drink in schools. This year, we are undertaking vital reforms in dentistry. Two months ago, we embedded urgent dental care into NHS practices, making it easier for patients to get support where they need it most. The problem we heard time and again from the sector was that dentists were not incentivised to undertake NHS work, so we brought forward a package of reforms, from which I will highlight two measures. First, dentists are set to receive higher payments for treating patients who need urgent care, taking the payment for a unit of dental activity from approximately £42 to approximately £75. Dentists now have the extra incentive to provide urgent care for issues such as severe pain, infections or dental trauma on the NHS. Secondly, from this month, those receiving complex care, such as treatments 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 it, rather than having several courses of treatment and paying a patient charge for each. That could save people more than £200 per year—money going straight back into the pockets of working people. We are also paying dentists more fairly for this work, to incentivise them. The appointments also mean that we are easing some of the pressures on St Richard’s hospital in the hon. Lady’s constituency, because we are preventing more painful conditions from spiralling into avoidable hospital admissions. In a nutshell, our 2026 reforms are putting patients first and supporting those with the greatest need while backing our NHS dentists, making the contract more attractive and effective, and giving them the resources to deliver more. The Government remain committed to rebuilding NHS dentistry after years of neglect. We have made a start with reforms to the dental contract that prioritise patients with the greatest need, support better access to urgent care and deliver a better deal for dentists. Alongside that, we are taking targeted steps to support areas where access is most challenging, including through workforce incentives, new school places and reforms to the exams process for overseas-qualified dentists, which will deliver an additional 2,000 dentists per year by 2028. And we are just getting started: as I have said previously at the Dispatch Box, I remain firmly committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. However, meaningful reform requires careful consideration. The challenges facing NHS dentistry are complex, and there is no single universally agreed solution or perfect payment model. That is why it is important that we take the time necessary to develop reforms that are effective and sustainable, and that work for patients and the profession. I will continue to engage closely with dentists, representative bodies and patients to ensure that the reforms we bring forward address long-standing concerns and support the long-term future of NHS dentistry.

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

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  Yes, but before the hon. Lady intervenes, I will say that I am fully aware that Portsmouth is in Hampshire, so I ask her not to give me a deluge of letters from her constituents.

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

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  We clearly need to check our GPS on that one. I understand that there are challenges, but the point is that, for the first time in decades, Chichester has a school in its vicinity that is training dentists who will be within striking distance. Who knows where all the dentists will end up living when they have done the training? But our data suggests a strong correlation and causation between where somebody goes to dental school and where they end up putting down roots and working, living and settling. That is very much our hope for the 25 places that are, for the first time in 20 years, going to the University of Portsmouth, which I was pleased to visit just a few weeks ago.

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

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  We will be publishing the data on the golden hellos in August, along with all the other data. There is a time lag from the end of the financial year to when we have collated all the data—it takes a few months—so there will be data in August on a number of issues we have discussed today. The challenge of golden hellos is that we run into problems around the contract, incentivising people to do NHS dentistry, and getting people to live and work in certain parts of the country when they might be more attracted to a big city. We are aware of the challenges for coastal areas. On the Portsmouth announcement, I have never driven from Portsmouth to Chichester, but I understand it is about a 20-minute drive, depending on the traffic—

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  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. We are not rushing these changes, because the dental system is complex and we have to get this right.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  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. 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.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  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. 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. 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.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  indicated dissent.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  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 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. 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.

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  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. 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. 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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Primary Care: Non-digital Access · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Primary Care: Non-digital Access · Hansard source

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  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.