Speeches by Dixon.

“Why was there no quality assurance on it?”

“Do you also have to notify formally the national statistician? Are there any other actions that you will be taking?”

“Is that because of the assumptions about the underspend?”

“Sorry, I should have declared my conflict of interest: I previously worked as a civil servant in the Department of Health. Today, we are looking at the so-called dental recovery plan. When it was published in February 2024 under the previous Government, it set out some ambitious aims for an additional 1.5 million treat…”

“Thank you for explaining clearly and in lay terms the different elements of the plan. I know that colleagues will come back to those, but I was really thinking about the headline: are we or are we not on track to deliver the 1.5 million? If not, how many additional courses of treatment have been delivered under the pla…”

“I am trying to get a number in relation to the 1.5 million, but I have not yet heard “We have delivered x”. Have we delivered any additional appointments?”

“In terms of recovery, relative to before the pandemic, some of the data suggests that there are 4.7 million fewer treatments than before the pandemic. We are still way off even recovery, recognising that even before the pandemic, dentistry was in a parlous state.”

“I suppose the other measure is the extent to which people are accessing at all. As we have said, pre-pandemic only half of all people were accessing anyway—we may come on to some of the more fundamental issues with dentistry in general and how they are going to be resolved. We are also seeing dentists continuing to opt…”

“I will leave it to colleagues to follow up on that point, but thank you, Ali.”

“I would like to move on to another element of the recovery plan, which is the uplift in the UDA, or units of dental activity. It was set at £28, I presume with the hope that it would better compensate dentists. What analysis have you done of the impact of the uplift in the UDA?”

“I would like to carry on probing on the way that we are currently paying for dental care. I will also quote the NHS Confederation, which says: “The current NHS dental payment system, based on…UDAs…has led to inefficiencies in both care delivery and budget allocation, with many dental practices avoiding NHS work due to …”

“Procedures.”

“Yes. Obviously, lots of suggestions have been made about dental contract reform, and I am sure we will come on to that—or should we just ditch that and recognise that we need to directly commission community-based health? Would not that be better value for money ultimately and a quicker remedy than doing some of these …”

“I think that earlier in the hearing there was a general view, which I was pleased to hear from Amanda, that the dental contract as it currently stands needs radical reform. I think that was the broad view. I would like to come down to some of the potential options. We have received evidence from a number of different o…”

“Thank you for that answer, Sir Chris. I guess Ministers also want advice on value for money. In setting out any options and the analysis that you already have, we have spent the last two hours discussing what has and has not worked in relation to value for money. We know that there are people, perhaps at the wealthier …”

“Excuse my ignorance, but could you just explain for the Committee what a heat network is?”

“Okay. I am really keen to understand more about the data used previously to identify high-volume customers—for example, data from the NHS about people with chronic conditions or conditions that mean they are higher energy users. That is also true of disabled people and some older people who may be housebound. It is rea…”

“Indeed, but one might otherwise have assumed that they were vulnerable customers so I think it is important that we are clear about which schemes are supporting which type of customer, and who therefore may be left out of some of the energy support schemes.”

“But at the moment, those with a disability are not eligible. I do not believe it is linked to attendance allowance, carer’s allowance or the disability personal independence payment.”

“Because we keep bandying the term around, as you know from previous hearings, can you give us a sense of who you and the suppliers are defining as “vulnerable customers” for the purposes of this winter support?”