Speeches by Streeting.

“Part of what Stephen announced yesterday is embedding urgent care into the contract. However, I think we are realistic that contract reform will be an ongoing process. You have heard me say before that there are lots of problems in the NHS that are not about money, and that are about modernisation, getting more bang fo…”

“I certainly do not need to be told what my responsibilities are on this. I always take responsibility for the decisions I take. I acknowledge the extent to which the hon. Gentleman and members of his party seek to weaponise this issue, and to personalise it. [Interruption.] We can simply refer back to his question and …”

“We are currently doing financial planning with the system, as we speak, as part of the medium-term planning framework. We are getting returns from across the system back now, which will help to inform where we are on investment in dentistry. And when Jim next comes back to the Committee—because Sam and I did not make t…”

“The Government is neutral on this.”

“No, it is definitely not the end. This is part of it. What I want to see is consistent improvement in the quality and availability of NHS dentistry over time. We are starting from such a low bar. On our manifesto commitment to deliver 700,000 urgent emergency dentistry appointments, money has been available. ICBs have …”

“That is a decision for Parliament.”

“I think you ask a fair set of questions and we will go away, look at that in detail and come back to you.”

“When it was published—I was in the Chamber at the time—there was an overwhelming consensus in the House. There were some people who criticised and challenged the Cass review at the time, including some outside the House in the LGBT community. I have always supported the Cass review, which was led by one of our country’…”

“And we have got the new MMRV vaccine, which means that from January the MMR vaccine will include chicken pox for the first time. There are lots of positive developments, and that could also point to why there are savings if, for example, you have more conditions confined to a single dose. I will go and kick the tyres o…”

“Let me go away with Ashley Dalton and kick the tyres on all of that. On one hand, particularly when you spell it out not in percentage terms but in actual spend terms, that says to me that we need to take a good look. I would expect that across a whole range of areas, with the emphasis we are putting on productivity an…”

“There is going to be a cultural challenge there. One BMA representative I spoke to in the context of the additional specialty places said, “Look, we want to know where these places are. What we don’t want is loads more geriatricians in north Wales.” Notwithstanding the fact that I am responsible for the NHS in England,…”

“Regardless of whether it is in the medium-term planning framework, we need to give this the specific focus it requires and make sure that we have got resourcing. For example, we have seen a 45% decrease in health visiting numbers over the best part of a decade. Those sorts of things do have an impact. To make sure that…”

“We are working on our workforce plan at the moment. As I said earlier, we are taking a bit more time with that because we want to get it right. This is consistent with the shift we want to see from hospital to community. We want to see more community-based teams. I want people aspiring to a career in the NHS, whether a…”

“On that, Danny, to put all those positive numbers in context, we are not back to where we were in terms of pre-pandemic levels. That is the initial bar we have to set ourselves. I report progress without wanting to sound defensive or complacent, because your central challenge is absolutely the right one.”

“Since coming into office, we have increased mental health investment. In fact, investment in mental health care has increased by an extra £688 million this year, which has enabled us to hire 8,500 more mental health workers, deliver more talking therapies and roll out more mental health support in schools, as we set ou…”

“If we take where we have been ahead of this winter, we have delivered over 17 million flu vaccines for this season, which is 170,000 more than this time last year; 60,000 more NHS staff than last year are getting their jab; and we are on track to deliver the 5 percentage point increase in flu vaccine uptake in healthca…”

“Well, it is a mixed picture on vaccination.”

“I will come back to that in a second. I am about to set out what we want to do with the modern service framework, which is linked to that. I think I have said this before: I am personally uncomfortable with the extent to which the hospice sector is reliant on voluntary donations as opposed to statutory funding. We unde…”

“The right hon. Member is right that we need that data linkage study. That will happen, but it will not produce the same evidence base as a clinical trial, and that is the distinction between the two. It is frankly a disgrace that people have sought to withhold that kind of data and it is really important that we get th…”

“I can certainly promise my hon. Friend that we will keep the House regularly updated. The risks he has described have weighed heavily on my conscience when putting in place a permanent ban on puberty blockers; I have understood the risk involved, and the vulnerability of this particular group of children and young peop…”