Victoria Atkins (25424)
This page contains possible times in debates that Victoria Atkins may have disclosed an interest.
This match is loose and is likely to include false positives.
2024-05-23: Match score 70%
May I gently remind the hon Lady that her party leader is a former barrister? I declare an interest: so am I
2024-04-23: Match score 70%
I will, of course, continue to take an interest in this matter
2024-04-16: Match score 69%
I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend. I will genuinely come to that, because I know that that is a concern that colleagues have. I will develop my arguments, if I may, but I also remind him of my declaration of interest and, believe you me, I have no interest whatsoever in making life easier for smoking gangs. That is why as part of the package I will announce further funding and investment for law enforcement agencies both at the border and at local level.
2024-04-16: Match score 69%
I want to say something about the measures on vaping because, as Members have already demonstrated today, there is a great deal of interest in the subject
2024-01-23: Match score 69%
I thank my hon. Friend for her interest and, of course, her many years working as a clinical psychologist. She brings that experience to the Chamber. National commissioning guidance to integrated care boards was published in November. It sets out that a mental health in-patient stay for a person with a learning disability
2024-09-09: Match score 68%
] A Member sitting opposite says, “So what?” Given the risk of conflicts of interest—that, rather than the right hon Gentleman’s inexperience, is the point of this UQ—has Mr Milburn declared his business interests to the Department? Can the right hon Gentleman reassure the House on how such conflicts are being managed, so that we can get a sense of the scale of this open-door policy and Mr Milburn’s access?
2024-02-07: Match score 68%
My right hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Indeed, that is exactly the sort of discussion I am having with my right hon. Friend the Levelling Up Secretary, because I am really interested in having that connected and joined-up approach between planning and health. I think it could bring dividends for us all.
2024-02-07: Match score 68%
My hon. Friend will appreciate that I get a lot of invitations, but I will do everything I can to meet him. His passion and ambition for his local area shine through, and not just in the question he asks today but in the question he asked the Prime Minister a few weeks ago. He is absolutely right: we need the General Dental Council to work with us—I think it will—to ensure that we can get more international dentists registered as quickly as possible, for the benefit of our constituents.
2024-02-07: Match score 67%
I thank my hon. Friend and recognise the enormous expertise he brings to the Chamber on this matter. He knows—he has genuinely talked to me about this on many occasions—the important role that the General Dental Council plays to ensure that we get international dentists registered as quickly as possible. I very much look forward to discussing that with the GDC so that we can get more international dentists on to our register and working in our practices.
2024-02-07: Match score 66%
I remember that he has taken an interest in this issue
2024-04-15: Match score 65%
I am conscious that I have just answered that, but may I put on the record my thanks and respect for everything that the hon. and learned Lady has done in this field? She has at times had to walk a very, very lonely path, and I find it extraordinary that parliamentarians—who are elected to represent the best interests of our constituents, and indeed of our countries—would find themselves under that sort of pressure for simply stating biological fact. I hope that the hon. and learned Lady will be working with me to ensure that the recommendations in the Cass review are applied not just in England but in Scotland, in Wales and in Northern Ireland.
2023-12-05: Match score 65%
I thank my right hon. Friend very much for her kind words. She will remember how much I enjoyed sitting on the Front Bench alongside her when we were in the Home Office. In terms of her work in Essex, she is a formidable campaigner and she will know that the decision on such a healthcare centre lies with her integrated care board, to which the Government have given some £183 million of capital funding between 2022 and 2025. I am sure she will make a compelling case to the ICB for such a centre in her constituency. Interestingly, the Mid and South Essex integrated care board is one of seven sites receiving additional support and funding from NHS England to address health inequalities, and I know she will pay close attention to how that is spent.
2024-02-07: Match score 65%
I hope the hon. Lady will, as usual, be the help that I expect her to be to her constituents in publicising this plan. We are getting graphics and information out to all Members of Parliament, so that they can help their constituents understand what will be available in their area, because each and every one of us wants the very best for our constituents. She will be interested in the new patient premium, which is encouraging dentists back into NHS practice, or into NHS practice for the first time, and in the increased price for units of dental activity. Reform of the dental contract is part of our agenda, but we realised that we needed to give immediate help to communities such as hers.
2024-04-16: Match score 64%
Before I start, I should declare an interest: before I was elected to Parliament, I used to prosecute serious and organised crime, including organised crime gangs who attempted to import illicit cigarettes.
2024-02-07: Match score 64%
I understand my hon. Friend’s point, and I commend him for his work to ensure that his constituents receive the care and help that they deserve. On training, I hope he has drawn out from the plan the emphasis that we are putting on long-term ambitions. We understand that we need to train more dentists and get internationally trained dentists registered in our system. We recognise the critical role that dental hygienists and therapists can play as well.
2024-02-07: Match score 64%
The right hon. Lady will know that part of the focus of the long-term workforce plan is to train people where they are most needed. I will happily arrange for her to meet the relevant Minister. On registration, the current system is not like a GP practice where, once a family is registered, they can only go to that GP. The whole reason that we have been encouraging dentists to update their details on the NHS website is so that people can move around to visit different dentists to get the treatment they need. Today’s plan will help turbocharge those efforts.
2023-12-05: Match score 64%
I am delighted to be able to inform the hon. Member that NHS England has provided guidance for ICBs that requires dental funding to be ringfenced, with any unused resources redirected to improve NHS dental access in the first instance. Interestingly, ICBs will report their expenditure against the dental ringfence to NHS England as part of their in-year financial planning, which will happen at the end of this financial year.
2024-04-16: Match score 63%
The hon. Gentleman raises a very fair point. Interestingly, the latest survey of retailers shows—I think I am right in saying it—that the majority of retailers support this policy, but he knows just how carefully the Government have listened to the concerns of retailers. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) has led a relentless campaign on this issue, and I was really pleased that the Home Secretary was able to announce in recent weeks a specific crime relating to violence against retail workers.
2023-09-06: Match score 63%
I note with interest those parts of my hon Friend’s speech concerning different types of fuel for the airline industry
2024-02-07: Match score 63%
I am delighted to tell the House today that we are going further in three key ways. First, we will consult on a tie-in to NHS work for dentistry graduates, because right now too many are choosing to deliver private work over valuable NHS care. More than 35,000 dentists in England are registered with the General Dental Council, but last year almost a third worked exclusively in the private sector. Training these dentists is a significant investment for taxpayers, and they rightly expect it to result in the strongest possible NHS care. That is why, this spring, we will launch a consultation on a tie-in for graduate dentists and how this could deliver more NHS care and better value for taxpayers.
2024-01-09: Match score 62%
] The hon Member for Ilford North may be interested to know why we have identified the north-east, given that he read out so many constituency names in his speech
2024-02-07: Match score 62%
That is exactly what we are doing, and not just in relation to other European nations but in relation to other countries around the world. We want the General Dental Council to ensure that qualified dentists from overseas are recognised and supported, and get on to our registers as quickly as possible.
2024-04-15: Match score 62%
However, we have to acknowledge that this has been such a long and toxic debate that there will be people who want answers. I appreciate the fact that the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) has walked back some of his comments, but it is important that we acknowledge the toxicity, so that we can move on and achieve exactly what the hon. Lady and I, and others around the Chamber, seek. [Interruption.] Interestingly, Opposition Members are chuntering from sedentary positions. I think that we can make a real change, but a little less sniping from the sidelines and a little more constructive work is needed.
2024-01-09: Match score 62%
The hon. Lady has raised an interesting and important point, because, of course, dentists are independent contractors to the NHS, and I have to work with the levers that are available to me. As I have said, we have already invested £1.7 billion to try to help with the recovery, and the House will, I hope, look forward to our dentistry recovery plan when it comes to other ways in which we can improve that. The important point, however, is that because those dentists are independent contractors, we must work with the profession to encourage them back to the NHS to offer the services that we all want to see.
2024-01-08: Match score 62%
I hope the hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that we have made cancer treatment waiting times a key focus of our elective recovery plan, which has been backed by an additional £8 billion in revenue funding across the spending review period. We have made progress by delivering record numbers of urgent cancer checks, with more than 2.9 million people seen in the 12 months to October last year. Of course there is more to do, and I would be very happy to meet him and colleagues across the House to discuss the practical ways by which treatment can reach our constituents. He will not be surprised to know that cancer is a priority not just for me personally, but for the Government as a whole.
2024-01-09: Match score 61%
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes a fair point about measuring within the system how much work NHS dentists are doing. As I say, we are looking at all of this in the work that we are doing on the dentistry recovery plan. I repeat that I want to make it as simple as possible for dentists to register with the NHS, to continue offering the care that we all want them to, so I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention.
2024-04-15: Match score 61%
It is morally and medically reprehensible that some online providers not registered in the UK have stated their intention to continue to issue prescriptions to children in this country. I am looking closely at what can be done to curtail any loopholes in prescribing practices, including legislative options. Nothing is off the table, and I will update the House in due course as we progress that work at pace.
2024-04-15: Match score 61%
I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me if I have misunderstood her question, but I think she is referring to the decision that NHS England will prevent under-18s from accessing adult gender services. A consultation has just closed and we are looking at the results of that, but I am very sensitive to the needs of young people within that 17-to-25 cohort for whom the “cliff edge”, as it has been described to me, of moving from children’s services to adult services may not be in their best interests. I promise that that is very much the focus of my work on this in the weeks ahead.
2024-02-07: Match score 60%
We have very much tried to ensure that dentists who already hold NHS contracts will keep them and keep working them. That is why we have fallen upon the new patient premium to make it more in their financial interests to take on new patients. I appreciate the hon. Lady’s point about retention, which, again, we are looking to address through the increase in the UDA. But we all acknowledge that dentists are independent contractors, so we must ask them—and particularly those who are new dental graduates—to do their bit and help our NHS out.
2024-01-09: Match score 60%
I thank the hon. Lady, and particularly for the constructive tone of her intervention, because she is right. This is not simply about teeth health; it is also about the conditions that dentists check for—probably without anyone quite realising that they are doing so. I will take the hon. Lady up on her invitation to write to her on the figures, but that is why we are looking at health inequalities across the country and, importantly, focusing on encouraging dentists to re-register with the NHS if they have left, because it is vital for tackling much wider health conditions in addition to the pain and discomfort that tooth decay can bring.
2023-09-06: Match score 60%
I hope that retailers watching the debate will note the Minister’s interest in their doing the right thing and ensuring that those savings are passed on
2024-03-05: Match score 60%
The hon. Lady describes a very interesting piece of work. I will ask my ministerial colleague to meet the charity, as we want to support women. Indeed, part of our work across the women’s health strategy is ensuring that maternity services are not just safe, but trusted by mums-to-be.