Take dentistry, one of the areas most throbbingly in need of a plan. MPs have been raising the issues of “dental deserts” and waiting lists in their areas for years, with ministers popping up and down at the despatch box in the House of Commons to insist that they have a plan to improve things. The regularity with which this plan came up in the Chamber as some kind of valid response to a complaint made Blackadder’s regular cunning planner Baldrick look as though he had never even heard the word “plan” in his life.
That plan was only published in February 2024, after years of ministers telling anxious Tory MPs that it was coming “soon”. At the time it did indeed promise that it would “significantly expand access so that everyone who needs to see a dentist will be able to” and that it “will fund more than 1.5 million additional NHS dentistry treatments or 2.5 million NHS dentistry appointments”. That word “will” there now looks totally out of place. Perhaps ministers would have been more honest if they had merely written “could”, rather than suggesting that it was definitely going to happen.
At this point, Labour might be tempted to start talking about the Tories’ dentistry black hole – or cavity, if you like. In fact, just this week, health minister Stephen Kinnock was attacking the “amateurish” approach that the previous government had taken to dentistry. He described a “Dickensian state of affairs”, and said the state of NHS dentistry “is simply unacceptable and it has to change”. The Government is, he said, “working on a radical overhaul of the contract”.
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The PAC, though, doesn’t seem that impressed with the state of things under the newish Government. It warned there was still no indication on when the fundamental reform would begin.
On the one hand, it is staggering that a government department hasn’t worked out the fundamental answers to questions that are absolutely necessary to ensure a plan is founded in reality rather than just political slogans about 1.5 million more appointments. On the other hand, perhaps it isn’t surprising at all, given how focused Westminster is on the politics of everything rather than policy underpinning it. Politics shouldn’t be about just saying you’re going to get things done; it should be about working out how to get there.
The politics and personality came to dominate, at the expense of policy-making. Now, Westminster has become rather flabby and unfit when it comes to making and scrutinising whether plans are really credible.
Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator magazine
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