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Dental Services

17. Mr. Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con): If she will make a statement on NHS dentistry. [56309]

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Ms Rosie Winterton): In the past two years we have invested an additional £250 million in NHS dentistry, recruited the equivalent of an extra 1,459 dentists and funded an additional 170 training places per year. From April, the NHS will implement major reforms, including devolving commissioning to local level and introducing new contracts for dentists.
 
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Mr. Crabb: Last week, in a debate in the House, Members from across the country expressed concerns about the possible negative impact of the new NHS dental contract. Will the Minister promise to review the new contract if, as many people predict, it leads to a further exodus of dentists from the NHS?

Ms Winterton: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that all the early indications are that the vast majority of dentists will take up new contracts. None the less, I understand that there are big changes for dentists and I have written today to a number of organisations to announce that I intend to set up an implementation review group to look into how the changes are bedding down so that we can discuss their effects with all involved. However, as I have said, I believe that the deal will be a good one for dentists and for patients.

Mrs. Betty Williams (Conwy) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend agree that the problems in NHS dentistry that we
 
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are experiencing in England and Wales are due to the previous contract, and that it needed to be reviewed? Does she agree that the closure of dental schools, too, was a cause of the problems that we face now?

Ms Winterton: I could not have put it better myself—but I shall try. My hon. Friend is right to say that immense problems were caused by the previous contract, and also by the cut in dental fees that the Conservatives introduced when they were in power. We have had to reverse the damage done by the Conservatives, which is why we are introducing a new contract that will take dentists off the drill-and-fill treadmill and allow them to spend more time with patients, for reasonable remuneration of £80,000 a year for a highly committed NHS dentist in return for a 5 per cent. lower work load, guaranteed for three years. As I said earlier, I believe that the vast majority of dentists will take up the new contract, but where they do not, it is now within the power of PCTs to recommission dentistry from other NHS dentists in the area.

Immigration (Work Permits)

3.31 pm

Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab) (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the new managed migration points system for work permit holders.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr.   Charles Clarke): I am today publishing the Government's response to the recent consultation on a new points-based system for managed migration. This is being published as "A Points-Based System: Making Migration Work for Britain", and copies are available in the Library.

I am very pleased to be able to publish our detailed policies for a new managed migration system, which are a result of an intensive consultation process involving face-to-face contact with 1,200 stakeholders, as well as 517 written responses. The United Kingdom needs a world-class migration system to attract the brightest and best from across the world, while being robust against attempted abuse. The new system will give employers and educational institutions a stronger role in the managed migration system, and will introduce a more transparent and objective method of points-based structured decision making, which will significantly improve the quality of decision making and reduce the opportunities for abuse.

Keith Vaz: I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and welcome the Government's attempts to simplify a complicated system. However, I remain gravely concerned that the new scheme will not address certain skills shortages in some areas—for example, chefs in south Asian restaurants. There are 10,000 south Asian restaurants in Britain, contributing £3.2 billion to the British economy, and there are 20,000 vacancies. The scheme will not address their problems. Today, the Home Secretary has also abolished the sector-based scheme for certain quotas. I welcome his commitment to EU labour markets, but the people coming to the UK under the EU enlargement process take employment in those areas for only a short period and then move on quickly, creating even longer periods for vacancies in the sector. Will my right hon. Friend give the House an assurance that there will be the longest possible transition time, that the scheme will be monitored carefully and that if there are any problems with it he will report them to the House immediately so that a new scheme can be instituted?

Mr. Clarke: As the House knows, I very much respect my hon. Friend's contribution on these matters and am keen to agree with him on the best way to introduce our proposals, but I have to say that on this narrow question I do not really agree with the substance of what he says. If there are skills shortages in the catering sector, and I certainly believe that there are—my personal catering adviser, Delia Smith, tells me that we are about 10,000 catering staff short—

David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con): Is that the right hon. Gentleman personally?

Mr. Clarke: No. Personally, I am well looked after from the catering point of view, including in south Asian restaurants in my constituency.
 
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On a more serious level, there is an important issue to address—skills development for catering. Centres for    vocational excellence, including those in my constituency, are doing some strong work on that. The correct route, if there are skills shortages in south Asian catering, is to invest in skills development in that sector. I said so in Leicester some time ago to develop that precise area. We will of course monitor the situation closely, as my hon. Friend suggests, and we will do our best to make sure that if problems arise they are dealt with, which is why the skills base panel will assess the need for skills throughout the sector.

Damian Green (Ashford) (Con): As I live next door to a south Asian restaurant in my constituency, I am tempted to stick to the fairly narrow point made by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), but we should widen the discussion. We welcome the principle of a points-based system for economic migration. We have been calling for one for some time because we believe that a firm, fair, controlled immigration system is best for people who want to come here and best for people who already live here.

The introduction of the new system is an implicit admission that the current system has failed. The Government have no control over our borders and no proper information about the most basic facts and figures. For instance, they thought that about 13,000 people would come here from the new EU member states, but in fact 200,000 come here every year. They also have a history of grand announcements on immigration, such as the plan to remove 30,000 failed asylum seekers a year, which win a day's headlines but are then quietly dropped. I hope that the new system will be an improvement, but I wish to ask the Secretary of State a few helpful questions. First, what is the cost of setting up and running the system—or at least the current Home Office estimate? Does he agree with his predecessor, who said that there was "no obvious upper limit" to immigration into this country? If not, is the new system designed to increase or reduce the numbers coming here to work? Under tier 3 of the system, which applies to low-skilled migration, the document says that there have been concerns that employers should be required to recruit from the domestic labour force first. Do the Government intend to enforce that requirement?

At the heart of the system is the skills advisory board, which decides how many people can come in under tiers 2 and 3. Why are the Government only considering the skills aspect, which means that other vital factors, such as the increased need for new houses and extra pressures on public services, will not be taken into account? There is no discussion of those absolutely central issues in the document. Why not? We may know the answer to that question. There is much common ground on the principles. We all want a civilised and credible immigration system, but there are serious questions about the plan. We wish it well, and we hope it does not go the way of previous failed Government immigration policies. This country needs a properly controlled immigration system and we will support measures that genuinely bring that about.

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