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More on the state of dentistry in England.

From The Mirror – traditionally a Labour-supporting newspaper (July 14, 2025): ‘Wes Streeting defends only paying for half the population to get an NHS dentist – Health Secretary Wes Streeting has been grilled by MPs about suggestions Labour will not substantially increase the NHS dentistry budget it inherited from the Tories’

‘Health Secretary Wes Streeting has defended why the Government is only paying for half the population of England to get an NHS dentist. (my emphasis)

‘MPs on the Health Committee grilled Mr Streeting on whether he would “reconsider” a decision to stick with similar funding for dentistry that Labour inherited from the previous Tory government.

‘The current £3 billion budget for England is only enough to fund care for half the population. The committee has previously heard that the budget has fallen from £3.6 billion in a decade and the British Dental Association said this equates to a funding cut of a third in real terms.’

‘Mr Streeting said: “There is a constant tension between the level of ambition we have as a Government, the level of demand put on us by Parliament and the public, and the choices and trade-offs that we face. We are trying to deal with an NHS that has such a breadth and depth of challenges.”

Life in government is tough! But this is a ‘tension’ that a devolved government – dependent on Westminster’s fiscal policy and spending decisions in and for England – doesn’t have to cope with, at least according to Unionist politicians in Holyrood!

The Mirror’s article also has this: ‘More than 12 million people were unable to access NHS dental care last year – more than 1 in 4 adults in England. At the same time 90% of dental practices are no longer accepting new NHS adult patients. Data from the House of Commons Library showed 40% of children didn’t have their recommended annual check-up last year.’

And: ‘The UK spends the smallest proportion of its heath budget on dental care of any European nation. Government spending on dental services in England was cut by a quarter in real terms between 2010 and 2020.’

Source: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/wes-streeting-defends-only-paying-35553849

But all of the above cuts no ice with British Labour Party MSPs in Scotland. And none of this – as relevant context – seems to be interest to the mainstream media in Scotland which consistently fails to challenge politicians from the Anglo-British political parties.

From STV News website (July 22, 2024): ‘Labour: NHS dental care has ‘rotted away’ as thousands turn to private sector’

‘Paul Sweeney, Labour’s dentistry spokesman, said: “NHS dental care has rotted away under the SNP when we need to be encouraging more dentists to work for the NHS so that everyone is able to register as an NHS patient.” This MSP is from the party in government in Westminster now choosing to maintain the level of Tory spending on dentistry in England sufficient to pay for only half the population to get an NHS dentist!

This level of hypocrisy of Labour when it comes to its opposition to the Scottish Government is sustained by failures of the mainstream media that supposedly ‘serves’ Scotland to provide their readers/ listeners/viewers with fair and balanced reporting. However, without exposure to this egregious hypocrisy – without better access to such contrasts between British Labour Party rhetoric in Scotland and the party’s actions in Westminster – many amongst the electorate in Scotland will remain ill-informed and unaware.

A bonus delivered BY the mainstream media in Scotland FOR the British Labour Party: a bonus delivered FOR the Union!