Speeches by Dixon.

“I would ask the witnesses to refer to figure 10 in the NAO Report, which shows historical data for healthcare productivity. Over the period from 1996-97, right up until pre-pandemic 2018-19, I think the average change was about 0.6%, with sometimes a couple of percentage points up or down. We have had the pandemic, so …”

“To clarify, they are not currently captured in your productivity measures, even the ones you are using internally. You mentioned the limitations of measures of productivity. The other thing is that it is very sensitive to pay, so are you anticipating that with pay rises productivity is going to fall? Linked to that, an…”

“To challenge that a little further, I was a rep in the NHS for some of those last 20 years, and the promise of technology delivering productivity improvement has always been there. I believe the NHS is still the largest user of fax machines. We had not even adopted the technology that people use every day for many of t…”

“If you want to continue with prevention, I think I can follow on; otherwise, I will move on to expenditure.”

“We have talked about productivity; my question is about the total expenditure and the allocative efficiency of where we spend the money. Figure 2 in the NAO Report gives some historical data. We know that the long run increase in expenditure historically was 3.6%, probably nearer to 4%. Between 2014-15 and 2018-19 it w…”

“That is fine.”

“In terms of the allocative efficiency of the money you do have, a number of things in the Report suggest that more of that money has gone towards the acute. Some of your central budgets that were cut seem to be related to primary care; the public health grant, for example, has been cut by an estimated 20%; and social c…”

“It’s me again. We talked a little bit about the short-term workforce, such as things you are doing on wellbeing and tackling agency working. I would like to shift to the long-term workforce planning, if I may. Obviously, securing a workforce over the medium to long-term requires balancing decisions about training new r…”

“Hello, Antonia. As colleagues have said, the shift to prevention has been desired for a long time, but the challenges are always about making that investment—with some pay-off in future years—when the pressures are on people to balance their budget in-year. So is there any flexibility that the Treasury could look at—ch…”

“Will you update the cost assumptions when you do so?”

“I want to probe on this briefly, if I may, Jonathan. In Bradford district, there are 7,000 children on CAMHS waiting lists. This is specifically about CAMHS. Some are waiting up to four years for an assessment for ADHD and ASD. Anecdotally, there are some areas where we are talking eight years for a child. When you are…”

“If you could perhaps follow up to the Committee with that data, please.”

“Just finally, is there any data on refusals to admit by school type and local authority? Is there any data on the number of appeals that have been going to the Secretary of State and how many of those have been upheld? Just to get a handle on that process, what data do you hold?”

“I am aware of that, but it is a very convoluted process. Talking to directors of children’s services, that adds further to the wait and uncertainty that parents have to go through. If they have had an initial placement for a secondary school place, but the mainstream school has then said, “We cannot meet that child’s n…”

“One of the things that seems to be driving the demand for EHCPs is the lack of a requirement or any statutory powers that local authorities have over academies for academy trusts to take children with SEND support. Could you say a little bit more about some of the trends around EHCPs and academies? Do local authorities…”

“Just to echo the points that Luke has made, the public would be quite shocked to learn that a total of £2 billion is being spent currently by local authorities on independent schools. We have heard a lot about the challenges that local governments are facing, but indeed there is this differential in cost between those …”

“I have one final point on specialist school provision. We are going to come back to questions about cost-effectiveness and value for money. One of the consequences of not having enough places—as we have said, part of that is about inclusive mainstream, but there are not enough places in specialist schools—is putting ch…”

“Can I follow up? As you have already said, there is a dynamic here that, if you have the right support in mainstream schools, there is likely to be less demand for specialist school places. Indeed, I have evidence from constituents that parents are, in a sense, being forced to consider specialist schools even if they w…”

“Before I get into my questions, I would just like to declare an interest for the public record. I previously worked at the Department of Health and Social Care with both Jonathan Marron and with Juliet Chua. I also have a niece with autism, who was supported through an internship with the Civil Service recently. I woul…”

“Between 2013 and 2023, during the Conservatives’ time in government, the number of general practices fell from 8,044 to 6,419. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a bit rich for the Conservatives to pretend now that they care so much about general practice, given that 1,600 practices closed on their watch?”