Speeches by Dalton.

“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. As we know, guidelines are only as strong as the evidence and research that they are based on. We need systematic, robust data to determine which treatments and interventions are most effective. While we are backing our life sciences sector to come up with tomorrow’s treatme…”

“It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) for bringing forward this important issue. This place is vastly enriched by our experiences, and it is nothing short of inspiring how my hon. Friend’s diagnosis has led…”

“I cannot predict exactly what those figures will be. I can say that we are putting in place and implementing a strategy that we believe will deliver that.”

“I certainly hope that that will be the case. That is what we are working towards.”

“Vaccination remains a real priority for the Department, and we are working to increase uptake. In order to do that, we have to understand what the barriers are. We have been doing an awful lot of work to do that. From January next year, children will be eligible for the new vaccine, which I have highlighted, at routine…”

“The vaccination roll-out remains the responsibility of the vaccination board that I chair. ICBs will be expected to report into that, so there will be monitoring, and they will be expected to deliver on the basis of the national strategy. We are also looking at how we roll that out from a very local perspective, as wel…”

“Yes, and we are reviewing it on a regular basis.”

“It is a global issue in terms of the approach to vaccines, and we are working to build that up. We have identified that we need to target different areas, because different areas have different reasons for not hitting their targets. We have pilots in Birmingham—I cannot remember where else—about how we focus on those c…”

“One of the things that we have identified is what is stopping people from getting vaccines: the vast majority of those people are talking about a lack of access to them, so we have started to look at how we improve that. One of the key things that we have put in place is catch-up clinics in schools, GP practices and co…”

“We are actually making progress on implementing the strategy and improving uptake. The latest data from April ’24 to March ’25 shows that vaccination coverage for children aged 20 months has actually remained broadly stable, with improvements in some areas. In England, the uptake of the first dose of MMR at 24 months h…”

“A review is ongoing into the whole SEND and EHCP process. Susie, can you say more about what the Department for Education is doing around that?”

“That one day is really important!”

“Absolutely. All of this is an iterative process. We keep our eye on what is going on. We get feedback from the industry, the charity sector and officials about what is actually being rolled out. I think it is unrealistic to expect them to do it in quicker than 18 months, but we are alert and we have regular meetings to…”

“Okay. It is concerning that that is the perception. One of the reasons we run Best Start family hubs as we do is that it is a joint programme between Health and Education, because we recognise that the two go hand in hand. That is important and why we approach it in that way. It is also why £126 million was announced f…”

“At the moment, there is reporting. We have not put in place the targets at all, as yet. That is not for this Parliament. It is reporting on what their baskets are—what healthy food they sell. The incentive for them is that they have a higher health rating, because that is how people will judge where they go and buy the…”

“I also think, putting it into context, that although we are talking specifically about baby food in that instance, this is all part of a much bigger picture around what we are doing in terms of food. Today, we have announced the banning of the sale of energy drinks to under-16s, which I think is really important. We ha…”

“That is very much focusing on the Department for Education, so I will hand over to Susie, who has that information.”

“That is a matter for the Speaker and the parliamentary standards committee.”

“They always are. I never have a meeting with anyone without an official in the room and without the notes of that meeting being recorded.”

“Obviously, commissioning health services is the responsibility of ICBs; they are best placed to know the requirements of their communities. We will see what happens when we finish the review of the health visitors, and how we best target that.”