Question
The Home Secretary has said that anyone exploiting or abusing the system must be penalised, and I suspect the whole House would agree with that. Prestige Dental Services has more than 500,000 patients across the west midlands region and sponsors more than 40 skilled dental workers. Last week, it had its licence revoked, not because of exploitation or abuse but because of an admin error in relation to three of the 40 employees. Will the Home Secretary please look into this matter urgently, so that those 500,000 patients are not put at risk?
Answer
If the hon. Gentleman wishes to write to me about that specific case, he is welcome to do so. I would caution anybody about making assumptions on why a licence is revoked. I am sure that if it was a mere admin error, that will be looked at, but licence revocations have happened in record numbers because, under the approach taken by the previous Government, there was a desire to sign people up without much expectation of what standards they should meet.20% point-scoring
Verdict: AMBER (32/100)
The reply responds to the question about the Prestige Dental revocation only in part. It invites the MP to write with details of the specific case and says an administrative error would be looked at, but it does not commit to examining the case urgently. The caution about assumptions does not answer the question, and the offer to look into the matter depends on the error being purely administrative. Because the response is largely hedged and conditional, the MP would likely need to follow up for a firm, specific answer.
How we got there
| Question item | Coverage | Specificity | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Will the Home Secretary urgently look into the revocation of Prestige Dental Services' sponsor licence, which was revoked over an administrative error concerning three of its 40 sponsored workers? | Partially Addressed | Hedged | The reply engages with the Prestige Dental revocation and says an admin error would be looked at (statement 3), and it invites the MP to write about the specific case (statement 1), but it never commits to examining the case urgently, and the caution about assumptions (statement 2) sidesteps the question. The commitment is also conditional on the error being purely administrative, so the item is only partly answered. |