Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what the evidential basis is that the policy proposals set out in the Levelling Up White Paper on reducing the regional inequality in healthy life expectancy will be sufficient to achieve the target.

The missions set out in the Levelling Up White Paper are medium term and will be used to galvanise action across government, business and civil society. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities will work with the Department of Health & Social Care and other government departments to ensure that the right policies are in place to contribute to achieving the missions.

The Levelling Up mission for health is underpinned by the government’s manifesto commitment to increase the number of years spent in good health by at least five years nationally. To achieve our mission, we need to increase healthy life expectancy at a faster rate than the current UK average. Based on past learnings, we will need to increase collaboration and innovation, target investment, and ensure interventions are wide-reaching to tackle the biggest disparities in health.

This is why we will set out our strategy to tackle the core drivers of disparities in health in the new Health Disparities White Paper, which we expect to publish later this year. This will set out a series of impactful measures, including legislation, to address health disparities at each stage at which they arise.

The Levelling Up White Paper also sets out a broad range of policies, which will improve the nation’s health and tackle disparities through action on prevention as well as health service provision. This includes commitments on smoking, obesity, substance misuse, early years and Community Diagnostic Centres.