Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the gap in healthy life expectancy between the country’s most and least deprived communities.

The Government’s 10-Year Health Plan sets out our ambitious commitment to halve the healthy life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest regions. We know that reducing the gap will require action on challenges that are more prevalent in areas with lower healthy life expectancy. This is why, for example, we are taking action to tackle the obesity crisis and delivered the world-leading Tobacco and Vapes Act to support our ambition for a future smoke-free United Kingdom.

Reducing this gap is not just a health challenge, which is why we are also taking a range of cross-Government action to tackle health inequality. This includes the introduction of Awaab’s Law, ensuring landlords will have to fix significant damp and mould hazards, and legislating for a new statutory health and health inequalities duty for strategic authorities.