Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reasons life expectancy decreased from 2010 to 2018 in the most deprived regions of England; and what steps he is taking to reduce the increasing gap in life expectancy between England's most deprived and least deprived regions.

For the most deprived areas, female life expectancy has increased from 78.3 years to 78.7 years and male life expectancy has increased from 72.8 years to 74.1 years from 2008/10 to 2017/19. Inequality in life expectancy between the most and least deprived measured by the slope index of inequality has remained stable for males from 2008/10 to 2017/19 at 9.4 years. For females, the gap has increased from 6.7 years to 7.6 years in the same time period.

Although life expectancy at birth remains the highest it has been, we want everyone to have the same opportunity to have a long, healthy life, whoever they are, wherever they live and whatever their background. Prevention is one of the priorities for the health service and we are taking action to help people live longer and healthier lives. We have refreshed our obesity strategy, we are offering National Health Service health checks, have a tobacco control plan in place and the world’s first diabetes prevention programme. The NHS also delivers national vaccination and screening programmes. Delivery of public health services is devolved to local authorities as they are best placed to decide how these resources are provided for their community.