Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Office for National Statistics publication, Labour productivity, UK: July to September 2018, published on 9 January 2019 whether the next Spending Review will allocate funding to tackle the effect of poor health outcomes in the North of England on that region’s levels of productivity.

The ONS published the latest estimates of sub-national productivity on 6 February 2019. The data shows that productivity has increased in all the regions in the North of England during 2017 and since 2010.

All regions in the North of England have seen faster nominal productivity growth than London and the South of England since 2010.

The NHS is the government’s number one spending priority and that is why we have committed to a historic settlement that provides a cash increase of £33.9bn a year by 2023-24. This takes the NHS budget from £114.6bn in 2018-19 to £148.5bn in 2023-24.

The NHS Long Term Plan sets the vision for the NHS over the coming years including what action the NHS plans to take on health inequalities. NHS England has committed to ensuring a higher share of funding goes towards geographies with high health inequalities. This funding is estimated to be worth over £1 billion by 2023/24.