Healthy Life Expectancy

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is quite right to draw attention to mental health impacts and the inequality of their incidence. As I mentioned, there has to be a cross-government approach because if we address it through health alone, we will not succeed. Factors such as poor housing, low income, worklessness and disability, as well as ill health and many other factors, affect healthy life expectancy. That is why we are approaching it not by a separate strategy, but by a mission-led approach.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

Through the work of people such as Professor Michael Marmot, the Government know about the different incidences of ill health across the country. Retailers, particularly food retailers and high street pharmacies, know about the incidence of ill health way in advance of that because they have the data on consumption and purchasing behaviours. Will the Government work with them, particularly the large supermarkets, to increase the availability of data in advance, so that we can prevent some of the incidence of ill health rather than getting the NHS to pay for it when it has happened?