Health: Chief Medical Officer’s Recommendations

Lord Turnberg Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, the Government take prevention very seriously. As the noble Baroness will be aware, the 2015 spending review made £16 billion of funding available for local authorities in England over a five-year period. That is in addition to what the NHS spends on prevention, including more than £1 billion in 2016-17 on our world-leading immunisation, vaccination and screening programmes. Of course, we also need to tackle wider detriments, which is why public health has been handed over to local authorities to look at wider determinates of ill health, including pollution, poor housing and the environment.

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, how can it be acceptable that today the poor end of our society is deprived of eight years of life compared with the most affluent end of society? Is it not time that the Government took a firm grip on local authority budgets for public health? I know that the Minister has talked about this issue but at the moment, people are still being deprived.

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, of course it is not right that there are health inequalities between people who are poor and those who are not. The Government are endeavouring to do everything they can to reduce those inequalities. I have talked about the obesity plan; we are also looking at diet, information and working with local authorities to improve the wider detriments of ill health. We have a world-leading strategy on obesity and salt intake. In this House we have discussed issues such as fluoride and folic acid, on which the Government continue to work.