Health inequality expert Sir Michael Marmot has urged MPs and council leaders to act after a report found government policies were ‘cutting people’s lives short’.
The report by University College London’s Institute of Health Equity (IHE) found that between 2010 and the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, inequalities in life expectancy increased in 17 English local authorities.
IHE director Sir Marmot wrote to the leaders of these local authorities and the 58 MPs whose constituencies lie within them, including levelling up secretary Michael Gove.
He wrote: ‘Put simply, Britain is a poor, sick country, getting sicker, with a few rich and healthy people; the results of a dismal failure of central government policies since 2010.’
The report also said government cuts meant local authorities’ spending power per head of population had fallen by an average of 34% between 2010 and 2019.
Sir Marmot warned: ‘If you slash the services that support people then health will be harmed.
‘Levelling up was supposed to provide badly needed funding for the most deprived areas. But it was a derisory amount and, as a result, never going to improve health.’
