PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Health Inequalities - 7 March 2023 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

We announced in January that we will publish a major conditions strategy, which will apply a geographical lens to each condition to address disparities in health outcomes. We have doubled the duty on cigarettes since 2010 and now have the lowest smoking rate on record. We are investing an extra £900 million through the drugs strategy, increasing funding by 40%, and to fight obesity we have introduced the sugar tax and measures such as the extra £330 million for school sport.

The daily dump of WhatsApp messages in the papers reminds us of covid and the disproportionate deaths suffered by black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. What with that and the figures showing a 20-year gap between life expectancies in our nation’s most affluent and poorest wards, why is it that the Government scrapped a proposed White Paper on health inequalities?

As I just said, we are driving forward all that work through the major conditions paper. In addition, we have the Start for Life programme, with another £300 million to improve young people’s start in life. We are absolutely committed to tackling health disparities and driving forward work on all fronts.

Vaping was designed as a stop-smoking device for adult smokers, but the flavours, colours and disposable vapes have become a fad for children, encouraging those who have never smoked to take up vaping. What are the Government doing to prevent that?

My hon. Friend is quite right. It is something that we are looking at very closely, as she knows from previous conversations. While vaping can be an aid in quitting smoking—it helped about 800,000 people to do so last year—we must stop its use being driven up among children.

I call the shadow Minister.

We are just 24 days away from a new financial year. Last week, more than 30 public health leaders said that the delay to releasing the public health allocation for 2023-24 was

“putting public health services at risk”.

Early years support, addiction treatment and stop-smoking services should not have to pay the price of this Minister’s incompetence. He must apologise for treating councils and the health of our communities with such contempt. When will the public health grant be announced?

The public health grant will be announced within days, not weeks. When it is announced, the Opposition will see that, as well as generously funding public health, we will be funding an extra £900 million on drugs spending to transform treatment and an extra £300 million through the Start for Life programme. We will continue to ramp up support for public health.