Income and Health Differentials (Hansard, 11 October 1999)

§ Baroness Amos

Government analysis has focused on income and health differentials and trends in the UK and worldwide. Information on differentials and trends in other areas can be found in the 1996 UN Development ProgrammeHuman Development Report. I enclose a copy and shall arrange for copies to be placed in the Library of the House.

In the UK, income differentials have widened since the mid-1980s. The disposable incomes of households at the 90th percentile of the income distribution were 4.5 times higher than incomes for those at the 10th percentile in 1997–98, compared to 4.2 times higher in 1995–96, 4.9 times higher in 1990 and 3.7 times higher in 1986. Health differentials have also widened over recent years. For example, a twofold difference in all-cause mortality between social classes I and V among working age men in the early 1970s had widened to a three-fold difference by the early 1990s. Reducing the health gap is a main aim of the Government's health strategy, as set out in the recent White Paper, Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation.

Worldwide differentials are more pronounced. The combined GDP of all Low Income Countries in 1997 was $753 billion, compared to $22,848 billion for all High Income Countries. However, as GDP grew by 3.9 per cent in Low Income Countries between 1990 and 1997, compared to 2.2 per cent in High Income Countries, the gap is narrowing slightly. Key health differentials, already wide, have been getting wider. For example, in 1990–95, the Infant Mortality Rate in Least Developed Countries was 109 per 1000 and had fallen by 1.5 per cent per annum over the previous 20 years, while in developed countries the rate was only 11 per 1000 and had fallen by 3.5 per cent per annum over the same period.

Widening inequalities in economic well-being and health are socially divisive, economically damaging, morally unacceptable, and prone to exacerbate political tensions within and between countries. The Government's determination to reduce these global inequalities is demonstrated in their commitment to mobilise the political will to realise the international target of reducing by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, together with the other international development targets, including those for health and education. The Government's resolve is further reflected in their provision of an additional £1.6 billion of spending authority for development assistance over the years 1999–2000 to 2001–02, and the priority they are giving to improving the effectiveness of development co-operation.