Question reference: S6W-14468
- Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 27 January 2023
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Current status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 7 February 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to reduce the life expectancy gap between people living in the most and least deprived 10% of local areas.
Answer
We know that deprivation is a significant driver of excess mortality and reduced life expectancy. Reducing poverty and inequality therefore sits at the heart of our investment across all portfolios and remains the best way of improving life expectancy.
Increasing life expectancy across Scotland remains a clear ambition for this Government and we are using all the powers and resources available to us to create a fairer Scotland. We are doing that by ensuring health services are accessible to all, committing £19bn to public services over the next year; committing £4 billion in social security and welfare payments over the next financial year; and extending the Scottish Child Payment to families with eligible under 16s – by increasing it to £25 per week per child.
Furthermore, our Care and Wellbeing Portfolio, as the principle strategic reform vehicle in Health and Social Care, is being designed to promote a ‘health in all policies’ approach in order to strengthen cross-government collaboration on key and critical issues that contribute to the goal of reducing inequalities and increasing life expectancy.