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Public Health (England)

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will come on to that. What he says about obesity is quite right. We have rightly spent a lot of time debating obesity this afternoon, and that is particularly timely, given today’s announcement from Ofcom. If he will bear with me, I will address his point in due course. On 26 October, in a rare moment of candour, the Minister admitted that the gap in life expectancy and infant mortality has continued to widen since the target baseline was set. The life expectancy gap has increased by 1 per cent. for males and by 8 per cent. for females. The gap in infant mortality has increased from 13 to 19 per cent. In 1997, the Government pledged to vanquish social class health inequalities, but the fact is that they have got worse. Health inequalities are now the widest that they have been since the 19th century. They are positively Dickensian, and they are of the sort that Prime Minister Disraeli reflected on in his description of London’s rich and poor. I feel for the Minister, because public health is a challenging brief, and there are few quick fixes, as the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), who is no longer in the Chamber, knows full well, as do the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) and I, as practitioners. We know how difficult it is to procure change, particularly when it comes to harmful life styles. Nevertheless, that challenge must be faced.