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Health Inequalities

I absolutely recognise that. The hon. Gentleman has made an entirely valid point. I was making the point that there can be the worst of both worlds, if I can put it like that. Many seaside towns are characteristic of this. A population in an area may be aged or more aged than normal and at the same time there may be high pockets of deprivation. A Sheffield Hallam university study said that three quarters of seaside towns in England have greater health and disability deprivation than the English average, but I dare say that we could put in plugs for other areas as also being justifiably needy. Inequality and inequity in the health service is difficult to resolve fairly. Not many hon. Members who represent a rural environment are here in the Chamber. They would probably make the point that the cost of delivery in rural areas is important and that there will be isolated pockets of rural deprivation, even though rural areas as a whole do not statistically seem to suffer in the same way as some inner cities. In other words, it is hard to get the resource mix right and fair. I recognise that. The recent Government taskforce—the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation—recognised it. It teased out a difference between addressing needs and addressing inequity and came up with a formula that has appreciable merit, which is to weight funding based on disability-free life expectancy. That answers some of the points made by the hon. Member for Wigan. I want to make two points about the issue. First, although we have recognised the situation and although the consequence of that is that we have suddenly realised that areas of the north have been underfunded compared with areas of the south-east and particularly London—all hon. Members present from the north have harped on this—there is not an immediate fix for that because of the system of floors and ceilings. In other words, we are expected simply to doff our cloth caps, shuffle off in our clogs and basically do what we normally do in the north, which is put up with it. I do not think that we should. A genuine case has been put by hon. Members that needs to be answered: given that that inequity and disparity exists between north and south, why is it not properly or more rapidly reduced?