0:00
Sir Michael Marmot is Britain's leading expert on it, and earlier today he was questioned by MPs
0:05
investigating why Britain has some of the worst health outcomes for children anywhere in Europe
0:10
Sir Michael, who's been studying the first thousand days of life, joins me in the studio now
0:15
Sir Michael, it's great to have you here. We are waiting for this big government study on child
0:20
poverty. Prime Minister said in the comments today that he would pull every lever to deal with the
0:26
problem. Now, you've talked a lot and very movingly about the scale of child poverty in the UK
0:31
What is the most important lever, in your view, that he could pull
0:35
The first is what he and the Chancellor can do. What we know is out of 38 rich countries
0:42
OECD countries, from 2010 to 2020, the UK had the fastest increase in child poverty out of 38
0:52
countries. After housing costs, it went from 27% of children in poverty to over 30%, went down
1:01
slightly in the first year of the pandemic with the changes, and now it's heading up again
1:07
And that was partly the fault, was it, of austerity? I was talking to George Osborne
1:12
not a little while ago, and of course he was the architect of austerity
1:16
Well if we look at two big changes the tax and benefit system if you take families with children families of working age with children the effect of the changes to the tax and benefits system in the decade after 2010
1:39
people in the poorest 10% of income had a fallen income of 20%
1:44
In the next poorest 10%, it was about 12% drop. And then the richer they were, the less the drop in income
1:53
Pretty dramatic. So it was very dramatic, very regressive changes to the tax and benefits system
2:00
And then if I may, there was a second dramatic change. As you know well, the funding to local government went down dramatically
2:08
Most of local government funding came from the centre. That went down by 59% over the decade
2:15
We plotted life expectancy for every local authority in England in 2010-12
2:23
and then looked at the subsequent reduction in local government spending power up to 2020
2:30
The shorter the life expectancy in 2010-12, the steeper the subsequent reduction in local government spending
2:39
Wow. It looked like... Exactly the reverse of what you would expect and hope to happen
2:43
Exactly the reverse. it was as if I'm not suggesting that they did it consciously
2:51
but it was as if they said the worse the health of the community the more money we going to take away and then you surprised if health inequalities get bigger and the lot of children in the poorest areas gets worse And very sadly we are now where we are So does that mean when
3:11
this government's looking at the problem, and of course they have very little money to spend at the moment, but they should be looking at things like the two-child cap on benefits, which has
3:19
affected an awful lot of families rather dramatically? There are two approaches that
3:24
my colleagues and I have been taking. One is what the centre can do, like the two-child cap
3:31
changes to the tax and benefits system. But the second is local action, which is really impressive
3:39
The 50 Marmot communities we're working with in England, Wales and Scotland, none has said
3:45
oh, look, the financial settlement is dreadful. There's nothing we can do. They're taking real
3:50
action locally to reduce child poverty and reduce the consequences. This is a really
3:56
really good story. I think people don't understand. Just remind people how the Marmot Centres actually work. Going back, I did my Marmot review in 2010, and we had a set of
4:09
recommendations to reduce health inequalities. The government that was elected, the Conservative
4:14
led coalition government, pretty well went in the opposite direction to all the things that I said
4:19
The city of Coventry in 2013 said, we will be a Marmot City
4:25
We'll take your report. Give every child the best start in life education employment income So this is really active local action We do it at the city level And then Greater Manchester took it up Andy Burnham was a great champion of
4:40
it. Cheshire and Merseyside, all around the country, they're doing it. We so rarely hear
4:45
good news stories from politics, but this is one that we should focus on. And you've been talking
4:50
about the first thousand days in life. Just explain to people why the first thousand days
4:55
is so important? What happens, our number one recommendation is give every child the best start
5:02
in life. We can think about health of children, but also good early child development. Children
5:11
and there are two parts to that, a positive and a negative. The poorer the family, the less the
5:18
positive. So talking to children, playing with children, singing, all those good things
5:25
are progressively less common, the greater the poverty. Parents are just ground down by the poverty
5:33
And the poorer they are, the greater the frequency of negatives, adverse childhood experience
5:40
They both damage children's development. And a child that's not ready for school
5:46
does less well in school. And it's the mental development during those first absolutely crucial years
5:52
Mental development, cold homes, damages children's lungs, and children who do less well in school end up in worse social economic circumstances later in life with worse health
