The cruel cuts that curb life expectancy | Letters

Reactions from readers to the alarming findings of Sir Michael Marmot’s report into the effects of health inequalities in England

I read your report (Austerity linked to stalling life expectancy, 25 February) with interest but no surprise. Life in substandard, insecure accommodation, with insufficient money for basics, permanent indebtedness, going hungry to feed your children etc is bound to damage your health. There have been a succession of eminent reports saying the same thing over the last 40 years. In the late 70s a Labour government commissioned the Black report to examine why, even with a free NHS, poorer people’s lives were shorter than those of the wealthy.

The report was ready as Margaret Thatcher came to power and only published on a bank holiday in 1980 with minimum publicity and a firm rejection of its findings and proposals by the government. Then there was the Acheson report, published in 1998. This did influence the new Labour government and for a brief time innovations such as the Sure Start programme, reasonable benefit levels (no cap, no bedroom tax, less inhumane fit-for-work tests), and less harsh tenancy rules helped support families, people with disabilities, older people and so on. Sadly, what headway was made has been thrown to the winds by successive Tory governments.

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