Here's what it means to be poor in Scotland under the SNP
The shocking disparity in cancer mortality rates between rich and poor and cutbacks to music education are just two signs of inequality in supposedly progressive Scotland
According to new figures, cancer mortality rates are almost 75 per cent higher in Scotland’s most deprived areas than in the most affluent.
Meanwhile, composer and conductor James MacMillan has warned music education has become a “casualty” of culture cutbacks. He contrasted the current situation in Scotland with his childhood in East Ayrshire, when “we never thought of any music form as being elitist”. “My grandfather was a coal miner and the mining industry in Scotland produced some great brass,” he said.
In two different ways, we see what it means to be poor in Scotland. To have less chance of living a fulfilled life, with all the joy that playing a musical instrument can bring, and a higher chance of dying earlier from cancer.
‘Widening inequality’
It should be said that overall cancer mortality rates are falling but, given the advances in medical science, it would be a scandal if they were not.
A Public Health Scotland report found that, in the least deprived areas, cancer death rates had fallen by 14.5 per cent over ten years, while in the most deprived parts of Scotland, the decrease was just 5.6 per cent. The report noted that this “indicates a widening inequality in cancer mortality between deprivation groups”.
It added that the difference was “partly due” to people in the most deprived areas having a greater likelihood of developing cancers with lower survival rates, such as lung cancer; having other medical conditions which prevented them from receiving more aggressive cancer treatments; and a lower uptake for screening for breast, bowel and cervical cancer.
However, such reasons are not excuses. These are problems that a concerned government would be determined to fix so that inequality in health outcomes between rich and poor decreases.
The SNP has been in power for nearly 20 years and there is literally no one else to blame. They first need to take ownership of their past failings, then start laying out concrete plans to tackle this postcode lottery for cancer and giving councils sufficient funds so that making music is not just an elite pursuit but something for all.
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