Professor John Robertson OBA
In the Guardian today, the above and:
Britain performed worse than most other developed nations in its response to the Covid pandemic, according to an Observer analysis of international data, five years on from the first lockdown.
The UK spent more money than most other countries on economic help yet still ended up with larger drops in life expectancy, more people too sick to work, huge levels of homelessness and soaring mental health problems among young people.
There’s no mention of Scotland in the Guardian survey and there’s the regular use of data from England to back up their headline claims.
A more fine-grained analysis was, of course, possible by looking at the published data for Scotland and, for that matter, Wales & Northern Ireland.
Quickly, before responding to the above confused claims about life expectancy, homelessness and mental health, Covid deaths:
The table above, makes clear the scale of loss, not at first apparent in percentages, and the significantly higher Covid death rate in England [145 per 100k people] compared to Scotland [123 per 100k). Had Scotland’s pandemic response strategy been managed by the UK Tory government, 14%, 1 867, more might have died,
Back to the claims:
First, larger drops in life expectancy?
Life expectancy declines worse in England due to no SNP policies
In the Guardian 18 February 2025:
Life expectancy improvement is stalling across Europe with England experiencing the biggest slowdown. Experts are blaming this on an alarming mix of poor diet, mass inactivity and soaring obesity. The average annual growth in life expectancy across the continent fell from 0.23 years between 1990 and 2011 to 0.15 years between 2011 and 2019, according to research published in the Lancet Public Health journal. Of the 20 countries studied, every one apart from Norway saw life expectancy growth fall.
England suffered the largest decline in life expectancy improvement, with a fall in average annual improvement of 0.18 years, from 0.25 between 1990 and 2011 to 0.07 between 2011 and 2019. The second slowdown of life expectancy growth in Europe was in Northern Ireland (reducing by 0.16 years), followed by Wales and Scotland (both falling by 0.15 years).
Wait, what? The decline in life expectancy was less in Scotland than in England? What about those drug deaths and two year operation delays? Free prescriptions, free bus passes, shorter waiting times in cleaner hospitals, more affordable housing, lower council tax, lower crime? Oh yes, massively subsidised ferry travel on beautiful boats and the view!
Second – Huge levels of homelessness?
Core Homelessness lowest in Scotland
‘Core homelessness’ – a concept which captures the most severe and immediate forms of homelessness – is estimated to have stood at 14,250 households on a given night in Scotland in 2019, having been relatively stable over the preceding seven years. Rates of core homelessness are substantially lower in Scotland (0.57% of households) than in England (0.94%) and Wales (0.66%). https://www.crisis.org.uk/ending-homelessness/homelessness-knowledge-hub/homelessness-monitor/scotland/the-homelessness-monitor-scotland-2021/
44% more homeless children in England than in Scotland and increasing at THREE times the rate
From Shelter Scotland:
As of March 2024, 10,110 children were living in temporary accommodation in Scotland, which is the highest number ever recorded. This is a 5% increase from March 2023, when 9,595 children were in temporary accommodation. https://scotland.shelter.org.uk/housing_policy/homelessness_in_scotland#:~:text=Key&text=In%202023/24%20there%20were,we%20plan%20to%20achieve%20this.
So, unless the SNP Government is doing a better job in fighting poverty, England might be expected to have around 101 000.
Does it?
From Shelter England:
As of April 30, 2024, 145,800 children are homeless and living in temporary accommodation in England, which is the highest number on record. This is a 15% increase from the previous year.https://england.shelter.org.uk/media/press_release/record_145800_children_in_temporary_accommodation__up_15_in_a_year#:~:text=Posted%2030%20Apr%202024,and%20only%20two%20months’%20notice.
So, 43.6% more homelessness and growing at 3 times the rate. Might Labour do something about this? Aye right.
Rough sleeping less common in Scotland
Research by Crisis, reported in a Welsh newspaper(!):
The proportion of people suffering from the worst forms of homelessness in Scotland is about half as high as in England, campaigners have claimed.
Almost one in 100 households in England (0.94%) were experiencing what the charity Crisis called “forms of core homelessness” – such as sleeping on the streets, sofa surfing, or staying in either unsuitable temporary accommodation like B&Bs or living in garages or industrial premises
That rate compares to 0.66% of households in Wales and 0.57% in Scotland, Crisis said.
The charity put this down in part to Scottish ministers having the “right political will” to tackle the problem. https://www.denbighshirefreepress.co.uk/news/national/19611471.homeless-rate-scotland-half-england-says-crisis/
Homeless deaths fell for the third year in a row
Third, soaring mental health problems among young people.
Children’s mental health target met in Scotland and performance now outstrips latest NHS England figures by 18%
From Public Health Scotland, March 4th 2025:
90.6% of children and young people started treatment within 18 weeks of referral, which is an increase from 89.1% for the previous quarter and from 83.8% for the same quarter ending December 2023. The Scottish Government standard which states that 90% of children and young people should start treatment within 18 weeks of referral to CAMHS was achieved.
4,362 children and young people were waiting to start treatment at quarter ending December 2024 which is an increase of 3.1% (131) compared to 4,231 in the previous quarter1
How did BBC Scotland cover this? Grudgingly and with a tasteless image:
‘For the first time‘ and ‘However, the Public Health Scotland data, external also reveals that for the three months to December last year there was a slight increase in the overall number of young people waiting to start treatment.‘2
What’s the situation in England?
The Children’s Commissioner report for 2023-2024 is due this month but last year is was only 72% seen within 52 weeks! 3
Remember, that 18% difference means thousands seen on time in Scotland and hundreds of thousands not seen on time in England.
Sources:
- https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs-waiting-times/child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs-waiting-times-quarter-ending-december-2024/
- Children’s mental health waiting times target met for first time – BBC News
- https://assets.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wpuploads/2024/03/Childrens-mental-health-services-22-23_CCo-final-report.pdf
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
In reporting the Covid data, the media adopted the argument they used during the Brexit referendum. Although Scotland (and the north of Ireland) voted by a substantial majority for Remain, the media at the behest of the unionist parties adopted the position that “We (ie United Kingdom) voted as one (sic) country as the total vote for this one (sic) country was a majority for Leave, ergo Leave is the decision.
With Covid although data was compiled by the separate NHS of each of the four countries, the media and unionists decided it was the combined UK data that was to be used, except in the rare week when a particular datum for Scotland was worse than the rest of the Uk, we had ‘Scottish data worst in Europe.’
LikeLike