Rebecca Evans: ...2 million for the funding for Penydarren Park through our Vibrant and Viable Places programme. That really demonstrates our commitment to providing a new flexible facility for recreation but also education and training as well in the area. I’ll just add how impressed I am that Merthyr Town FC was voted the best grass-roots club in Europe by UEFA last year. I think that’s a tremendous...
Rebecca Evans: ...a first-class coaching infrastructure, attracting coaches from right across the world. They provide 4,000 training opportunities each year, and Wales is the first nation to provide coach education online. Many young players will have been inspired by the current team, and establishing this sort of infrastructure will help develop our more talented players, no matter where they are or where...
Rebecca Evans: ...who come into contact with individuals using or considering using these substances have the knowledge they need to provide the necessary information, advice and support. Early intervention and education are critical in this agenda, and through our all-Wales schools liaison core programme, we are working with the four Welsh police forces to educate pupils on a range of personal and social...
Rebecca Evans: ...about things like poly drug use and new psychoactive substances and so on as well. Mark Isherwood said that intervention and prevention are absolutely key and he’s right there. Our all-Wales school liaison programme operates across all of our primary and secondary schools in Wales and this is a crucial part of our strategy. We regularly review the content of that to make sure that it’s...
Rebecca Evans: ...bike and 63 per cent made a trip on foot once a week or more, meaning that one third of adults in Wales made no walking or cycling trips in an average week. Similarly, only 49 per cent of primary school aged children typically walk to school and only 2 per cent cycle, with even lower figures for secondary school children. The most recent figures estimate that the cost of physical...
Rebecca Evans: ...aspects. You talked about the importance of getting children engaged with active travel at a very, very early stage in their lives, and we’re completely on the same page there. I think our eco-schools programme has a particular role to play in that. Over 860 schools in Wales have already achieved the international Green Flag award for the work that they’ve been doing on eco-schools...
Rebecca Evans: ...active travel, and I’m really keen to ensure that, again, it’s not just the usual suspects who are attending, who you’d expect to be there. I would like to see representatives from housing, education, and so on, and health at that conference as well, to see how we can work forward in partnership on that. You raised the importance, again, of engaging with children. Children have been...
Rebecca Evans: ...forward, we’ll be re-introducing the public health Bill, as it was at Stage 3, with the e-cigarette sections removed from it. That public health Bill does contain provisions to cover smoking in school grounds, hospital grounds and public playgrounds. It also provides that Welsh Ministers will be able to add additional spaces, using regulations, and that such regulations would be subject...
Rebecca Evans: ...Welsh Government drive forward not only our active travel Act, but also our active travel plan, which is cross cutting, right across Government. For example, there are actions within that for the education Minister and actions for planning and so on, as well. So, I’ll be writing shortly to my colleagues, highlighting what’s within the plan that sits under each of those departments,...
Rebecca Evans: ...levels amongst children must be a priority because the benefits of a healthy and active lifestyle in childhood are realised throughout life. There is also a link between physical activity and educational attainment. I saw a real example of this recently when I visited Pantysgallog Primary School to see how they’ve introduced a 1-mile walk, jog or run for all key stage 2 pupils, and that...
Rebecca Evans: ...disabilities in those areas. Staying with legislation, we’re also delivering an ambitious additional learning needs transformation programme. The forthcoming additional learning needs and education tribunal Bill, which forms part of this wider programme, is expected to be introduced into the Assembly before Christmas and will take into account the needs of children and young people on...
Rebecca Evans: ...agree a national high-level diagnostic pathway to ensure consistent provision for young people with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. To support our transformational approach in education and in response to feedback that we’ve had from parents, we’ve also developed new autism resources for schools. Earlier this year, we launched the Learning with Autism primary...
Rebecca Evans: ...a number of important public health issues. It creates a distinct smoke-free regime for Wales, with the existing restrictions on smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces extended to cover school grounds, hospital grounds and public playgrounds—a change intended to benefit children, patients and visitors. It also allows for further settings to be made smoke-free in the future if...
Rebecca Evans: ...health. We already have other legislation, such as the active travel Act, which we’re implementing, to try and make active and healthy choices of walking and cycling much easier for people. In schools, we have a Wales network of healthy schools and we have a great variety of school-based sports and physical activity programmes, which are being delivered in schools and also through Sport...
Rebecca Evans: ...on young people and the normalisation of smoking, and the normalisation of smoking whether it is through traditional cigarettes or e-cigarettes, because recent research has shown us that primary school-age children in Wales are more likely to have used e-cigarettes than tobacco. Six per cent of 10 to 11-year-olds and 12 per cent of 11 to 16-year-olds have used an e-cigarette at least...
Rebecca Evans: I thank you for those questions, and I neglected to address Angela’s point on the community-focused schools issue, so apologies for that. It is one of our manifesto commitments to make sure that we use the resources that we have in communities, particularly with regard to schools and the capital investment that we are making in twenty-first century schools, making those facilities available...
Rebecca Evans: ...obesity levels among children in Wales are stable, rates are still unacceptably high. Our programme for government makes a clear commitment to tackling obesity, working across Government and with schools to promote and increase healthier lifestyle choices.
Rebecca Evans: ...to work to ensure that children have a healthier start in life, for example, through our 10 Steps to a Healthy Weight programme, our Healthy Child Wales programme and the network of healthy schools initiative, which 99 per cent of schools in Wales are taking part in.
Rebecca Evans: ...that we’re doing through the department that Ken Skates leads, but also work that we’re doing in terms of our support for public health more generally—our work through the healthy network of schools, for example. So, it’s very hard to put a particular figure on this, given the fact that the work we are doing ranges from schools, through local authorities, and through the NHS, and...
Rebecca Evans: .... The aim is to equip staff with the skills needed to deliver brief advice to encourage small changes to improve health and well-being at every opportunity. But this agenda is complex. Improved education and skills, easier access to healthier food and public procurement policies all have a role to play. We also need more restriction on the advertising and promotion of high-fat, salt and...
