Rebecca Evans: Carwyn Jones.
Rebecca Evans: The Welsh Government remains committed to increasing rates of participation in physical activity through sport. Sport Wales are our key delivery agent and are working with a range of partners and stakeholders to drive forward our agenda of making Wales a more active and healthy nation.
Rebecca Evans: I thank you for that question. I certainly join you in commending Merthyr Town FC and Merthyr council for working in partnership to ensure a sustainable future for community sports in the area, and I’m more than delighted that Welsh Government was able to play its part by providing over £2 million for the funding for Penydarren Park through our Vibrant and Viable Places programme. That...
Rebecca Evans: Absolutely. I do thank you for that question. I’m pleased that we already have over 3,500 girl football players registered under the age of 18 and also nearly 1,500 adult women. I think that perhaps the current games will inspire more to consider getting involved with that. But you’re absolutely right that sport plays an important role in public health, which is why the Welsh Government...
Rebecca Evans: You’re absolutely right in identifying there that the answer does lie in partnership working and this is why Welsh Government has, with Sport Wales and Public Health Wales, put in place a director of physical activity for Wales, and that director is currently putting together an action plan for action. We look forward to receiving that towards the end of this term. I’ll spend this summer...
Rebecca Evans: The Welsh health survey 2015 reports that 19 per cent of adults smoke. This reduction means the Welsh Government has already exceeded its aim of reducing smoking rates to 20 per cent by 2016, and is well on track to achieve its ambitious target to reduce levels to 16 per cent by 2020.
Rebecca Evans: Thank you. We intend to build on our success so far with the new tobacco control strategic board, which has been set up to oversee the next steps forward. We have three specific sub-groups looking at best practice on smoking prevention, cessation and the denormalisation of smoking behaviours as well, to make it particularly unattractive to young people. We also have a separate task and finish...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you. I’d like to thank Members for what I think has been a really constructive and helpful debate this afternoon. It gives me great pleasure to begin by joining Members in applauding the success of our men’s senior national football team, both in qualifying for a major tournament and in showing the world how sport can unite a nation. It’s a tremendous achievement and it shows how...
Rebecca Evans: As our agent Sport Wales continues to focus investment on increasing participation in all parts of Wales with a particular emphasis on women and girls. We are seeing increased participation in a number of sports but there is more to do in order to narrow the gender gap.
Rebecca Evans: Welsh Government led the way in planning for an ageing population, with our first Strategy for Older People in 2003. The Intermediate Care fund has provided £110 million to improve care and support for older people. We have invested another £30m improving services for older people and mental health services.
Rebecca Evans: I thank you very much for that question and I’m acutely aware of the important role that carers play in supporting the people—the loved ones—whom they care for, but also the economic benefit that they offer to our country as well, as you’ve just outlined for us. In reflection of that, the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 gives, for the first time, carers the same rights...
Rebecca Evans: I thank you again for that question and you’re absolutely right in identifying that carers play a crucial role in supporting people with dementia. Our dementia vision in Wales is very much about supporting people with dementia to stay at home for as long as possible and to play a full part in the community. Obviously, carers have an absolutely key role to play in that. As you know, we’ll...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you. You’re right to identify that paying for social care and coming to a sustainable, secure long-term future for social care is critically important, given the pressures that you have identified on public services and the aging population, and people’s quite rightly ever-increasing expectations of the kind of social care that they will be able to receive as well. So, I am very...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you. I’m pleased to open today’s debate proposing that the National Assembly for Wales notes the Welsh Government priorities for substance misuse as set out in our new substance misuse delivery plan 2016-18.
Rebecca Evans: Substance misuse is a major health issue that affects individuals, families and communities. The Public Health Wales ‘Making a Difference’ report published in July this year highlighted the scale of the problem of substance misuse, which shows the continued challenges that we face. The report highlights the threat alcohol misuse poses to public health in Wales, as it’s a major cause of...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I’ll do my best to answer as many of those points as I can in the time remaining to me. Mark Isherwood began by talking about reducing drug-related deaths, and every single drug-related death is of course tragic, but the numbers are so low that we have to be very cautious about interpreting year-on-year fluctuations in those figures. We are looking...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Improving the well-being of people in Wales and enabling them to be more active is a key manifesto commitment for us. Walking and cycling in particular offer a multitude of benefits to individuals, to society and to the planet. The Welsh Government, with the support of the previous Assembly, has put in place a new framework that will ensure that we can realise...
Rebecca Evans: I thank you very much for those questions and also thank you for the very constructive session that we had with committee in which we explored in quite some detail the aspects of physical activity to which you referred. You asked about the statistics—the figure of £51 million as a cost to the NHS every year in terms of the lack of physical activity. That figure was given to us by Public...
Rebecca Evans: I thank you for those questions. I’ll begin with the question that you raised on planning, and how we are ensuring that planning is an enabler for active travel. I’m considering now how we might make revisions to planning policy and guidance to strengthen the emphasis on active travel, and that’s something that I would be working with colleagues on as well. You would have heard the...
Rebecca Evans: I thank you for the welcome that you've given it and for the support that I think that we've had right across the Chamber here in the Assembly today. With regard to the workplace, I think there is an opportunity for employers to be supportive of their employees' efforts to make active travel journeys, for example by providing showers in the workplace and so on. I know we certainly provide...
