The following amendment has been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Simon Thomas.

The next item is the Welsh Conservatives debate, and I call on Russell George to move the motion.

Motion NDM6021 Paul Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the immense achievement of the Welsh national football team in participating in the current Euro 2016 championships in France.

2. Recognises the role Wales’s involvement in the tournament could play in encouraging participation in sport, improving public health levels and creating an ongoing legacy for our elite athletes.

3. Expresses concern at the findings of the recent Welsh Government Health Survey, which emphasised the scale of the public health challenges facing Wales and identified that 24 per cent of adults are classified as obese and 59 per cent of adults classified as overweight or obese.

4. Believes that the Welsh Government must work with governing bodies and key partners to utilise events such as Wales’s qualification to, and participation in, the Euro 2016 finals, to improve public health and inspire greater participation in physical activity.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I hope that this debate will be a little bit less controversial than the last, but I will be mentioning Europe a number of times in this debate. I’m pleased to introduce this debate on the effects of the European football championships on Wales, as well as the longer term health repercussions of the event, and to move the motion in the name of Paul Davies. I’m also pleased to indicate support for the amendment to our motion in the name of Simon Thomas.

I wanted to start today’s debate by congratulating the Welsh national football team. I’m sure that, like everyone else in the Assembly today, we are immensely proud of the achievements of our team in reaching their first international football tournament since the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, and the pride is only intensified following their victory, of course—their 2-1 victory over Slovakia on Saturday—and we’re only, of course, one result away from the knockout stage of the tournament, and wouldn’t it be so sweet if that result came against our English neighbours tomorrow?

Wales has got a proud history of sporting success in hosting major sporting events that far exceeds the norm for a country of our size. We hosted the 1999 Rugby World Cup, the FA Cup finals between 2001 and 2005, two Ashes test matches, an annual stage in the world rally championships, as well as the 2010 Ryder Cup, and we’ve also secured the rights to host the 2017 championship league final. I hope I haven’t missed anything out. If I have, please intervene. But many Welsh sportsmen, from Gareth Bale and Geraint Thomas to gold medallist Jade Jones, have risen to the top of their fields and have represented our country with distinction around the world. Now, despite these successes, sports participation rates across Wales are worryingly low. A previous Welsh Government, when it announced the ‘Climbing Higher’ strategy in 2005, stated their desire to place sport and physical activity at the heart of Welsh life. Now, recent surveys show that the proportion of adults undertaking more than 150 minutes of sport per week has only marginally increased, and, though these findings are of course welcome, I believe that they also highlight numerous areas where Government needs to concentrate on.

One of the main issues that desperately need to be addressed is the clear link between sports participation and socioeconomic background. People with lower earnings are far less likely to exercise on a regular basis, and, of course, I think we can all agree that that must be rectified. At a junior level, sports participation at primary schools across Wales has notably decreased. Physical education is, of course, essential to the upbringing of children all around Wales, and it’s encouraging that a healthy lifestyle keeps children fit and well-motivated to continue exercise, of course, in their adult life. At a time when all eyes are of course glued to the exploits of our boys in France, it should be asked where the future Gareth Bales will come from if the time dedicated to junior physical education continues to decrease.

Now, in regards to the impact of Welsh sport and exercise uptake, I’m particularly concerned that in the recent budget the previous Government cut funding to physical activity across Wales. Additionally, community funding for sporting and leisure clubs across Wales has also continued to decline, so at the same time fees are going up for our football and rugby pitches—I know in Cardiff it costs £55 now a football pitch, and £75 a rugby field. These increases are of course barriers to participation in sport. Now, with increased sports participation linked to good health, it naturally follows that low participation rates are detrimental to public health. In 2015, 24 per cent of the Welsh population was classified as obese, and 59 per cent of the population overweight. Weight problems, of course, bring with them additional health issues such as diabetes and higher blood pressure, both of which have increased dramatically in Wales over the past decade.

Now, economically, our success at the Euros also creates a fantastic opportunity to advertise Wales as a tourist destination, not only to Europeans, but also around the world. I was glad to see that the Welsh Government has taken steps to showcase our nation’s tourist destinations at the European Village, and has invested in advertisements in several languages to market this great country, and I hope that they’re successful in attracting visitors. Now, domestically of course, the Euros are also a good boon to our local clubs and bars and pubs, and I know that I’ll be doing my bit to help Montgomeryshire’s local economy at 2 p.m. tomorrow.

So, with many eyes watching the team across lounge rooms and pubs and fanzones across Wales, but also in France, the Euros present a brilliant opportunity to encourage participation in sport across Wales now and in the future, and I sincerely hope that the Welsh Government, working of course in partnership with other Government bodies, local authorities and key partners, builds upon the success of our football team to increase sporting participation, particularly among the most vulnerable of our society, and that steps are taken to improve the public health of Welsh men and Welsh women.

Finally, events like this bring a huge sense of national pride, and I want to take this opportunity to wish our football team the very best of luck tomorrow and for the rest of the tournament. [Assembly Members: ‘Hear, hear.’]

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Thank you very much. I have selected the amendment to the motion. Therefore I’ll call on Dai Lloyd to move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Simon Thomas. Dai Lloyd.

Gwelliant 1—Simon Thomas

Insert as new point 4 and renumber accordingly:

Regrets cuts to grassroots sports in Wales.

Amendment 1 moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you to Russell for opening this debate and for accepting our amendment, which is factual. We do regret that cuts have been made to grass-roots sports as a result of funding cuts, and it’s important as well for us to join in congratulating the Welsh football team, who had exceptional success over the weekend. And, of course, that is a great boost to the mental health of all of us, I would think, as we’re talking about the impact of sport on our health—not just physical health, but out mental health. Everybody is happier when our national teams have success and especially so during that time in the second half when it appeared quite poor, but it was great to see the boys turning things round and succeeding in winning in the end.

But I want to talk in the time that I have about the importance of physical education. Fitness, that is: fitness, and the need for everybody to keep fit, even though this can be difficult for a number of us. But we can always walk to places, for example, rather than using lifts. There is a lot of medical research work that has shown that keeping fit safeguards you from developing things such as dementia, reduces the rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke, and so forth—a number of diseases that we’re battling to develop new medicines to treat. Yet, if you’re fit, you tend to suffer less from these diseases. If keeping fit were a tablet, then all of us would insist that NICE agree that doctors such as I should prescribe it. But keeping fit is much more effective than most tablets and medicines that we have at the moment to address dementia and stroke, and so forth.

Therefore, walking 10,000 steps every day is the thing—10,000 steps. It’s very easy to achieve, but it can be a challenge.

I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned yet that I’ve been a Member of this Assembly before. Some six years ago now, I had success in passing a Measure to safeguard our playing fields in Wales, and I was very grateful for support from every party at the time to safeguard the future of our playing fields to ensure that the next generation of Gareth Bales, and so forth, could have somewhere to play and run around, even in the centre of our cities.

And of course, to end now, as we’re all ageing, that speed that we had when we were young in playing rugby or football and so forth is starting to get deficient as we’re getting older, quite naturally. But there are other things that develop, such as walking football. It’s developing in a number of parts of Wales, and it’s important for those of us who are ageing and who can’t run around quite as fast as we could before. That, of course, is looking for support, like all other sporting activities.

In conclusion—the Assembly’s rugby team. There are a number of Members here who can play rugby for the Assembly. I will be making my pitch to be on the left wing again, for obvious reasons. But, of course, membership of that team is open to everybody, and I’m looking at my fellow Members also to develop that fitness, to become an integral part of the National Assembly for Wales’s rugby team. Thank you very much.

May I just begin today by putting on the record, I’m sure, the thanks of all of us to Professor Laura McAllister and to congratulate her on the honour she received in the birthday honours list just a few days ago?

Returning Members may remember in a debate in November 2014 that I shared my consternation at the revelation that I am considered now to be an older person. Perhaps the worst part of that awakening was the discovery that I am married to an older person as well. In fact, he’s so old that he too has a Clash T-shirt; it’s tucked away in his chest of drawers. It pre-dates the house that we moved into nearly 26 years ago by a significant number of years, but sadly there are no leather trousers to be found there—unlike, it sounds like, in Huw Irranca-Davies’s home.

Even older, though, are the shirts that he’s kept from his days as a player with the football and rugby clubs in mid Wales, from childhood through the youth teams and ultimately into adulthood. They’re not famous teams. Even now, there are parts of Wales where potentially elite talent slips through the net because it is difficult to develop elite talent in sparsely populated areas. It’s a 60-mile round trip to the nearest football academy from where my family lives, for example, and no public transport to speak of. Of course, if you’re able to make that trip, that could be followed by a round trip of nearly 200 miles to actually play a match. It’s a challenge for the players and their mam-and-dad taxis for players in somewhere like Bridgend in my region, where they go to Aberystwyth once a year. But for the players and the mam-and-dad taxis in Aberystwyth, those long journeys are weekly and talent gets lost as patience wears thin. If the next Sophie Ingle or the next Gareth Bale is from, let’s say, Cribyn or Llanbryn-mair, are we sure that we’re actually going to get to know about them?

My old man—I’m allowed to call him that now—however, is hooked on sport. He doesn’t just shout at the telly and engage the cat in amazing punditry from his armchair: until recently, he coached the town’s children and youth football teams and every week he joins a bunch of, well, I’m going to call them veterans, just to be kind, to play five-a-side football. He may have a season ticket to the local osteopath as a result of this, and many others who join him, but for him and those older men, this sport is not just about fitness; it’s the stress-busting; it’s the keeping up of long-held male friendships; it’s always the pub after the game; it’s kind of the men’s shed in a knock-off Barcelona strip. And so campaigns like ‘We Wear the Same Shirt’ have helped highlight the value of sport to male mental health in particular, but the principles of it apply also to older people. Public Health Wales have shown that the most sparsely populated counties in Wales are those inhabited by the largest proportion of older people, with isolation leading to loneliness and a decline in mental and physical health.

Now, my husband’s only in his fifties, but between one and three and one in five people over the age of 65 also claim to be hooked on sport. And as we heard from Russell George earlier on, the figures aren’t necessarily convincing on this, and I think there’s still a little bit of work to do on statistics so that we can be absolutely sure what the position actually is. I mean, I thought those figures sounded pretty high when I looked at them, even when you recognise that this includes bowls, swimming, using an exercise machine and golf. But, when you drill down a little further, it’s just 7 per cent of the over-65s who do sport or exercise twice a week, even though 18 per cent of them are members of sports clubs, and I think that’s pretty interesting. Over half of over-65s do no frequent sports or organised exercise, and the pattern sets in long before this with less than half of 55 to 64-year-olds doing any sport. Yet, over a third say that they do participate three times a week. It looks like it’s all or nothing, doesn’t it? Those hooked on it really seem to be hooked on it.

The Swansea half marathon is taking place on 26 June, and, while not everyone is from Wales in that, of course, you’d be surprised to hear how many older people took part in that last year. Out of 3,441 runners, 241 of them were men between the ages of 50 and 60, and 51 men over the age of 60. Forty women over the age of 45 took part too; that’s just under 10 per cent of those taking part being older people. The much lower figure for women participants is where I’m coming to just to finish this, because Sport Wales recognises that the value of sport goes beyond physical activity, and has a special value to women who are at risk of social exclusion. And it also claims that women are very good at responding to appropriate provision.

So, I’ll finish my contribution with this, Cabinet Secretary. I applaud all the work that’s happening on men’s mental health and the policymakers’ work that’s being done on encouraging young girls to take up sport, but how can we help women, and older women, at risk of becoming obese—women like me—overcome the bygone embarrassment of the old school gym and to become hooked on sport in later life, even if that is football?

I’d like to start by recognising the enormous achievement of the Welsh national football team in participating in Euro 2016 in France. And as everybody has said, it’s the first time that Wales has accomplished that in 58 years. And yes, the 2-1 win against Slovakia in their first game was impressive, and I couldn’t mention the game without also mentioning one player, Joe Allen from Haverfordwest.

But Wales’s success in sporting events over recent years has indeed already inspired people across the country to become more involved in sport. And it is already widely accepted that major sporting events can, and do, have the potential to boost public participation in sport, and also consequently to increase tourism. I’m not going to run through the list of things that Wales has been involved in because Russell George did that for me. But we do need to take advantage of the momentum that has been created from Wales’s participation in this Euro 2016, and the participation in and staging of those events that were previously mentioned. And we must encourage even more children, young people and adults to take up sport and to continue being active.

We must also reap both the health and the economic benefits that naturally flow on from that. But we must also leave an ongoing legacy for our elite athletes. That is, in any case, an extremely tall order. But it is the case that, since 2008, the active adults survey does demonstrate that 41 per cent of adults are now participating three times a week in some form of activity, and that was only 29 per cent in 2008. It is also the case that that increased activity, when attributed to young people, is even greater.

There is no doubt that we need to improve in some areas the participation in sport and we need to look at why some of those individuals and groups of people don’t actually participate in sport or have the opportunity to participate in sport as much as they could. But nonetheless, we have had improvements and some of those improvements are partly thanks to the Welsh Labour Government’s engagement in a range of work that promotes sport and physical activity. That has achieved improving access to opportunities, it has ensured that physical education meets the needs of our children and young people and it has also helped support community sport and physical activity.

But that is only part of the picture. I think that we can’t go through this debate today without recognising the huge contribution from the masses of volunteers—they were called by Suzy Davies mum-and-dad taxis—but nonetheless they are volunteers. They do actually help achieve a massive 235,000 volunteers right across Wales. It is the case that 10 hours or more a month are spent volunteering. That is an enormous contribution and one, I feel, worthy of stating here today. If we costed that contribution, it would come to £300 million or 15,000 full-time employees. So, that gives an idea of the scale of that contribution.

Moving on to the gaps in sport. I think we must pay attention to the fact that there is a gender gap; that girls seem to fall off as they get into young adulthood. It is the case that there are gaps, and some of them have been mentioned, where poorer children, disabled children and individuals also don’t participate as often as they could. Moving back to what Dai said at the very start, it is the case that if people stay fit, they stay healthy. And if they stay fit and they stay healthy, they don’t find themselves in need of the care. They don’t find themselves to be obese and consequently they don’t find themselves to have some of the diseases that we find so prevalent and so hard to do something about.

Given my Welsh children, my Scottish husband and my English father, I’ve learnt to tread in a very inclusive manner around the subject of team sports. However, I think I can safely say that the performance of the Welsh team in France will be an inspiration to many young boys and girls and we need to ensure that this enthusiasm and interest is built upon and doesn’t go to waste. I think we could look at the success of the London Olympics, because certain sports there saw massive increase in participation in the year immediately following the games. Again, it’s important that we should note that, whilst this will dissipate over time, and although it goes back, there’s always an incremental increase that remains and it is worth using that as a lever to build on again and again.

Tennis is a perfect example of how sport harnesses the extra media coverage at certain times of the year, with tennis clubs generally seeing an increase in membership in the weeks immediately following the grass court championships at Wimbledon. More locally, in my particular constituency, events such as Ironman Wales and the Long Course Weekend provide an inspiration for people, and young people especially, to join up. My kids have entered into Ironkids this time and it’s not actually very easy at all. I’m not entirely sure I’d make it through Ironkids let alone Ironman itself.

It is depressing to see that the uptake of exercise remains inextricably linked to socio-economic factors and Joyce Watson touched upon this in some detail. It’s a fact of life that the lower down the socio-economic ladder you are, the harder it is for you to partake in sports. But there are inexpensive and highly effective opportunities that we can take advantage of. Things like parkruns are a very good example of how mass exercise can be done at very little cost. Minister, I’d like to understand what you feel the Welsh Government might be able to do to promote initiatives such as that.

My colleague Suzy Davies touched a little bit on children living in more deprived areas. I think that that is an extremely important area to start with, because, as we all know, whatever we learn in our childhood tends to go forward with us into older age. So, for me to suddenly take up taekwondo or whatever it’s called is highly unlikely and a very scary thought, to be truthful. However, if my 11-year-old were to take it up, that’s the kind of fitness regime that she will get used to and she will, as a 20-year-old, hopefully go to the gym and so on and so forth. So, if we can capture our young people at a very early age, we have a much better chance of being able to increase sport participation.

I think that Russell George touched on the fact that, actually, the amount of time given to sport in primary schools is dropping and dropping quite significantly. If we look at France, which is where the Welsh rugby team—football team; forgive me please, all those football people who love the beautiful game—. Where the Welsh football team currently are, in France, it is four hours per week for a primary school child. In Wales, they are lucky if they get a proper two. In Scandinavian countries, it’s four to five hours per week for sport, with a big emphasis on including everybody within the school in a sports activity at the weekend.

This does really hurt young people who live in rural communities where poverty can be very easily hidden. If you’re in a household that doesn’t have a great income and you only have one car and that one car is out working with one of the parents, you can only get the school bus into school and back out again; you don’t have the opportunity to stay behind and partake in team sports. You don’t have such a great opportunity at the weekend to go back, join the swimming club and do all the rest of it. So, if we really want to make a difference to our health as a nation, to the appalling statistics we have on obesity, on smoking, on the cancers that I spoke of earlier this afternoon with the Cabinet Secretary for health—in all of these rising rates that we have—. One in two people born after 1960 will have cancer. That is a horrifying statistic. The way to make the difference is to grab the young, engage them—don’t let anybody escape; don’t let them go and live in Angle and not be able to get out. Let’s find ways of bringing sport to young families, sport to young people, because, by doing that, we are going to not only protect them as individuals but take such an enormous burden off our country going forward. Public health is in quite a crisis. It needs a lot of money to try and sort it out. There’s not a lot, perhaps, that you can do for someone of my advanced age—I can tell you that now. But my children—my 11-year-old and my 13-year-old—they have a real chance. Put the money into the kids and really let’s try to get that grass-roots sport up and running. The benefits to our society are incalculable.

Yes, it’s a significant achievement that the Welsh football team has reached the European championship finals, as was noted in the Chamber last week as well. Yes, it would be nice to imagine that this sort of achievement in professional sport will trigger major increases in participation in amateur sport at youth and grass-roots levels. Unfortunately, this does not always prove to be the case. Much is made nowadays of what will be the legacy of a particular sporting event—for instance, London’s hosting of the 2012 Olympics. Unfortunately though, staging huge events such as the Olympics costs rather a lot of money, and the London boroughs afterwards found that their budgets for contributing to grass-roots sport were actually cut. So, it may be the case that, in reality, there is no real positive legacy from such an event. To protect and improve grass-roots sport, we should first recognise that investment in this area can be seen as leading to a long-term cost saving as healthy and sporting youngsters and young adults are much less likely to become unfit or obese adults later on in life. There could be major savings in future NHS bills in return for relatively small investments now.

Instead of cutting sports funding, we need to invest. Invest where, though? Well, we need to strengthen the place of physical education in schools, we need to enhance links between the schools and sports clubs; PE teachers should be encouraged to develop these links. There could be a programme of regular visits to school PE lessons from club coaches in each local authority area. Youngsters of varying abilities need to be encouraged to sign up to sports clubs, not just the elite, and grants to clubs could reflect this kind of sporting diversity.

Angela just mentioned the issue of parkruns. This has cropped up recently in the national press. I believe there were parkruns organised in Hampstead Heath and possibly other parks in London, and there was an issue that they may be charged by local councils—the people organising the parkruns—for the use of the public parklands, which, to me, seems entirely ludicrous. And that’s a path that we need to make sure we don’t follow in Wales. We should be encouraging this kind of voluntary activity that could get lots of people who are not particularly sporting—it could get them involved in sport, because it is a mass participation event. You don’t have to be that good to go to a parkrun; there will be people just as slow as you if you’re one of the slowest. So, we need to encourage that kind of activity, as Angela suggested.

Finally, there are many young adults in Wales who have graduated in sports science in recent years who are not employed in this field. Their talents and enthusiasm for sport need to be harnessed and we need to think constructively about how we can best invest to utilise this latent talent pool.

Thank you very much. Mohammad Asghar.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. May I begin by congratulating Wales on qualifying for 2016—the first major football tournament we have qualified for since the World Cup in Sweden in 1958? It has taken nearly half a century to achieve this goal and it’s a wonderful goal and I congratulate the team, the managers and everybody who made an effort to be there. I hope they’ll win tomorrow against England.

Each major sporting event increases the interest of people in taking part in sport. The Welsh Government has failed to build on the impetus of Welsh sporting success. Strategies such as ‘Climbing Higher’ and ‘Creating an Active Wales’ have good intentions, but inactivity rates remain high.

The uptake of exercise remains linked to socioeconomic factors, with vulnerable groups failing to enjoy increased participation in sport. This has had a detrimental effect on public health in Wales. The result of the Wales health survey in 2015 confirmed that health remains the greatest challenge faced by the Welsh Government. Wales faces a public health crisis with around 60 per cent of adults classed as overweight and about a quarter as obese. But there is some good news in the survey also, Deputy Presiding Officer. The number of adults who smoke has dropped to 19 per cent and binge drinking has also decreased. However the overall picture is a bleak one of the health of our nation. Soaring rates of obesity have led to an increase of diabetes class 2, and cancer and heart diseases have increased.

Since 1996, the number of people living with diabetes in Wales has more than doubled. Over 180,000 people in Wales now have diabetes and it’s increasing. If we don’t do anything, Minister, then in 2025, there’ll be nearly 300,000. What a staggering figure. You must encourage our people. In my young age, I was a long-distance runner, I did go for an Olympic torch run back home, and I can assure you, I am 70 years old and that is actually the fruit I am reaping now. I advise every individual and every family in this country to encourage their children to participate in sports—it is the best recipe for longevity. I can assure you this one piece of advice to every family is more than spending millions and billions of pounds on sports.

But, in sport, also very essential is safety for our children. It is very paramount. I can assure you, Minister, there are three areas that I will mention now, on which you must take steps. One is to make sure that our children have free access to playing fields. Sporting venues must have reduced charges. Local councils are doubling the charges for either cricket, football, rugby or whatever it is. I don’t want to go on figures, but I can assure you, in the last few years, the amounts charged for these fields has trebled and the children are actually leaving sports, because—especially ethnic minorities—they just can’t afford them.

No. 2, also, in Wales, we must make a law that all these fast-food chain stores must use the low number or low standard of the cholesterol in their oil. It is not good enough that burger vans are parked outside our primary and high schools. That should be stopped also.

Also, the third one, which is very important—in the last few months, I have had to go to hospital to see some constituents and some family members. What I saw there in the canteens, in the restaurant, in hospitals, NHS hospitals—the food quality was great, but the chocolate, ice cream, fried chips and everything were nicely given by the staff, but that’s not good enough. That is actually carrying to these people not a good healthy sign, but, actually, is giving the reverse effect to the people. I have known some people who go to these restaurants for food because that is one place where people can get very good food for a very reasonable price, but I would ask the Minister to make sure our hospitals’ procurement is healthy, buying local foods and produce.

Also, there are certain other areas, Minister, that—. The result of the health survey I was talking about from 2015—however, the overall picture is bleak on the health of our nation: soaring rates of obesity and ill health. Sporting events increased the interest of people taking part in sports. Welsh Government has failed to build on the impetus of Welsh sporting successes. Minister, I know there is no time, but this debate needs a much longer time to feed in that sport is one of the best for our national health. Thank you.

Thank you. And finally, John Griffiths, please.

Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. It certainly was an immense achievement for the Wales football team to qualify for the Euro finals after several decades of waiting, and that’s exactly how it felt in Bordeaux on Saturday. I was lucky enough to be there with other Members from across the parties, and I think I can say for all of us, Dirprwy Lywydd, that the way that the Wales football team performed on and off the field and the way the supporters behaved were absolutely magnificent and a great reflection on our nation. It was certainly seen that way by the French and other football-team supporters who were present. So, it has been a very, very positive story that we need to build on.

One way in which I think we can do that, perhaps, Dirprwy Lywydd, is to revive our Welsh Assembly football team. Somebody mentioned the rugby team earlier. Well, we did have a football team and we did play the Scottish Parliament, Westminster and the Northern Ireland Assembly, and, indeed, we won the tournament on at least one occasion. So, perhaps we can revive that with some of the new, younger membership that we’ve had at the last election, and show a good example.

Can I also say, Dirprwy Lywydd, that in Newport, as I mentioned earlier, I believe we are doing some good things around physical activity? It does include football and the local sports clubs, and it’s about pulling everyone together: the health sector, the leisure trust, the local authority, the sports clubs, Natural Resources Wales, Newport City Homes, and a number of others as well, to work on how we can get our local population more physically active. I know that Welsh Government, as the Minister said earlier, is supporting these efforts and will support these efforts, and I look forward to working in partnership with Welsh Government in terms of those local endeavours.

Finally, Dirprwy Lywydd, when it comes to the legacy that the motion also rightly mentions, it is difficult to build a lasting legacy, but this is a great opportunity, isn’t it, because it took us so long to qualify? But not only are we finally there in France, but we have performed very, very well indeed, and I hope, as everybody else does, that we can build on that and go forward to the knockout stages. But what we found locally in terms of the efforts that I mentioned in Newport is that some clubs are ambitious to grow—not all, but some are ambitious to grow—and those clubs need support if we are to build on the legacy. Sometimes it’s legal advice, sometimes it’s accountancy help, sometimes it’s helping setting up a trust or a charity; but I do believe that we need Sport Wales to step up to the plate, and local authorities and leisure trusts to step up to the plate, to identify the clubs that are ambitious locally and to enable them to grow and develop. They will provide opportunities for the areas, as people mentioned, that are currently missing out in terms of deprivation, and also for girls, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. If we give them the support, they will deliver on the ambitions that we all have.

Thank you very much. I call on the Minister for Social Services and Public Health, 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 the whole squad has worked for each other and has been galvanised by the leadership of their manager, Chris Coleman.

The European championship is one of the world’s highest-profile sporting events, with an aggregated TV audience of 1.9 billion for 2012. That sort of global audience will help raise the profile of Wales not just as a sporting nation but also as a small country where working together to achieve common goals continues to mean that we surpass both our own and others’ expectations.

Football is immensely popular in Wales, and, recognising this, the Welsh Government provides financial support to the development of the game at grass-roots level. This work is driven forward by the Welsh Football Trust, who have made significant progress over the last few years. There are now 105,000 registered football players across Wales, including 5,000 women and 800 disabled players. The Welsh Football Trust is working to use the European championships as a catalyst to stimulate young people to take part in football. This is very much using the momentum that Joyce Watson and Angela Burns have described in their contributions.

The trust has established 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 they live. I listened carefully to Suzy Davies’s contribution, and that of Angela Burns, because I certainly don’t want to see talent being lost or opportunities unavailable purely because the young people might live in a rural area.

Major sporting events can provide good opportunities to drive home messages about being more physically active and the benefits that this can bring. For example, mass participation events, such as the world half marathon and that long list recited to us by Russell George, provide us with high-profile platforms for promoting healthy lifestyles. We continue to work closely with Sport Wales and national governing bodies to exploit these kinds of opportunities for encouraging more people to take part in sport and physical activity more often. They also provide our talented sportsmen and women with valuable opportunities to compete against the world’s best on home soil, and opportunities to qualify for the Commonwealth, Olympic and Paralympic Games.

It’s clear that sport is a huge part of Welsh culture and certainly helps define us as a nation. However, the value of sport goes beyond personal enjoyment and fulfilment; it’s a very powerful tool that can help us achieve some ambitious goals. One area of concern that is a challenge to Governments around the world is the slow but steady increase of the levels of overweight and obesity amongst the adult population. The recent figures released for 2015 from the Welsh health survey showed that 59 per cent of adults were overweight or obese, compared to 54 per cent in 2003-04. Levels also increased with deprivation, and they ended as highest in middle age.

We know that lifestyle changes don’t happen overnight and we have to continue to support our adult population to be healthier. However, it is reassuring that the majority of children maintain a healthy weight. Recent data from the child measurement programme show that prevalence of reception-age children being overweight and obese in Wales is stable, with 72.9 per cent being of a healthy weight. This is important as we know that early-life behaviours may track into adulthood and influence weight in later life. So, this healthy majority is an encouraging sign for future generations. In the same way, adults are more likely to be physically active if it becomes part of their lives before the age of seven. The Sport Wales school sports survey shows the number of children and young people regularly taking part in sport is now at 48 per cent, up from 27 per cent in 2011. So, we are making progress, but there is more to do.

As Dr Dai Lloyd and Mohammad Asghar reminded us, the evidence is clearly there, demonstrating that addressing obesity can play a significant role in reducing the prevalence and impact of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia and some forms of cancer, as well as helping with overall improvements in physical and mental health. Gareth Bennett was right to talk about the cost saving that is available to us if we address this. Our manifesto made clear our commitment to tackle this issue through increasing levels of physical activity and improving our diet. Education to inform better choices, free swimming, increased active travel, limiting the amount and availability of unhealthy food in key settings, ensuring that children and young people understand the consequences of poor lifestyle choices, and increasing rates of breast feeding are just some of the things that we are putting in place to support our population at many levels.

Other developments include Public Health Wales’s close collaborative working with health boards to develop effective early years intervention, using concepts from the ‘10 Steps to a Healthy Weight’ programme. Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and the Welsh Government will continue to jointly fund a physical activity director, who has produced a new physical activity action plan. This plan is currently being considered by all three bodies, and I look forward to seeing the final draft soon. I intend to take time over the summer to consider the document and to discuss it with our key stakeholders, with a view to launching it in September.

The background to this debate is our involvement in one of football’s biggest competitions. I’m sure that all Members will support me in wishing Chris Coleman, the players, the support staff and the FAW the very best of luck. It’s a fantastic time to be a Welsh football fan and an exciting time to be a Minister with responsibility for sport. No-one here will need reminding that Wales play England tomorrow, and it promises to be a very exciting game. I’m grateful for the First Minister’s intervention with the French authorities regarding the safety of our fans during the rest of the tournament. Keeping our people safe is our first priority, and I’m sure that the increased security being put in place will mean that our fans will continue to act as the great ambassadors for Wales that John Griffiths spoke of, and will have a safe and enjoyable experience. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. I call on Andrew R.T. Davies to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Could I thank the Minister for responding to the debate and thank everyone who has participated in the debate this afternoon, and wish the Minister well in her new portfolio? We have had a series of debates this afternoon. Obviously, we have had the European debate as the backbench debate, and we’re going to have the Wales Bill debate after this. Actually, if you look at some of the pressures in this debate—public health, the diabetes time bomb and also the important role that sports play in driving economic development in parts of Wales—many of the features that sit in this debate are critical to many communities the length and breadth of Wales. Whilst there is a lot of motherhood and apple pie in this—in particular, wishing the Welsh team well, as we all do, standing shoulder to shoulder with them, and hoping for a good performance tomorrow on the field and ultimately moving through to the next round—it is vital that we make sure that we look at all the other issues that are contained in this debate.

As Dr Dai Lloyd touched on, public health messaging is of vital importance. Yesterday, with it being National Diabetes Week, the awareness around what we can do as individuals for our own personal health and public health is a vital component in actually reducing the pressures on the national health service. Figures were brought out by Mohammad Asghar about diabetes, that if we don’t take action by 2025, there will be 300,000 people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in Wales. That’s nine years away. At the moment, that figure stands at—and this is a pretty astonishing figure in itself—185,000. That’s type 2. There is type 1 on top of that as well, so that’s not all diabetes. Those figures will present a huge challenge to the health service to meet and to work with people to manage that condition.

Sport will play a vital role in actually getting people fitter and healthier. For my sins, I still play veterans’ rugby for the Assembly. Any one of the new Members who have come here this session, we would welcome you to come along to any of the matches that we will be playing. [Interruption.] I’ll keep my shirt on next time I am playing, thank you, Darren. [Laughter.] I think I traumatised the politics award in Cardiff in December. But, actually, from what Suzy Davies was saying about her husband Geraint and all the memorabilia he has from his playing days, as well as obviously offering vital coaching experience, it did remind me of some of the memorabilia I have from my sporting days. We went on holiday on the Whitsun week, and I was told to find my bathing shorts, and, actually, I found a pair of Speedos—I wouldn’t want to give you that thought—and I was told in no uncertain terms by my 14-year-old daughter that if I took those on holiday, I certainly wouldn’t be having her with me on holiday as well then. But, in midlife, we are all of a different disposition, shall we say, to when we were 18, 19, 20, but, actually, sport shouldn’t be held back because of our age, as Angela Burns touched on. It is vital that all sections of society feel that if they want to participate in sport, whether that’s—[Interruption.] I’ll take an intervention.

You’ve mentioned the relationship between age and sports participation. Would you agree with me that one of the best sports for intergenerational activities is actually crown green bowling, which, of course, is practised widely across north Wales—very little in the south? And, of course, there are some excellent facilities in the Deputy Presiding Officer’s constituency in the town of Rhyl. Do you agree with me that the Welsh Government ought to take action to promote crown green bowling as one of those intergenerational sports that can get people active?

I certainly do, and I’d agree entirely with the Member making the case for crown green bowling. In Dinas Powys, for example, in Cowbridge, there are very good teams for bowling, both intergenerational teams and men and women playing as well, and, ultimately, it was a real pleasure at the Commonwealth Games to go along to Dinas Powis Bowling Club, who were hosting the New Zealand team, who were hosting the Irish team, as well as the Welsh team practising there ahead of the Commonwealth Games. And so, there’s a rich tradition across the length and breadth of Wales that we can look at.

But the important thing here, as many Members have highlighted, is the interdependency between the health service and sport and the ability for health to be radically improved and transformed, and that’s why, in our debate, we’ve called on the Welsh Government to actually work with the governing bodies—not just the glamour governing bodies that have the big infrastructure, but those for some of the lesser sports as well that, ultimately, can raise significant funding through applications to the lottery, for example, or just donations from the communities themselves, to provide those assets in the community. Because, again, the point that came over from Angela Burns was that if you live in a rural environment and you only have the one car in the family, very often, understandably, that car is allocated to getting to work and getting back from work, rather than maybe attending that after-school club. I was really heartened by the Minister saying that she would look into this particular aspect of school transport, after-school transport, to allow greater participation levels, because it is a big obstacle, especially when you look at the demographics on the socioeconomic scale. Obviously, sadly, the poorer households in Wales, regrettably, do have the lower participation levels in sport, and that’s a vital area that we do need because, obviously, if you look then at the health statistics, the health statistics show that the incidences of cancer, heart disease, et cetera actually do have a far higher percentage in those communities.

Gareth Bennett was touching on the legacy issues. Obviously, we’re all well aware of the legacy issues around the London Olympics, but, ultimately, unless those are carried through, the host areas very often find that their budgets get hit, because once the glamour event has moved out of town, very often the debts have to be met and debts have to be paid. And so, the legacy of any major event, obviously Cardiff next year is hosting the Champions League final, for example, and, hopefully, the Welsh Government will be working with other governing bodies to bring forward a Commonwealth bid for 2026, which I know has been spoken about in this Chamber, and those legacy issues are really important to make sure that it’s not just a bandwagon that comes into town over the weeks and months that it’s held, a big splash, and then, ultimately, a year or two down the road, the health indices and the participation levels disappear.

It was disappointing to have a sports debate without Mike Hedges offering his insight into football. I do feel we’ve definitely been missing something this afternoon, because, obviously, Mike has a great insight into this from his former playing days. But, in this debate today, whilst there is a bit of fun to be had, there is a serious message to be delivered. If you look at cancer rates amongst women in particular, they have seen the highest increase over the last 10 years, especially in that 65 to 69 bracket, where they have gone up dramatically by 57 per cent. That is a huge increase, and, ultimately, in the question I put to the Minister in ministerial questions today, we know that when it comes to women, they lag behind men in participating in sports. Ultimately, in Wales, the gap is about 100,000; across the UK it’s 2 million people. I do implore the Welsh Government to actually look at the programme that I touched on with them, the This Girl Can programme, to try and incorporate that into its policies and into its proposals. But sadly, in the last budget round, it is a fact that the Welsh Government, for its sports initiatives, did cut the budget by 7 per cent. So, if we are to actually make a difference here, whilst it’s not just money related, it does have to be working with the governing bodies and delivering for communities. As the health Minister in his response to questions this afternoon made clear, it is about the priorities. The Government has a limited amount of money, I accept that, but you can talk in this Chamber all you want; unless you’re prepared to put some resource behind it, then it’s going to be difficult to deliver those projects and programmes. Clearly, with a 7 per cent cut in the budget last year, the last Welsh Government didn’t see this as a key line to deliver.

I will deliver the final point, if I may: we need to look at young people and children. If you actually look at participation levels in primary schools, which was identified by some speakers earlier, regrettably over the last 10 years participation levels at schools have declined dramatically in Wales. A quarter of an hour per week has been taken out of physical activity in schools, going from 115 minutes on average down to 101 minutes. That’s the direction of travel. The direction of travel, as I highlighted in public health, is sadly that many of the conditions are spiralling out of control, and at the other end of the spectrum, participation levels in sport are declining in many of our communities. We need to link up and get it joined up and deliver a coherent strategy, and I do hope that the new Minister will do that, and be more successful than her predecessors, and that’s why I urge support for the motion before the Assembly this afternoon.

Thank you very much. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, then I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.