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 these benefits. We start from a low base. Last year, just 6 per cent of adults in Wales made an active journey by 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 inactivity to the NHS in Wales is £51 million a year. We want to help people across Wales increase their physical activity by providing the means to make walking and cycling short distances the norm. This will help improve our nation’s physical and mental health, save people and businesses money, improve our air quality, reduce congestion and carbon emissions, and increase our support for local shops and businesses.

A key element in this is our landmark legislation, the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, which was commenced nearly two years ago. Since then, we have made significant progress in changing the way that we treat walking and cycling in Wales. We now have our national design standards, which set out clearly what we expect from walking and cycling infrastructure. We expect the infrastructure to be safe and comfortable to use, and to really meet the needs of users. These standards will help to transform routes across Wales over the coming years.

We have conducted a comprehensive survey of existing walking and cycling infrastructure in Wales, which was completed in spring 2015. On this basis, local authorities were able to audit and identify the existing routes in their towns, which they consulted on and submitted to us on their existing routes maps this year. Local authorities have now begun work on the next stage, where we look at moving from looking at what we have already got, to what we want for the future. This will result in the submission of the first set of integrated network maps for 142 places in Wales next September. It is critical that the planning of these networks builds on engagement with as many current and potential users as possible to ensure that their views and knowledge help effectively connect the origin and destination points that people need to travel between.

Encouraging people to walk and cycle for everyday journeys requires more than good infrastructure, important though this is. We need to change people’s attitudes to walking and cycling, and support the emergence of a new active travel culture in Wales. Our active travel action plan, which was published in February this year, sets out the actions that Government is taking to support this change. It complements the wider work on increasing levels of physical activity in Wales under ‘Getting Wales Moving’, which will inform our healthy and active strategy, to be published later this year.

The action plan includes our high-profile Active Journeys programme, which supports promotion and engagement of active travel in many schools across Wales. In its first year, the new programme has benefited 230 schools in total, ranging from more intensive work with schools, including work to seek pupil involvement with Safe Routes in Communities schemes, through to simply providing advice and information. The work programme included, for the first time, secondary schools. Forty-five secondary schools benefited, most of which held workshops to get students’ input into the integrated network mapping process.

We are also supporting the Cymru Travel Challenge, which targets workplaces across Wales. Over three challenges, we aim to motivate over 4,500 employees across Wales to increase the frequency of active travel and the use of public transport for everyday journeys, and replace single-occupancy car journeys. Challenge 1 ran in May and saw over 700 participants logging 6,500 journeys and replacing 32 per cent of car journeys with walking and cycling. Challenge 2 commences on 10 October.

Increasing levels of active travel in Wales is something that requires action from many parties, within Government and outside it. Local authorities have a key role to play, and I am very grateful for the professionalism and the enthusiasm that many have shown in embracing the challenges of implementing this new legislation. I am working closely with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure, and we are agreed on the vital importance of ensuring active travel is embedded in the planning of major transport infrastructure projects, such as the metro projects in north and south Wales, to ensure that our transport network is genuinely integrated, efficient and high quality. I am also working with my other Government colleagues to ensure the delivery of the Welsh Government’s actions and duties, and look forward to working with the active travel board, which I will meet at their next meeting on 5 October. Diolch yn fawr.