Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:29 pm on 15 November 2016.
I’m just conscious of the time, if I may.
The issue of making sure that we look at young people through their lifestyle and how they grow up: Jenny, you’ll be familiar, I hope, with the 1000 days project that we are running in some of the programmes where we look at pre birth up to the age of two—a very successful programme, again, looking at the opportunities and how the brain forms in a young person in that two-year period; it’s a very important one.
On the daily mile, as you talk about, in schools, I can assure you that we are doing it in schools. I declare an interest, not in doing the daily mile, but my wife is in Bryn Deva school in Flintshire, which does that on a daily basis. So, they should be congratulated, and many other schools across Wales are contributing to the well-being of our young people.
I’ll pick up the point of Michelle Brown. I’m slightly disappointed with her comments trying to suggest that we don’t listen to people, and in particular we don’t listen to young people. I’ll remind the Member that this Government introduced the children’s commissioner and this Government introduced the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act, and we’ll take no lectures off the Member in terms of this. The most damaging thing I think we’ve got to think about with our children is the way we’ve approached Brexit and the racist comments that come from her party with regard to young people in the communities that we all represent. That’s the real problem we have for our young people.
Llywydd, I’m grateful for the opportunity to respond to this debate today. We won’t be supporting the amendments, as I alluded to earlier, on the basis that we will be giving full consideration to the commissioner’s report and deliberating that over the next few weeks, through a consultation programme. I’m grateful for the majority of Members’ comments, and I also wish to place on record this Government’s congratulations to the commissioner and her office.