I only want to make a brief few remarks in response to some of the speeches here this afternoon. I’d like to wholeheartedly endorse what John Griffiths said about the potential of the parkrun. I recently took part in the new Llanelli coast parkrun, which was a terrific experience. Every time I’ve taken part in the parkrun, as somebody who is not a natural runner, I’m always warmly enthused by the support of the volunteers who really encourage you along. For most of the people taking part in the parkrun, were it not for that activity, they’d be doing nothing at 9 o’clock on a Saturday morning. For the £6,000 of investment needed to get them up and running, I think they are a no-brainer from a public health investment point of view, and I’m pleased to see them flourishing across the country.

I wanted to talk in particular about the element of the motion around the untapped potential of the active travel Act, which I think is perhaps a little harsh, given that the Act has only recently become enacted, but I think it’s right to point out that we really can’t just see this as a tick-box exercise and nor can we approach it in a half-cocked manner. This is a huge opportunity to try and get people who currently take little or no physical activity to take some. There’s plentiful evidence to show that for those people who are physically inactive, the way to get them to take some physical activity is as part of their everyday routine, and simply expecting them to go to leisure centres or gyms is likely to be ineffective. So, this is a huge chance to reach a section of the population we most need to reach out to.

I think we do suffer sometimes in this Chamber from what’s known as ‘cognitive dissonance’ when we say one thing, but we do another. We talk, in public health terms, enthusiastically about the value of active travel and physical activity, and yet, when we talk about an economic strategy, for example, or we talk about transport matters, we put this to one side, and we seem to think that physical activity is the responsibility of the health profession. When we do other activities, we don’t think about how those tasks can be used to deliver the rising levels of physical activity we need to see. So, for example, to return to a theme that I’ve talked about recently—the encouragement of free car parking in town centres. We should be encouraging town centres and towns that are cycle and walking friendly, and using scarce public investment to build in networks to encourage people to take those short everyday journeys. Some 20 per cent of car journeys are under a mile. A lot of those could be replaces by walking and cycling trips.

In my town of Llanelli, for example, there was a proposal for an urban cycling network to connect people up with those everyday destinations they want to go to. But, unfortunately, the county council—pre-active travel days, but those schemes are now on the books—are focusing their investment on longer-distance routes and tourism routes, and not on those everyday routes. It’s essential, instead of hardwiring in policies that are going to encourage sedentary lifestyles, such as free car parking, we really need to be seizing every opportunity to build in physical activity to all of our plans.

I note recently that Cardiff council has published an ambitious cycling strategy for the city, which we really must get behind and enthusiastically endorse. I know they’ve been having difficulty within the city region, for example. The city deal, which is still littered with very orthodox and old-fashioned thinking, where local authorities up and down the Valleys see an opportunity for funding and dust off road schemes that they’ve had on the shelves for 30 and 40 years in some cases. Cardiff, to be fair to them, are showing real leadership in building on the gains we’ve seen in the last 10 years in the city of increased levels of cycling, and they’ve put together an ambitious plan. But I know they’ve had difficulty within the city region in getting support for that. I’m pleased, in the case of the Swansea bay city region, that Terry Matthews’s vision hasn’t been about roads and enterprise parks—it’s been about digital connectivity. I think that’s the thinking that we must embrace.

The active travel Act, as has been mentioned, presents us with an enormous potential prize within our grasp. But it can’t simply be seen as a duty that we have to discharge. It’s something that we must embrace enthusiastically. We must push—all of us in our leadership roles within our communities—to get people to feed in the potential routes they’d like to see as part of the integrated network maps, to get those everyday journeys put into the plans so that they are the first to be delivered. It’s a huge prize, and obesity will only be tackled by actions like these. So, we really need to abandon this cognitive dissonance, and scan every opportunity to build in increases in physical activity in all of our programmes. Diolch.