I’m very grateful to Jenny Rathbone, Rhun ap Iorwerth, Vikki Howells, Angela Burns and Dai Lloyd for choosing to focus on important public health issues in the individual Members’ debate they’ve tabled this afternoon, the spirit of which is consistent with our commitment to support people to be healthy and active. I really welcome all of the thoughtful contributions that have been made. Whilst we’re certainly doing a great deal to create the right circumstances and conditions for people to make healthy and active choices, we must also recognise that Government can’t do it alone. If we are to make the vision of the well-being of future generations Act a reality, we need a whole-of-society approach to maximise physical and mental well-being today, and to ensure that behaviours that benefit health tomorrow are understood and acted upon.

This is a challenging agenda. Levels of obesity in adults have risen slowly since the first Welsh health survey began in 2003, and although levels in children are now stable, they are still unacceptably high. We know levels increase with deprivation, so there’s a compelling case to act in order to address health inequalities. We want to support the public to make healthier choices. Public Health Wales recently launched its 10 Steps to a Healthy Weight campaign to support this, and this does include a focus on breastfeeding. This complements our Change4Life programme and our other campaign work. Our Healthy Child Wales programme focuses on the early years, based on the evidence that maintaining a healthy weight in the early years has a long-term impact on levels of obesity and health in adulthood.

Interactions with the health service are often opportune moments when individuals are receptive to lifestyle advice. Public Health Wales is developing its systems-based approach to this, which includes making every contact count. The aim is to equip staff with the skills needed to deliver brief advice to encourage small changes to improve health and well-being at every opportunity. But this agenda is complex. Improved education and skills, easier access to healthier food and public procurement policies all have a role to play. We also need more restriction on the advertising and promotion of high-fat, salt and sugar foods, particularly to children. Some of this work needs to be done at a UK level. We have long called for the Secretary of State for Health to deliver stronger action, such as tougher action on sugar and on the advertising of unhealthy foods to children, and we do support the UK Government’s announcement of a sugar levy on sugar-sweetened drinks, but we do need to see some progress.

The food industry itself has a role to play. UK-wide voluntary salt reduction targets, considered to be a global example of best practice, have led to a reduction of salt levels in foods by up to 50 per cent since 2012, and this is certainly welcomed, but we do need the industry to do more.

Influencing public procurement on this agenda is vital. The Welsh Government has already acted to create a national procurement service for Wales that is developing central procurement mechanisms for all public sector organisations. We are actively engaging with them to set procurement criteria that factor in nutritional specifications. NHS procurement already employs a dietician to do this. This will be a significant step in ensuring that all food and drink provided in our public sector is healthier. This will build on the nutritional standards that we’ve introduced in some of our public settings, such as schools and hospitals. We’re also developing similar approaches for other settings, such as early years and care homes, because we know how crucial good nutrition is for young children and older people.

People themselves need to have the skills and knowledge that underpin healthier lifestyle choices, and schools have a key role to play in this. Our programme for government makes clear our commitment to work with schools to raise awareness of the importance of healthy lifestyle choices. We have a good platform to build from with our Welsh network of healthy schools schemes, and we’ll maximise opportunities to strengthen work in schools further through the development of the new curriculum.

Today’s motion highlights the potential of the active travel Act to raise physical activity levels across the population, including for children. The active journeys programme, which works in schools to promote active travel amongst pupils, makes resources and support available to schools across Wales. This will be complemented by our Walk to School Wales project, which will develop a toolkit to support schools to review and improve active travel options in their areas. The Welsh Government provides funding for walking and cycling training, which is mostly delivered in schools, and these programmes will be reviewed in the coming year with a view to reinforcing the promotion of active travel.

The Act further puts in place the framework to support active travel as a key element of building physical activity into our daily lives. It does so by mandating the planning of coherent walking and cycling networks in our communities and improving them every year. This year, we saw the first key stage of the Act with the approval of the existing route-maps of all local authorities in Wales, and local authorities are now working on the preparation of their integrated network maps. We’re working with local authorities to ensure that these genuinely reflect the needs of local communities and connect the places that they need to travel between. This requires input from a broad range of perspectives. Last week, I was very pleased to speak to an audience of planning, transport, environment and health professionals who are all keen to strengthen the links between their sectors and professions to move the active travel and wider health and well-being agendas forward. Working together, we will see the active travel Act impact on the number of people making active travel journeys.

I am pleased that we can now report for the first time since records began that over 80 per cent of our adult population are non-smokers. This has been achieved by using the comprehensive approach outlined in our tobacco control action plan. This involves working with young people to prevent the uptake of smoking, working with smokers to help them quit and an increase in smoke-free environments. Legislation is part of this wider picture, including UK-wide work to introduce standardised packaging of tobacco products, and, in Wales, the newly established tobacco control strategic board will oversee continued action.

I was pleased to recently have introduced the Public Health (Wales) Bill to the Assembly. The Bill has a particular focus on addressing health inequalities and creating conditions that promote the good health of children. The aspects of the Bill that relate to smoking are particularly strong in this regard, and I have no doubt that it will help us meet our target of reducing smoking to 16 per cent by 2020. The importance of creating the opportunities and the environment in which people can make healthier lifestyle choices is clear from the contributions that we have heard in the debate today. I hope that I have reassured you that we are taking a wide range of approaches across Government to do this. But, as I said, it is not something that we can do alone, and we look forward to working with a wide range of partners to accelerate progress in this area.