I would like to thank the Welsh Conservatives today for bringing forward this debate on obesity, particularly just after Christmas, as Angela has said. Doing something good for ‘Jan-YOU-ary’ is a pledge we can all support during National Obesity Awareness Week. It is a matter of national shame that nearly two thirds of Welsh adults and a third of Welsh children are overweight or obese. But we have to deal with obesity in a sensitive way because people react differently, and we don’t want people to look at the size zero in a magazine and think that that is the way that they have to go. So, it has to be a case of educating people in a sensible way.

We must resist the urge to try to solve the obesity crisis by introducing legislation. A sugar tax is not going to magically stop people from drinking sugary drinks, in the same way that duties on cigarettes haven’t had the desired result that we all wanted and expected. We haven’t reduced the number—much—of people smoking. It just penalises those who can least afford to absorb the costs. A sugar tax, apart from being a regressive tax, will also do little to solve the fact that eating healthily is often more expensive than eating junk food. I mean, how often do people through—. You know, they need to get home quickly and they call in and grab a McDonald’s as opposed to going home and cooking. Allotments are now part of the past, really, where we had wonderful veg and fruit, and everything home-grown, which we now class as organic and that for most people is way out of their pricing, or their budget. So what we can do is ensure that we are better educated about the foods that we eat. Schemes such as Change4Life are a great start, but rather than relying on national ad campaigns we should be delivering these messages to every schoolchild in Wales. Part of the new national curriculum should focus on teaching young people how to eat healthily and how to live a healthy lifestyle. The top-down approach hasn’t worked so far, so let’s go for a bottom-up approach instead. Thank you—diolch yn fawr.