I’m delighted to be able to stand here and speak on the Public Health (Wales) Bill. Minister, I’d like to say that the Welsh Conservatives will be supporting the general principles of the Bill. As we go forward over the next few stages, we will be seeking to bring further amendments to the Bill and we will be seeking to ensure that the financial assessment of the cost of this Bill keeps pace with the amendments as and when they are posted to it.

There are a number of areas that I would like to try to briefly touch upon. I was very pleased to hear your comment that you intend to extend the smoke-free zones to early-years settings. That chimes with our desire and we are very pleased with the overall thrust of the Bill in terms of tobacco and nicotine products. We do have a slight concern, though, that the proposed register will not achieve the desired outcome in terms of stopping the black market trade in cigarettes and tobacco products, because, of course, that is the area we are trying to get to, and if we’re not careful we could have a cumbersome system that targets those who we know about, rather than a slightly faster system that gets to the people we don’t know about and we want to stop

I’d like to turn to the next area, which is the area of special procedures. I am sad that you’re not going to be accepting the committee’s recommendation on laser treatments. That gives us pause for thought—the Welsh Conservatives—because we were in two minds as to whether or not we would like to go down the overarching description of treatments or whether we should accept your view that we should just add them one at a time, as and when the proven harm came. So, I would like to understand your thinking behind the refusal of the committee’s recommendation, because here we are at the very first step when we might ask you to consider adding something on and the Government is saying ‘no’. Therefore, does that mean that if we’re looking at other areas in future—complete body hair removal, for example—or if we’re looking at cupping and other areas that are now beginning to come forward—tongue splitting—as potentially harmful treatments, will that automatically mean a ‘no’? So, I’d like to have a clear understanding of the process that you went through and your rationale behind it, because otherwise we will need to consider how we think we can strengthen the face of this Bill.

Protecting the public from harm is absolutely key to what we’re trying to do and I would like clarification on your official’s evidence that said the purpose of the legislation was to ensure that procedures were undertaken in a safe and hygienic way and that it wasn’t a safeguarding issue, because, again, whilst I’m still on intimate piercings and the area of special procedures, I have to say that this directly contradicts the evidence the committee received. It’s not just about the infections you might get; it’s also about the competency of the decision-making process, the protection of vulnerable people, the prevention of sexual exploitation and the prevention of coercive control. Earlier on today, we had an excellent question being asked by Joyce Watson on female genital mutilation and it was made very clear to us in some of the evidence that we took that some of these procedures are not reversible. Some of these procedures are considered to be substantial or—and I’m going to quote—‘very major reconfigurations of the genital anatomy’. Something you do at 16, if you’ve fallen into company who is exercising coercive control over you, could be something you live to regret when you’re 25, 26, or 27. Also, if we look at Operation Seren, we can see that many of the people who were affected in Operation Seren were young people. Many of them were looked-after children. They were very vulnerable and so I would urge you, Minister, to be really explicit and clear in your analysis of the age of consent for intimate piercings and for all of these procedures. The Welsh Conservatives are seeking 18. The Health and Social Care Committee is seeking 18. I’d really like to see you come towards us on that one.

I would like to very briefly turn to just one further subject, given the time, and that is the subject of obesity. Minister, this is a public health Bill and it is the one subject that is simply not touched upon at all and it is predicted to be one of the major killers of people in Wales over the forthcoming decades. We would urge you to take further evidence and to see how this Bill might be tailored in a way that will enable local health authorities, local councils and the Government to really try to promote an anti-obesity strategy, because with over 59 per cent of people in Wales overweight and the effect it has on other medical conditions, it is, to be frank, a missed opportunity to have a public health Bill that does not touch upon this one crucial subject. Thank you.