I’d like to thank the Welsh Conservatives for proposing this debate today. Securing better health outcomes for children and young people is one of the most important tasks facing us in this Assembly. Previous Assemblies and the Welsh Government have taken steps to improve child health, but it isn’t enough according to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in their annual ‘State of Child Health Report’. They highlight the fact that child health outcomes lag well behind our counterparts in western Europe, particularly in mental health outcomes and child deaths. This debate is particularly opportune as we had the news yesterday that air pollution is an urgent public health crisis. The British Lung Foundation, in a recent study, found that nearly half of Welsh councils did not have any air quality monitors outside schools. The British Lung Foundation also found that, in the five areas identified as having unsafe levels of particle pollution—Cardiff, Chepstow, Newport, Swansea and Port Talbot—only six schools had nearby monitors.

Air pollutants have been documented to be associated with a wide variety of adverse health impacts in children. Because of the rapid changes a child’s body undergoes, children are especially vulnerable to the effect of air pollutants. A recent Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health report showed that air pollution can produce detrimental effects on growth, intelligence, and neurological development. Babies and toddlers can often struggle with wheezing and frequent coughs as a result of air pollution, and there is emerging evidence that it can also affect mental and physical development.

Research from Sweden has found that relatively small increases in air pollution were associated with a significant increase in treated psychiatric problems in children. But perhaps the most significant finding of the RCPCH report was the overwhelming evidence that air pollution is associated with reduced lung growth during childhood and increased risk of developing asthma. Every 20 minutes a child is admitted to hospital because of an asthma attack, and one in three children in every classroom suffers from the disease.

Yesterday’s warning by Public Health Wales that air pollution is more of a concern than obesity and alcohol should shock us all—not just because of the 2,000 people who needlessly lose their lives each year, but because of the impact air pollution has on child health. The Welsh Government must ensure that air pollution monitors are installed outside every school in Wales, and work with local authorities and the UK Government to reduce the levels of air pollutants around schools and places where children play.

As well as taking action to reduce air pollution, the Welsh Government must also ensure that children and young people affected by air pollutants have early access to pulmonary rehabilitation. Governments at all levels have a responsibility to protect our nation’s children from the scourge of air pollution, and, now that Public Health Wales have identified this as public health crisis, I hope that urgent action will be taken. Thank you.