Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 3:06 pm on 29 March 2017.
I thank you for that question. Over many years we have seen some good success in terms of reducing smoking levels in Wales. Actually, fewer people now smoke in Wales than have done since records began, but I think it’s fair to say that we still have some way to go. In order to move towards getting to our target of 16 per cent by 2020, we’ve established a new tobacco control strategic board to produce a new tobacco control delivery plan for 2017 to 2020 to oversee that action. I think it’s particularly important that we support young people not to start smoking in the first place, and we have the JustB programme, run by Public Health Wales, and that trains young people to talk to other young people about the benefits of staying smoke-free, and also the Commit to Quit programme, which is run by Action on Smoking and Health Wales, which helps young people to stop smoking.
With regard to tackling obesity, you’ll be pleased to know that, in our deliberations at Stage 2 of the public health Bill, I’ve agreed to bring forward amendment at Stage 3 that will commit the Welsh Government to introducing a strategy in order to tackle obesity. We also, of course, have that commitment for the ‘healthy and active’ strategy, which does put health and well-being as one of our priorities, where it rightly belongs, with numerous proposals then in order to take that forward as a cross-Government objective.
We also have some settings-based approaches through schools and workplaces, and also our legislative approaches, such as the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, and campaign work such as the Public Health Wales ‘10 Steps to a Healthy Weight’ programme, as well as many local interventions for preventing or managing obesity, some of which you referred to in your own area.