Diolch, Llywydd. The Welsh Conservatives have tabled this amendment inserting a new section into the Bill that seeks to ensure that Welsh Ministers have to produce a comprehensive report on an annual basis detailing progress made in the delivery of public health objectives, with emphasis on those that protect and improve the health and well-being of young persons. There is no doubt that ensuring people stay well and maintain a healthy lifestyle is of vital importance to the individual, and, consequently, is of enormous benefit to the public purse. Educating the younger generation is an obvious place to start. If we can prove their physical and mental health and sense of well-being, then we are all alleviating the pressures of the future. Public health researchers at Cardiff University found that following a healthy lifestyle—not smoking, maintaining a healthy body weight, limiting alcohol intake—are integral in curbing the likelihood of chronic illness.

This amendment also seeks to ensure that focus is maintained on the vital importance of public health to ensure that all Assembly Members are able to effectively scrutinise the outcomes of this legislation by virtue of an annual report, which will provide both Welsh Government and Assembly Members the opportunity to benchmark and monitor progress. The data produced by this exercise will also inform the wider debate over the acute challenges we face in public health. The OECD report 2016 identified that Wales lacked robust data-reporting mechanisms to accurately reflect key parameters needed to improve health services across Wales. When you consider that socioeconomic deprivation is directly linked to public health outcomes, personified by the fact that lung cancer prevalence is highest in south-east Wales valleys, it is clear that we need not only to collect data to improve public health outcomes, but we also need to promote a prevention-first strategy, in which children and young people are put to the forefront of public health messaging in Wales.

That recent OECD report acknowledged a 10-year decline in reporting across Wales. The report went on to stipulate that there is potential for community health councils to play a valuable role in reflecting the patient voice across Wales. It is critical now that the Welsh Government acts to not only strengthen its reporting arrangements, but widens the public engagement process. This is crucial in putting the role of an integrated health system that serves Wales collectively into place. This amendment would also help to promote collaboration between local health boards and local authorities with an emphasis on schooling and engagement. Central to this is ensuring that public health messaging from health boards and the effective marketing of public health initiatives is taken forward in collaboration with educational bodies. For example, when we seek to improve the health and well-being of young persons, we must recognise that inactivity is a hidden killer, contributing to one in six deaths in the UK, the same level as smoking. More than one in three people in Wales are inactive, failing to be active for more than 30 minutes a week. We already know that physically inactive individuals spend an average of 38 per cent more days in hospital, they make 5.5 per cent more GP visits, and access 13 per cent more specialist services and 12 per cent more nurse visits than an active individual. Yet the Welsh Government, despite its list of commitments to increase physical participation amongst Wales’s population, has cut its funding to physical activity programmes.

In the 2016-17 budget, the Welsh Government cut the delivery of effective sports and physical activity programmes from £26,891,000 to £22 million. This represents a real-terms decrease of 7 per cent. And the number of hours dedicated to PE at primary school level have also declined across Wales. In 2010-11, an average of 115 minutes per week were spent on PE lessons at primary school level. However, the latest statistics show that this currently stands at 100 minutes in 2014-15, and this is in contrast to the noted successes of the UK Government, who introduced the PE and sport premium, which was designed to help primary schools improve the quality of the PE and sports activity they offer their pupils, and they have invested over £450 million during the last three academic years.

This amendment would reinforce the importance of public health being integrated and promotes collaborative working, which, in turn, would lead to a more effective use of the budget and would ensure greater outcomes. Furthermore, it will drive a partnership between health professionals and schools to ensure that factors such as nutrition are also considered when schools are putting forward their lunch menus, because, despite all the talk, currently, healthy eating guidelines are not being achieved by many people in Wales. Guidelines promote eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables each day with meals based on starchy carbohydrates like potatoes, rice, and pasta. However, these guidelines merely promote having a balanced diet. With regard to tackling obesity, there should be more detailed advice and targeted support available so people at risk of obesity can make informed decisions about their nutrition.

Make no mistake: messaging to children, young people, and, indeed, adults, needs to step up in effectiveness and cohesion. For example, we should note that the Welsh health survey, which measures the daily consumption of fruit and vegetables as an indicator of health and well-being, shows that just one in three people eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables each day, and there are questions as to whether current guidelines on healthy eating are actually able to promote healthy lifestyles and tackle obesity. The National Obesity Forum has produced a damning report that highlights that current dietary guidelines are failing to tackle the ever-growing challenge of obesity. The report criticises existing guidelines that promote low-fat diets and high-carbohydrate intake in order to have a balanced diet. Creative, informative, and motivational messaging is critical to helping to improve public health in Wales, and we need to ensure that public health messaging from health boards and effective marketing of public health initiatives are taken forward in collaboration with educational bodies.

This amendment, Minister, will also ensure greater data collection is taken forward in terms of identifying the parameters that allow better public health outcomes. Finally, this amendment will require Ministers to report progress to the National Assembly for Wales on a yearly basis and, as such, allow all Members here to benchmark and scrutinise Welsh Government progress in improving public health for the youngest in our society, and I ask Members to support it.