Thank you. In July, I received and published the independent panel’s report on their review of Sport Wales, with a firm commitment to consider the report and its recommendations over the recess and make a statement on the Government’s response in the autumn.

I welcome the review and its recommendations, and I thank everyone who participated in the process. I am particularly grateful to the independent panel members who volunteered their time to complete the review, and for doing so with integrity and professionalism. The resulting report is an evidence-based reflection on the role and purpose of Sport Wales, and how its stakeholders and partners perceive it. It includes recommendations for both Welsh Government and Sport Wales. I agree with the findings of the review and I am pleased that Sport Wales has responded positively to it. The Chair has written to me setting out how the organisation will address the findings and recommendations, some of which they have already started to implement, and I met with the Chair last week to further discuss their response. I have full confidence in Sport Wales to build on the foundation of success recognised in the report and to unite the sport sector to deliver tangible and long-lasting benefits to the people of Wales.

Today, I am responding to the report’s key recommendation for Welsh Government by making this statement to provide clarity, definition and direction about what we expect from Sport Wales and the sport sector, including how we expect them to work, and how we expect them to contribute to our national strategy, ‘Prosperity for All’.

We often talk about the power of sport to unite a nation, and we’ve been fortunate to see it many times in recent years. There’s nothing like sporting success to bring us together and give us the cause to celebrate our culture, heritage and language. Sport nurtures talent and delivers success, and that success is enjoyed by spectators and supporters, as well as the athletes and teams themselves.

The review of Sport Wales rightly recognises the role that the organisation has played in supporting elite athletes and national governing bodies to deliver medal successes for Wales and Great Britain. They should be commended for that, and for the contribution that this makes to our economy and our global image.

Grass-roots sport provides everyone with the opportunity to be active and to enjoy the physical and mental health benefits of sport. According to the national survey for Wales, people participating in sporting activities are more likely to meet the physical activity guidelines. And people who play sport and take part in physical recreation are also less likely to smoke, more likely to eat five fruit and vegetables a day, and less likely to be obese.

The challenge we have as a nation, and one that sport cannot address alone, is that only a third of the population is physically active to the recommended levels. As a Government, we will encourage and support a substantial increase in people’s physical activity as part of our approach to promoting good physical and mental health. To do that, we need sport to continue to play its part and to demonstrate its impact. But, like many other pursuits and pastimes, it has to continue to be relevant and resilient. It has to create an offer for all ages and abilities at times and in places that are convenient. The offer has to be flexible enough for people to build it around the other commitments in their lives. Sport has to embrace and harness technology to engage and re-engage people, and to maintain their interest and enthusiasm for as long as possible. Sport Wales has a crucial role to play in delivering this sporting offer, and our investment through Sport Wales is critical to the future well-being of the nation.

Over the term of this Government I will continue to invest in sport, through Sport Wales, but I will expect the sector to adapt, to become more resilient and to demonstrate better its contribution to our well-being goals and our objectives. The priorities I expect Sport Wales to focus on are: getting more people active at every stage in their lives—while they’re at school, when they leave education, when they get a job, if they have a family of their own, and when they retire; providing children with the best start in life, by helping schools to teach them skills and give them the knowledge, motivation and confidence to be, and stay, active; investing effort and resources where they’re needed most, where there are significant variations in participation and where there is a lack of opportunity or aspiration to be active; helping sport to continue to nurture, develop and support talent to deliver success that inspires people and reinforces our identity as a nation. This includes schools and employers, the media, local government and the third sector. It involves maximising the potential of our active travel strategies. It means our healthcare providers making every contact with a patient count, and we know that brief interventions to promote healthy lifestyles and support behaviour change can be more cost-effective than prescribing drugs to lower cholesterol levels, for example.

‘Prosperity for All’ makes our intention to work differently very clear. We expect the public sector bodies we invest in to do the same. We expect a collaborative approach from all agencies involved in the promotion of healthier lifestyles, and we expect them to draw on Wales’s significant natural resources to increase people’s physical activity. Sport Wales and Public Health Wales were purposely brought together under one portfolio. I expect them to continue to work together in the coming months to develop long-term priorities and actions to contribute to our action plan to deliver the objectives of our national strategy.

Education is a key driver for change, and its role is acknowledged in our national strategy. Our schools, colleges and universities have a captive audience to influence, and they have facilities that can and should be shared with their communities. Our local authorities make a considerable investment in facilities and activities to encourage participation in physical activity, and their continued commitment is vital. Their and our investments in infrastructure are crucial if we are to engage and encourage active lifestyles and active travel.

Sport is only one domain in the spectrum of physical activity. A second is physical recreation, such as walking, cycling, running and swimming. Others include more routine activity, such as active travel to work or school, and activities such as gardening, DIY and housework. Sport Wales will continue to focus its effort and resources on the sport and physical recreation domains, to increase further the number of people who participate on a frequent and regular basis. Public Health Wales will continue to promote healthy lifestyles, including the importance of physical activity, and Natural Resources Wales will invest in our natural environment to support the infrastructure necessary for people to be physically active outdoors.

But for us to achieve that step change to reduce health inequalities and to buck the trend in ill health and early mortality, we need all partners working together. For that reason, we have asked Sport Wales and Public Health Wales to be jointly responsible and accountable for the development of a combined set of actions in our ‘healthy and active’ action plan that will increase people’s physical activity levels, and they’ll work with Natural Resources Wales to do that. The actions will be framed by the national strategy and will include: common and consistent measures, performance indicators and shared objectives; clarity of the roles of key agencies and the resources available to support our policy objective to increase physical activity levels; and identified areas where resources and interventions will be aligned to achieve common outcomes.

As with all our goals and objectives for this Government term, the responsibility for increasing physical activity lies with us all in Government. But we will only achieve our aims by working across portfolios, and with all our public, private and third sector partners. So, today I am making clear my intent to maximise sport’s contribution to creating a physically active nation and to provide the mandate for joint actions to deliver a substantial increase in people’s physical activity. I am making clear the value of sport to individuals, communities and our nation, and we will continue to invest in it, to maximise its benefits for us and for future generations. Thank you.