5. 4. Statement: The Welsh Government Response to the Independent Review of Sport Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:54 pm on 3 October 2017.

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Photo of John Griffiths John Griffiths Labour 4:54, 3 October 2017

Minister, I’m very pleased about the direction of travel and your statement today. In Newport, as I know you’re aware, we’ve been working towards bringing leisure, sports, health, local authorities, the voluntary sector, professional sports clubs and grass-roots sports together, with a series of meetings to try to get a more active local population and to try to address that wider health and quality of life agenda that sport lends itself to. I do believe there is a need to refocus Sport Wales, Welsh Government and others’ efforts in Wales towards that wider agenda, because we do have a lot of health challenges. I think many would recognise that if we are to get on the front foot with health and have a more preventative agenda, then this is exactly the set of policies and strategy that we need to consider and follow. So, I’m very pleased about that.

I wonder if you could say a little bit about how Welsh Government, Sport Wales and others might encourage local initiatives like the one taking place in Newport, whether it’s through new developments such as well-being bonds or any other opportunity, to look at where there is good practice and to support it and hopefully then roll it out further afield. I wonder if you’d also recognise initiatives such as the one by Newport Live, which is a very active and strong partner in that local development in Newport, as the trust taking forward leisure services. They’ve recently launched a swimming initiative, Draig Dŵr, which Jayne, Jessica Morden, as MP for Newport East, and I attended last week. It’s a programme to engage people more actively and strongly in swimming, to then progress and set goals for themselves, to benefit from coaching and tips to improve their technique and to monitor and facilitate that progress. That’s just one of a number of initiatives that Newport Live are taking forward at the current time, which makes them a very active and strong partner in that local initiative.

I wonder also if you would agree that park runs right across Wales are a very strong model of how you can use engagement techniques, such as websites, such as allowing people to monitor their progress by timing their runs, and having a range of social activity, how perhaps we could look at that model for running and see if it fits other physical activity, which would help us get the more active population we want to see.

On active travel, Minister, I wonder if you could just say a little bit about how you’re working with ministerial colleagues across Welsh Government to ensure that active travel is effective and does deliver on this agenda. I was very pleased to hear you mention it in your initial statement.

Finally, on community-focused schools, it’s long been a belief of mine that community-focused schools should be more universally available right across Wales. If they were, I think it would make it much easier to engage our local population around physical activity and make the progress that we’d like to see. So, again, I wonder if you could give us a flavour of how you’re working across Welsh Government to make sure that community-focused schools are available right across Wales and the norm rather than good practice.