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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:57 pm on 3 October 2017.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 4:57, 3 October 2017

Thank you very much for those questions and comments. Having heard you speak previously with such passion about Newport Live and the potential that it has and what it’s already delivering, I was really pleased to go along and see what they did for myself. I was just as impressed as I expected I would be after hearing you speak about them. At the same time, over one side, we had people training at an elite level and also we had groups of schoolchildren doing activities and learning about healthy eating and so on. So, it had really the whole spectrum just on one site. It was really inspirational and exciting. It’s certainly something I would encourage other areas to look at and learn from what’s been happening in Newport Live because it really is quite exciting.

You mentioned well-being bonds and this is one of our programme for government commitments. We’re developing the ideas at the moment for well-being bonds and, again, this is something that I know that you’re keen that Newport Live has a discussion about, to see what we can learn from them as we start developing that. There are different models that we’re looking at at the moment. So, we could be looking at loans, for example, or payment-by-results models. There are different models out there, but at the same time there aren’t any set and established ones that we know absolutely will do the job that we’re after. So, I’m keeping a very open mind as we develop those Wales well-being bonds.

Park runs, I’m really glad that you mentioned those because, again, they bring together people of all levels of experience: people who were previously inactive but turning up because it’s in a park, it’s a local, well-known, fun environment with welcoming people and so on, right up to people who just do 5, 10, 20 km and don’t even break a sweat. So, it brings people of all abilities together and I really welcome that. Another good example would be the Breeze cycling groups for women. That’s specifically bringing women together in a really safe environment, often beginners again, taking that first step into physical activity, and that’s another great example of work that’s already happening up and down Wales.

Active travel: that is extremely important in terms of creating the infrastructure for physical activity, because I think there are two sides to this. There’s creating or giving people the inspiration, but then also giving people the opportunity, and the infrastructure’s part of the opportunity. Our integrated network maps will be submitted by each of the local authorities to Welsh Government by November of this year, and I’ve been very clear with them. Indeed, I’ve written to them to stress the point again fairly recently that, actually, those integrated network maps have to be about active travel rather than just aspirations for more recreational routes in future, because, if we are going to change the way that we do move and that we undertake our travel and our short journeys then, actually, we have to be very clearly focusing on active travel routes.

In terms of our work across Government, I’ve been working closely with the Cabinet Secretary for Education to see what more we can do to use our school assets that we have and what we can do in the school day to encourage children to become more active as well. We’ve had some really good success in terms of the daily mile. Now, thousands and thousands of children in Wales are doing the daily mile every day. We know that it has great impacts on the children’s behaviour in school, on their attention in class and so on. The teachers love it; parents love it. Parents say, ‘If you weren’t doing the daily mile in school, we’d be doing it anyway now because I’ve seen the difference that it makes for my child in the way that they’re learning in school as well.’ So, there are lots of innovative ideas happening at the moment and a real keenness to work across Government on this important agenda.