7. What Welsh Government support is available for initiatives to prevent ill-health in Wales? OAQ51653

The Welsh Government directly funds a number of national organisations, services, programmes and settings-based approaches aiming to prevent ill health. These include smoking cessation services, immunisation programmes and healthy schools and workplace programmes.

Cabinet Secretary, in accordance with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, I think it's widely accepted, and I think Welsh Government would certainly support a move to a more preventative approach in dealing with ill health in Wales, and being more proactive. Where there are examples, as I believe there is a particularly good one in Newport of the local health board coming together with Newport Live, as the leisure services organisation, Natural Resources Wales, Newport City Council and a range of sports bodies, to try and achieve a more active local population to be preventative in terms of ill health—. Where there is a good local coming together of that nature, what support might Welsh Government offer to facilitate and encourage? I know that previously there was mention, for example, of well-being bonds as being one possible vehicle to support pilots in local areas in Wales, and I just wonder if that's still a possibility or if there's some other means by which Welsh Government might offer that support.

There are a couple of specific things to talk about, apart from the generality, or the £600,000 of funding that goes through Sport Wales to Newport for core funding services and the Community Chest funding services. You'll be aware that the well-being bond is a manifesto of commitment and it's in 'Prosperity for All', the national strategy. I'll be making an announcement on that in the coming months.

There's a range of different areas where we do take action and support activity. There's a more general preventative approach in healthcare services, but working with other partners, and the continuing partnership with Public Health Wales, health boards and Sport Wales is an important one. I expect to meet with my ministerial colleague, who's not in the Chamber at the present, to have that conversation on the joint work that Public Health Wales and Sport Wales have been doing. I'm also interested in what the professional sports are doing to actually promote, not just sport, but broader physical activity, and that's why, as an example of not just physical activity, you hear about Ken Skates and active travel.

We support a range of activities. We've supported walking groups in December—further funding to have local walking groups through Let's Walk Cymru, with funding to take them through to April 2019. We support a wide range of activities. We do recognise that not everyone is interested in the world of sport. How do we make them interested in more general physical activity, and how do we make it easier for people to undertake that activity and see the benefits for themselves, and not simply for the Government?

Last November, Cabinet Secretary, the British Medical Association published a new position paper on the use of e-cigarettes, and I quote what they stated:

'There are clear potential benefits to their use in reducing the substantial harms associated with smoking, and a growing consensus that they are significantly less harmful than tobacco use. With appropriate regulation, e-cigarettes have the potential to make an important contribution towards the BMA’s ambition to achieve a tobacco-free society, leading to substantially reduced mortality from tobacco-related disease.'

In view of this, Cabinet Secretary, what action are you going to take to promote the use of e-cigarettes in Wales as an alternative to tobacco smoking? Thank you.

I think we should think again about some of the language that the Member has used: you said that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful than tobacco. That does not mean that they're not, themselves, harmful; it's about the balance in harm. And it's also about a recognition that we don't always understand what goes into an e-cigarette. We had this debate in this term with the public health Bill, and in the last term as well there was a change of position about our ability to regulate this area. There's something about being able to regulate the products, because, actually, if you don't know what's in an e-cigarette, that's rather difficult, and I think there's something there for us to continue to consider. The Government has no intention of promoting e-cigarettes. There are choices for people to make themselves, as citizens of the country. I think that we have to, as I said earlier, continue to be led by evidence on what we could and should do, what we could and should promote.

Thank you to the Cabinet Secretary.