2. What key message has the First Minister taken from the recent Stay Well in Wales survey? OAQ51827

The survey provides a wealth of information to support work to improve population health. Its findings demonstrate that there is public support for many of the priorities set out in 'Prosperity for All', including our focus on early years.

Thank you very much for that. It's very clear from the survey that people expect action on public health issues to ensure that we improve the health of the nation. On top of that, today we learn that there's been a doubling of diabetes in the last 20 years, and we also heard from Cancer Research UK, demanding that junk food advertising to young people should be banned because of the rise and rise in cancers related to the poor diets that many people are consuming. So, could you tell us what appetite the Government now has to take action to ban junk food, and generally to ensure that young people are aware that they are what they eat and they will only live a long life if they eat well?

We have a very strong track record in Wales of taking strong public health action where there is evidence that it will improve or protect population health. The public health Act, the active travel Act, and the current minimum unit pricing Bill are very good cases in point. We'll be continuing to prioritise such interventions where there is merit and where taking action is within the powers at our disposal. But, for example, in areas such as broadcasting, we don't have all of the powers we need, but we will be looking at ways of maximising our powers and our influence in those areas where it isn't in our direct control. And we want a strategy to create a very clear vision for Wales, and this will mean working with the UK Government to ensure that we can drive forward changes required to tackle, for example, growing obesity levels in children.

The stay well survey actually, I thought, showed a population that was very keen to take part in responsible healthcare and understood that prevention is better than cure, and showed an enormous maturity on behalf of the public, something we tend to talk down sometimes, I think, here. And one of the things that they really picked up was that 76 per cent of the respondents wanted to see health services being offered more by employers, and employers taking more ownership of helping their employees to stay well. And we raised this last week—or the week before—in our debate on mental health, about the cost of mental health illness to the economy, and what we need to do as individuals and as employers to help people with mental health to do well in their workplaces. Can you please, leader of the house, perhaps outline what the Welsh Government can do to influence both public sector and, more importantly, the private sector to ensure that they stand by their employees and really help them through times of trouble?

I think Angela Burns makes a very good point. The survey was very interesting, wasn't it, in terms of the appetite of people to be regulated, almost, in terms of public health? The Welsh Government spends about £88 million of core funding on Public Health Wales, and we have a range of measures aimed at preventing ill health, alongside a number of other public health functions. We also have the Healthy Working Wales programme, which supports employers across Wales to improve health and well-being at work, and has already supported around 3,500 employers in Wales, which represents about 36 per cent of the working population of Wales. I can also say that, in looking at fair work, and the fair work agenda in Wales in social partnership, one of the things we have been looking at is ways of assisting employers to help with public health promotion. Because, of course, one of the big issues is about economic inactivity and making sure that people who are in work stay in work, and are able to be supported there. So it's all very much, as I say, part of the same programme. So, I take the Member's point entirely. We are already working in that way, and we're looking to extend that across all sectors of Welsh employers as part of our fair work agenda.

Leader of the house, the Stay Well in Wales survey highlighted that doctors and nurses are not the primary source of health information, probably due to the difficulty in getting an appointment with a GP or practice nurse. The situation is being made much worse by short-sighted decisions by local government. Bridgend council intend to cut bus subsidies, which put an end to services covering a lot of Porthcawl, making it impossible for some residents to get to the new health centre. What is your Government doing to ensure that local government decisions do not have an impact on people's ability to access health and social care?

I think that's really quite a stretch in terms of public health. We have a very good working relationship with all of our local authority partners in this, and, of course, they're responsible for delivering social care as well. And we have a very well-developed bond with them around travel and health travel in particular. That's something that also comes up in the workforce partnership council from time to time as well. So, I can assure the Member that we have a very good working relationship with local authorities and they take into account all of those sorts of decisions in making some of the very difficult decisions they've had to make given the austerity agenda still being pursued by the UK Government.