5. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the role of education in combating problem gambling? OAQ52020

Thank you, Mick. Education is just one of the means to address problem gambling. One recommendation in the Chief Medical Officer for Wales’s report was to provide those responsible for the health and well-being of children and vulnerable people with further information on the potential harm that gambling can bring.

Thank you for that answer. I wonder if you'd perhaps go a bit further. What we know, from the Gambling Commission, is that about 0.5 million pupils across England and Wales, between 11 and 15, are now gambling on a weekly basis. That would correlate to around 25,000 children in Wales between the ages of 11 and 15 gambling on a weekly basis, a number of those now being problem gamblers. In the light of the chief medical officer's report, I wonder if you will be meeting with the chief medical officer to actually develop, as part of the overall public health strategy, a strategy dealing with what is a growing gambling problem for the future amongst our children, who are working and living in an environment where, through things like sport, gambling is almost being normalised in our society and presents us, I think, with real challenges for the future.

I understand your concerns, Mick. You'll be aware that the leader of the house and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services recently agreed to write to the Advertising Standards Authority with regard to that specific point about the prevalence of gambling adverts. Gambling sponsorship is an issue because many, many children are getting to see those. I am very pleased to let you know that questions on gambling were included in health behaviour in school-aged children's research network survey for the 2017-2018 survey, so that we can get a better understanding from children themselves about the effect that gambling may have on them as individuals, and that gives us baseline data that we can really take action from.

I think it's really important that we use our opportunities via the personal and social education part of our existing curriculum to be able to explore the dangers of gambling with our children and young people, and you'll be aware, as we develop our new curriculum, that there are opportunities in the new health and well-being area of learning and experience for schools to address these issues but also via our numeracy AoLE, where I would expect schools to be talking about financial literacy and how to make positive choices about how you utilise your money.

Via our healthy schools network as well as our adverse childhood experiences hub we're also better equipping schools to deal with issues around problem gambling if they become aware of that within their school community. I believe that in the cross-Government approach, whether that be health and social care or planning, there are many things that we can do to address this agenda head-on.

I share the concerns that have been expressed by Mick Antoniw and agree with him wholeheartedly that we need to take more action in our schools to address problem gambling. One of the concerns that has been raised with me is that, in the Welsh baccalaureate, there is a task that has been assigned to some pupils in Wales that asks them to imagine what it's like to win the lottery and then to spend that money. Now, it seems to me to be wholly inappropriate in terms of encouraging people to imagine that sort of task and it's at odds with the public health messages that we want to send as a nation to our young people. So, what action are you going to take to work with the WJEC, Qualifications Wales and others to make sure that all of our examinations, all of our textbooks, have gambling eradicated from them in terms of promoting it in this way and that the only message they see about gambling is one that is negative?

Thank you, Darren, for that. I would expect all examination questions and Welsh baccalaureate tasks to be written in an appropriate way. Can I be absolutely clear that what we're talking about here is problem gambling and recognising that as a health issue, an addiction issue, just in the way that there are other addictions? I think we need to be slightly careful when we equate playing the lottery with problem gambling. I think we need to be slightly careful about that, but I would expect all questions in all examination papers to be written in a way that is appropriate for children reading them and using those resources.

Further to those comments—and I agree with all the comments thus far—Mick Antoniw would know that a recent University of South Wales study showed that a quarter of gamblers do not consider themselves to be gamblers, and that applies to children as well. So, pushing further on this issue of education in schools, obviously my colleague Bethan Sayed previously has raised the principles of financial education, which would incorporate this sort of education, but really we need to be highlighting this strongly, as has been mentioned because of the insidious nature of the gambling industry inculcating itself into every form of life and trying to normalise the issue. It is not normal to be a gambler, and I'd value your support on the issue.

Dai, you're absolutely right: we need to look at these issues beyond simply the health and well-being AoLE. Financial education will be a key element within the new curriculum, offering robust provision to help learners develop their financial skills, including the management of their money. I was very fortunate recently to attend a pioneer school in your own region, Olchfa, a year 8 maths class, where they were indeed talking about the tax system and how you would manage your money and work out your tax liabilities. So, we already see on the ground lessons in this regard happening in our schools at the moment and, of course, as we move towards a statutory take-up of the curriculum, I would expect to see more of that going on. It was absolutely fantastic to see relatively young learners in their secondary education career having the ability to develop their numeracy skills but at the same time learning and understanding about how tax works and actually having a very moral debate about whether people should be taxed more or less.