Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:20 pm on 29 January 2019.
Thank you for the series of questions. You are right that advertising regulation is not devolved, although there is regular contact between officials and the UK Department of Health and Social Care. They're due to be consulting on extra measures around advertising and the potential to have, in particular, high-fat and high-salt-content foods—essentially, to have a watershed in advertising. We're in favour, broadly, of having restrictions on what can be advertised at what time, and, in particular, how that's targeted. Then, we're also considering whether there are things that we might be able to do in the way in which different products are advertised at events we ourselves sponsor and promote.
On your point about cooking for adults, if you look through the consultation document, we do recognise that, actually, helping people to prepare healthier food is a key factor. Actually, almost all of our anti-poverty programmes have looked at helping people to prepare healthier food as well. It's a standard part of the conversation—it's also part of what we look to do in promoting a healthy eating message through schools. It isn't just about educating children—it's actually about the whole school community. Part of what we'll be doing in the consultation is, in addition to the groups that I outlined, we're going to make sure that we talk to parents engaged in Flying Start. We're also going to have some conversations around school communities as well to talk to pupils and to parents, rather than just being one end or the other of the conversation.
On obesity and pregnancy, this comes back to the general challenge that we have on having a healthy weight through life. If you just want to have that conversation immediately before pregnancy or when someone is already pregnant, then there are still things you can do to help people to manage their weight. But, actually, we want to get ahead of that to try and make sure we're having a broader conversation rather than loading this into antenatal education.
But, of course, the reality is that we've increased our midwifery numbers to make sure we're Birthrate Plus compliant, and that is largely driven by the additional complexity in delivery of birth. That's partly because women tend to be older now when they give birth, but also because of the challenges of obesity too. So, there is a challenge about making sure that babies are safely delivered, and we have responded to that by increasing substantially and then sustaining the investment in midwifery training numbers.
But, like I said, in this, I think we're more interested in how we make every contact count, when people have contact with health professionals, and the more general cultural change that we want to see develop. That is about working with people, and it's why we're not referring to this as an obesity strategy, because, actually, the language and the framing in the conversation really matter. If people feel they're being judged, they're unlikely to engage, including those people who do want help to make a difference.
In terms of the measures that we want to adopt, that's part of the point of having the consultation—to see what works, and then, when we have that and when we deliver a strategy, we're clear about how we will have milestones and benchmarks to understand if we are genuinely making progress and what it is apt that the Government should be measured on and what it is apt that we want to set ambitions for the country on. That's a broader question here, because the Government on its own can't resolve this issue—if we could, then we certainly would have done by now.
On your point about social prescribing, I've made a number of statements in the Chamber about social prescribing, about its use not just in, for example, the national exercise referral scheme, but the additional investments we've made, together with the third sector, primarily targeted at mental health. I will update the Chamber again, when we have evaluation on the projects that I've already announced.
On your broader point about obliterating vending machines, there is always a challenge about the balance in what we do. I expect to come from the consultation some measures that will be challenging about how we take that forward. There will be very strong views on either side. If we simply say, 'Hospitals may not sell chocolate', for example, we know that people will simply buy it in other places as well.
So, it's part of the cultural change, but if you look at the way that health boards have moved over the last few years, actually, the food that you will see being made available within our hospital sites has markedly improved, and there's a much greater awareness of the offer and that it is a healthier offer as well. I expect that movement to continue, but I look forward, genuinely, to what Members here and outside have to say during the consultation.