Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 12 March 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:51, 12 March 2019

That was a question that was doing quite well until the end. So, look, where I agree with Adam Price is on this, Llywydd—that when you look at rising incidence of diabetes, when you look at rising incidence of obesity, the answer isn't, 'What is the health service going to do about it?' The answer is in that wider public health agenda that he outlined, and we look at the shaping causes that lie behind those figures. And they are to be found in poverty that drives people to have to shop in particular sorts of ways. So, diet and food poverty is part of all of this. The figures that were published of children arriving at the school door already overweight cannot have been caused by lack of exercise in school, because these children weren't in school at that point. But it is to do with ways in which people live their lives and it is up to Government to create the conditions in which people are able to take the actions that allow them to promote their own health into the future. So, it is that combination of actions that people themselves can take, but Governments have to act in order to give them the opportunities to act in that way. That is a public health agenda, and, to that extent, I agree with the points the Member was making.