6. What plans does the Welsh Government have to develop a whole system approach to improving our food system? OAQ53876

I thank the Member for that question. My colleague Lesley Griffiths will consult on a new action plan for food in the summer of this year. It will address the complexities of food products and consumption, with focus on the delivery of safe and healthy food choices, animal welfare and environmental recovery. 

I'm sure we'll all look forward to that consultation, First Minister, but I'm concerned that we have a fragmented system at the moment. We have the health Minister who's awaiting the responses to the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' consultation, we have the education Minister in charge of school meals—a debate we're going to be having tomorrow—and we have the very welcome focus on food as part of the foundational economy. Yesterday, we had lots of major food retailers stepping up to the plate in committing to halve food waste by 2030. This is, it seems to me, a very complex subject, and I note that in Scotland, there's a lot of pressure to make the good food nation Bill one that delivers in a sustainable, holistic way, and I just wondered how the First Minister plans to bring all of this together within the Welsh Government.    

Well, I thank the Member for that. She is right to point to the complexity of it all. Llywydd, it seems to me inevitable that almost every Minister in the Welsh Government has an interest of one sort or another in food, and that it's not possible, sensibly, simply to concentrate all those quite different responsibilities—whether it be for school meals, for hospital food, for the food rating scheme, for food businesses, for the environmental impact of food—all in one Ministerial portfolio. That means, in the way that Jenny Rathbone suggested, however, that we have to demonstrate that, as a Government, we are actively organised to make sure that we draw all those different threads together in a coherent way. I want to give the Member an assurance that where there are specific initiatives, such as the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' programme to which she referred—that while it was published by the health Minister, it was thoroughly informed by officials across the Welsh Government and by discussion with other Ministers. We have a standing co-ordinating group of senior officials in the Welsh Government to make sure that we bring the different activities that we undertake in the food field together. The food action plan, to which I referred in my original answer, has already been to Cabinet, has already been discussed, and will be further refined now to make sure that it takes into account the views of Ministers across the Government, to make sure as best we can that we deliver what Jenny Rathbone asked for, which is a coherent approach across this complex area.