Improving our Food System

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:18 pm on 14 May 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:18, 14 May 2019

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.