Water Safety

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 3:03 pm on 11 June 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 3:03, 11 June 2019

I thank Joyce Watson for that question and share very much with her her thanks to those voluntary organisations that do so much in awareness raising and in the direct provision of services. My colleague Lesley Griffiths met with the Royal Life Saving Society in November of last year as part of our water safety strategy development for Wales and officials continue to work with them on the development of that strategy. 

Llywydd, we work with a wide range of organisations that try to bring about the sort of improvement that Joyce Watson has referred to. Dŵr Cymru's One Last Breath campaign, for example, is aimed at safety in reservoirs in Wales and the risk of drowning in inland waters, for example through cold water shock, when young people in particular plunge into a reservoir after a hot day. Dŵr Cymru provides sessions in schools, they provide direct advice, they go on the radio, on social media; all those awareness-raising possibilities to which Joyce Watson refers. And then we directly fund activity here in Wales. Over 11,000 children took part in water safety awareness sessions in Wales in 2018. They involve the RNLI, they involve the Royal Life Saving Society and those sessions were directly the result of funding that the Welsh Government provides.