5. Debate on the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee Report: Physical Activity of Children and Young People

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:21 pm on 12 June 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 4:21, 12 June 2019

Absolutely, I fully agree with you, John. And the work you did on putting in place the groundbreaking legislation to do this I think took us so far, but, actually, now delivering on the Welsh Government's aspirations to have 20 mph speed limits as the de facto speed limit within urban areas would be a huge help in this, and, in fact, he's prophesied what I was going to say next: imagine a school that actually worked with a local authority, regardless of that, to actually deliver that, and a school, then, that developed their walking buses with the parents involved, including some of those more sceptical parents.

Well, that happens. We have now, within Cardiff, within Ysgol Hamadryad, exactly that happening. And, okay, you can say that there were distinct advantages, but it wasn't easy to make it happen. It was a brand new school, they could start from a blank sheet on a relatively flat area, and so on, but they worked with the council, they worked with the police, they worked with the parents, they persuaded the doubters. And they even worked with the police to say and make it clear to parents and residents, 'We will actually be encouraging parking cautions, first of all, but then fines to be given to anybody who parks', and do you know, since last September, when they introduced this, they've only had three, and none of them, I understand, were for parents—they were actually for other people coming into the area and parking. This is quite remarkable, and the impact that has been flagged up in the committee's report about what this can do for young people's health, regardless of the other things that are in the report, is significant. We have that groundbreaking legislation. If we actually have the will, now, amongst Ministers—the Minister who's in charge of active travel, the Minister for Education, for local government and communities Ministers and others—to really make this work, we can make an enormous difference. There are 101 reasons why we can't do this; there are 101 much better reasons why we should. Ysgol Hamadryad proves it can be done. Let's see if we can do it throughout the whole of Wales.