Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:49 pm on 12 June 2019.
Obviously, we've heard, and I won't rehearse the arguments that I outlined in the original speech, pulling together all the evidence that we took, but it remains that obesity is a huge and rising agenda. The evidence we took that early fundamental motor skills, those co-ordination skills, taught at an early age—and taught, actually, at an early age—are vitally important. That's the evidence and it is not happening at the moment. That is also the evidence, and it needs to happen, and that is also the evidence.
I hear what the Minister was saying about the 120 minutes of physical activity as a statutory minimum and stuff, but the evidence we took—we try to base everything on evidence—is that that has to happen. It is not happening when the 120 minutes is not prescribed now in an awful lot of schools. They don't get anywhere near the 120 minutes, however much people would like it so to happen. It doesn't happen unless you put it on a statutory footing and that, again, is the evidence that we took.
Because physical fitness, as again evidence says, if you are physically fit, your blood pressure is 30 per cent less than if you're not physically fit. Your blood sugar is 30 per cent less than if you're not physically fit, and your blood cholesterol is 30 per cent less than if you're not physically fit, and your weight is normal compared to if you're not physically fit. But those instincts are ingrained at an early age, and that's where it is down to schools, it's early schools intervention, it's down to parents—we talk a lot about families and stuff—and that's the evidence.
And the other part of the evidence was that it requires a step change from Government. Business as usual just won't do it. We are facing an obesity epidemic, and we have to face up to that and step up to the plate, and that also is the evidence we took. People always go on that health costs are increasing. Yes, because health is left to pick up the pieces that we should be sorting now at an early age under education, physical activity, or whatever other portfolios that the Deputy Minister carries.
So, to avoid those increases in health costs, we need to be sorting out the problem at a far earlier stage, as Members have attested. I'm grateful for everybody's supportive comments. Angela, first of all, emphasising the obesity epidemic and not just the physical impairments, but the mental impairments as well. And I'm grateful to Vikki Howells as well, emphasising the sugar tax that we need to be in control of to make sure that the money from sugar tax is actually ploughed into the obesity agenda here in Wales. It is not at present because we're not in control of it. And, obviously, also using schools, our modern schools, for longer outside normal school hours.
I'm grateful to Helen Mary for emphasising these important points, that we do need a step change in behaviour, as we have said. What we're doing now is just not doing it, and we have to change. Huw Irranca followed a different—though linked, obviously—agenda as regards active travel and that culture change that needs to happen, and I'm grateful for his experience. And, obviously, John Griffiths about the 20 mph speed limit. There are so many aspects to all this coming together, as well as Caroline Jones invoking her experience as a PE teacher. Rhun, in terms of—