6. What is the Welsh Government doing to educate pupils on the benefits of active travel through the education system? OAQ54176

Thank you, David. The new curriculum supports active travel. One of the four purposes integral to that new curriculum is that learners develop as healthy, confident individuals, able to apply knowledge about the impact of exercise on their physical and their mental health in their daily lives, and become individuals that take part in physical activity on a regular basis. 

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Would you join with me in congratulating Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Hamadryad in my region in Cardiff, which is becoming a pioneer for active travel in schools, not just in Wales but the rest of the UK? Their innovations are quite incredible: personalised travel planning for the pupils and parents; park and stride, so that, where a car has to be used, at least it's parked further away from the school. It's having dramatic effects on air pollution and walking rates for the pupils, who now on average are walking for between five and 10 minutes to and from school. Isn't this just the sort of programme that we want to encourage right across our education system and, who knows, we might get back to the age that I remember when I was at school when nearly everyone, unless you were ill, walked to school? 

Well, David, I can do more than just commend Ysgol Hamadryad for the approach that they have taken, because I myself joined the walking bus to Ysgol Hamadryad just last week. It just demonstrates, with a change of mindset, actually how achievable this can be. It's been affected by a number of issues. Obviously, it's a new school and therefore new habits are perhaps more easily instilled in individuals. But, in this case, it has been down to the leadership of both the headteacher and the school's governing body, as well as some of the physical constraints of where the new school is actually built. But it demonstrates—Ysgol Hamadryad demonstrates—what can be achieved when there is a partnership approach between schools and parents, and I enjoyed my walk to school very, very much indeed.  

Minister, it is good that we can benefit here in Wales from initiatives like Safe Routes in Communities and the active travel fund. I note with interest David Melding's contribution, and I'm thinking there could be many young people watching that who think, 'How can we get initiatives like that working in our own schools?' So, my question to you is: how are children and young people being encouraged to participate in the decision-making process that enables them to make the right choices? I know of several schools in my constituency that operate cycling proficiency training and walking buses as well, but how is pupil voice being prioritised within this area? 

Vikki, the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 itself requires local authorities to prepare their plans for integrated walking and cycling networks, in consultation with communities. And the walk to school toolkit, which was developed by Living Streets and which Welsh Government actually funded, offers an easy and systematic way to involve schoolchildren and local communities in assessing the active travel routes to schools, new and existing, and identify necessary improvements that need to be undertaken to encourage more people to travel actively to that place of learning. 

Minister, the Welsh Government released in December last year a statistical bulletin on active travel, 'Walking and cycling in Wales', compiled by the Office for National Statistics. And the figures show that 44 per cent of children actively travel to primary school; 34 per cent of children actively travel to secondary school. So, with new state-of-the-art education facilities being built and opened throughout Wales, the planned educational environment that we are building in the twenty-first century in Wales can tip and influence travel behaviour of the future generations of Welsh citizens. So, Minister, how is, then, the Welsh Government's transformative twenty-first century schools building programme being shaped to directly increase children adopting active travel as their method of choice to get to and from school?

Well, Presiding Officer, I can assure the Member that projects benefiting from Welsh Government investment under the twenty-first century schools and colleges building programme need to demonstrate very clearly that they have included provision for safe and convenient walking and cycling access to those places of learning.