Can I thank the Minister for his statement on 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'? Obviously it's quite comprehensive. I just wanted to drill down on what we can actually do as a matter of urgency because this is an emergency. We've been talking about an obesity epidemic for some time now and really we need to see a step change, because as you say here, over 60 per cent of our adult population are overweight or obese, which has become a normalised state. Yes, correct; it has. With around 20 per cent of our children starting school each year who are already obese or overweight.

Now, obviously, it's a balance of what Government can do and what the individual can do. Government, as you've alluded to, can do things like restrict price promotions on food and drink high in fat, salt and sugar, like two-for-one promotions and stuff. We'd like to see that pretty aggressively enforced. And as you also alluded to, planning restrictions on hot takeaways near schools and leisure centres and stuff. We also really do need to get to grips with tackling the advertising of junk foods targeted at children. Now, I know some of that is not devolved, but frankly we've been talking about that for years and the power of advertising is such that it's still a very pervasive influence on what our children eat, and also portion sizes. That is also a combination of what can be legislated for or individual choice; I'll leave that one up to the Minister. But the important thing is, after smoking, obesity is the biggest preventable cause of cancer. Lots of people don't realise that actually obesity is an independent cause of cancer, just like smoking. Being overweight causes cancers. It causes around 13 different types of cancers. Even in the absence of smoking, being overweight gives you cancer as an independent carcinogen.

But obviously, as you've alluded to, and as Angela Burns has already also alluded to, it's not just about diet, it's not just about eating less, eating fewer carbohydrates, fewer sugars, more protein and also extending the period of the day that you're actually fasting, trying to restrict the time of day that we take calories to about an eight or a 10-hour slot out of the 24—that's the latest medical advice. So, it's not just about diet: it’s about physical fitness and physical activity as well. And walking doesn't require fancy Lycra—well, you could obviously be in Lycra if you wanted to, but on the coastal path, you don’t actually need Lycra. Going up a mountainside—you don’t actually need Lycra there either. But you could do with 10,000 steps a day or any other additional number of thousands of steps per day, walking briskly, getting physically fit. As I’ve said here before, of being physically fit, your blood sugar is 30 per cent lower than if you’re not physically fit. Your blood cholesterol level is 30 per cent lower than if you’re not physical fit. And if you are physically fit, your blood pressure is 30 per cent lower than if you’re not physically fit. Now, as I’ve said before, if you invented a tablet that did all that, we’d be shouting to the rooftops about a miracle cure, but physical fitness is that miracle cure. And, obviously, there’s an overall weight reduction as well.

So, a lot of that is down to the individual, but, as I said, Government has a role here as well, with the planning restrictions, and for restricting price promotions and stuff. But also, as we found, we can educate people until we’re blue in the face, but it’s actually anti-smoking legislation that brought about the greatest reduction in smoking rates in this country in recent years. That smoking ban—. When we had devolution, 32 per cent of the adult population in Wales smoked, and it has been about 32 to 35 per cent for the previous 20 years, despite all the education programmes and stuff. Now, after the smoking ban, it’s down to 16 per cent and getting lower. It was the legislation that did a marked change, along with the education and the help to quit and stuff. And now we’re finding with minimum alcohol legislation in Scotland, people in Scotland are drinking less alcohol. Who would have thought? People in Scotland drinking less alcohol, and that is down to the minimum alcohol legislation about pricing.

So, I think the Government needs to get real and tough about food and drink legislation as well, and start to view food and drink companies—like big food, big drink—a bit like we view big tobacco. Let’s not have any more volunteering or voluntary agreements. Let’s legislate. Sugar tax raised in this country—I know there’s a sugar tax, but we have very little control over it. We need to have control over it here so that we can spend what comes from the sugar tax here in Wales on what we want to do in the obesity agenda.

And finally, in the preventative analogy: education. I’m looking at the education Minister there. As Angela Burns knows well, as the Minister knows well, in the health committee we’ve done a review on physical fitness and obesity—this very agenda. One of those recommendations we came up with was, ‘How about making 120 minutes of physical activity mandatory per week in our schools?’ It was a very strong recommendation. That’s what all the evidence said. How about making Estyn inspections of that physical activity also mandatory? That is something that could happen now. How about moving radically with the active travel legislation? We’ve been talking about active travel legislation—it’s wonderful, it is, but how about making it easy and safe to walk and cycle everywhere? We need to actually do something rather than talk about it all of the time.

So, yes, I welcome a lot of what’s happening here, but we haven’t got 10 more years and stuff. There needs to be a step change in activity, so that we can get the people of Wales into a healthy weight, and for a healthier Wales indeed. Diolch yn fawr.