5. What further steps will the Welsh Government take to improve public health in Newport East? OAQ54793

I thank John Griffiths for that. Action to improve public health must begin from an early age, Llywydd, and I congratulate Newport schools, all of which are members of the Welsh network of healthy schools, and eight of which have already achieved the highest level of national award for their work in promoting health amongst their young people. There are a further eight Newport schools on track to achieve this genuinely significant milestone.

I thank you for that answer, First Minister, and particularly highlighting the very good work taking place in Newport schools, which obviously I'm very familiar with.

I recently met with the British Lung Foundation, and the extent of breathing problems I think is now something like one in five people in the UK having breathing difficulties. Obviously, clean air is a key way of ameliorating and hopefully, in due course, eliminating those problems. We need to get to the stage where people are breathing clean air with healthy lungs.

One major way of getting to that situation, First Minister, is tackling road traffic, getting people and freight onto public transport as much as possible. I know there are many policies in train, and many practical ideas to help achieve that, but, obviously, it does need to be done as quickly as possible. I know that there have been many campaigns, and indeed court action, to try and achieve better-quality air in Wales and in the UK generally, and some local authorities have responded. I'm very pleased that Newport City Council are now bringing forward proposals, indeed, with public health partners. But there are lots of ideas around when you meet with groups, First Minister. We have our 20 mph speed limit work going on, all of the active travel improvements that we need to make, there are exclusion zones sometimes around schools, there are ideas about prohibiting car idling and making sure that buses and taxis—

You do need to get to a question now, John Griffiths.

Diolch, Llywydd. So, no shortage of ideas, First Minister, but, really, I just think we need a sense of urgency as to how we make this change.

Well, Llywydd, I entirely agree with John Griffiths about the importance of the issue and the need for urgency. The Minister, Lesley Griffiths, will make a statement on the floor of the Assembly next week, I believe, on the clean air plan for Wales. In the meantime, it is very good to see that Newport council have submitted to the Welsh Government their new sustainable travel strategy, which has clean air at the heart of that. And, as John Griffiths said, Llywydd, the local health board for the Gwent area published in September 'Building a Healthier Gwent'; in a conference on 6 November, had the need for clean air and its impact on people's health absolutely as part of that very lively discussion. Because John is right: there's not a shortage of ideas in this area, and we, in many ways, will need to be bolder in our willingness to take on some of these ideas, which will undoubtedly have areas where people will find some difficulty in accommodating themselves to the steps that need to be taken. But we have to be serious about clean air—it's a genuine public health issue, and using the third sector, through the British Lung Foundation and others, to add to the repertoire is absolutely part of how we wish to go ahead.