It's certainly the case, isn't it, during the pandemic, that many people have come to have a fresh appreciation and understanding of the value of physical activity and sport? Yes, for physical health, but, as people have said, also for mental health, for just quality of life and enjoyment, and I've had very many e-mails from constituents particularly concerned about their children. Their children's activities outside school in terms of physical activity and sport are very important to them as families, very important to the growing experience that these young people have, and, yes, they do instil good habits for life when they get involved in football, tennis, cricket, gymnastics, dance or whatever it might be. So, it's very valuable indeed to keep good health and enjoyable pastimes throughout lifetimes.

Locally for me, there are so many grass-roots clubs in football, in rugby, in cricket, who run activities for the whole range of ages, from young tots right through to older people, and it's very valuable to all of them. Newport Cricket Club is a very good example where they have some really good girls' teams and a women's team that's been very successful. They've built their activities and their facilities over a period of time and, of course, it's really difficult for them now to have a hiatus and, in some respects, to even have a reversal of the progress that they've made over very many years.

I had, for example, in terms of athletics and young people, an e-mail from Wendy in respect of her daughter Anya Brady, who is a very talented junior middle-distance runner, and Anya absolutely loves to run at the Spytty stadium where the Newport Harriers Athletic Club operates. She loves the social side of it, meeting her friends, she loves the track, the floodlights and the facilities there, and, to her, it's very, very important indeed. What her mother said in an e-mail to me was that these are fit children who regularly exercise, they need to carry on exercising for their physical well-being, but also their mental well-being in these difficult times.

That reflects many e-mails and telephone calls that I've had from constituents since the spring of last year. I've been very, very impressed at the way many of these grass-roots clubs have taken great steps to make sure that they operate safely. They really have taken the guidance very seriously indeed and put their houses in order, as it were, and that's even more the case, I guess, for the more professional operations such as Newport Live. Newport Live is the leisure trust in Newport and they have some wonderful facilities, some of which they've made available for long-COVID rehabilitation, that being the Geraint Thomas velodrome, where in conjunction with the health board, they've provided their facilities to enable people struggling with long COVID to accelerate their rehabilitation process. That's a great example, I think, of what we need to see more of: very close collaboration between our health sector and our sport and physical activity operators.

Their facilities and classes have been so important to so many people through COVID-19. We know that 60 per cent of adults and two thirds of young people say that their mental health has suffered during the pandemic. We know that sport and physical activity have played a very valuable part in lessening depression and anxiety. So, I think one of the lessons—you know, we talk so often of building back better—one of the examples that we really need to draw from our experience during COVID-19 is the importance of sport and physical activity to physical and mental health. We need much closer collaboration and integration between our policies and strategies for health and for sports and recreation, and I think we've got an example of that locally in Newport between Newport Live and the health sector, not just around COVID-19, but far predating that, where I've been involved in many meetings to try and ensure closer working, better integration.

So, what I'd like to say in conclusion, Deputy Presiding Officer, is that I do think that when there is some leeway to relax the restrictions that we currently have, those sport and activity classes for our young people should be towards the head of that queue, and just behind that should be a much more general opening up of sport and leisure for all ages. I hope very much that the Welsh Government will give that plea and that call very serious consideration.