3. What provisions are available for children and young people in Cardiff Central from the Welsh Government's renew and reform plan over the summer holidays? OQ56786

We are supporting all children and young people to take part in the Summer of Fun. All local authorities will provide a range of play, sporting and cultural activities to help rebuild their social and emotional skills in both Welsh and English.

That's very welcome. And Cardiff Council's organised a Summer of Smiles, centred on the lawn outside city hall, which I'm sure will be absolutely wonderful, and there are many other things that are going on, which are laudable, not least the 'learn to cycle safely' courses, which the Deputy Minister for Climate Change might like to know have sold out completely.

But many communities of people are going nowhere in the summer holidays, and many are either reluctant to let their children go into the city centre or don't have the money to go there. So, it's very important that there are things available locally for people to do. And in the context of some of the really serious county lines activities that have happened in Pentwyn in my constituency, I wondered if you can tell us how much you think the school holiday enrichment programme should be carrying the load here. There's a wonderful programme going on at St Teilo's Church in Wales High School, where I declare I'm a governor. For five out of the six weeks, three days a week, there will be activities in that school, and there will be similar sports activities going on in Ysgol Bro Edern, the Welsh-medium secondary school. But apart from that, there are a mere three primary schools in my constituency that have signed up to SHEP, which is no more than we had in 2019, despite the fact that we're in the middle of recovering from a pandemic. So, I wondered if you could give us some indication of your expectations for all schools to be more community-focused throughout the year, but particularly this year, because they are often the last available community resource, and given that the leisure centre in Pentwyn is closed and not reopening any time soon.

I absolutely welcome Jenny Rathbone's support for the school holiday enrichment programme. I think, across Wales, we have about 140 SHEP schemes running this summer, with places for approximately 8,000 to attend, which I think is testament to the fantastic work that they are doing.

In relation to expectations in the way that Jenny Rathbone was asking, I think we want to see all schools playing greater roles in their communities, and I think opening sites to a range of different uses throughout the year would be a significant contribution to that. I think we are seeing more schools doing that. SHEP is a good example of how school sites are being used in that broader way, but also for holiday activity clubs, youth services and other support programmes, and we'll want to be looking to build on that as we develop our approach to community-focused schools, which we have in our party's manifesto and which I know she supports very strongly as well.

In the renew and reform plan, £5 million has been allocated to support activities of a Summer of Fun, aimed at the health and well-being of children and young people, getting them active and to socialise. This is a particularly important aspect of the renew and reform plan because it addresses the issues linked with obesity and how it contributes to low self-confidence and low self-esteem in children, especially during their teenage years, which undoubtedly has an impact on their health and well-being and their engagement with learning. 

According to Public Health Wales, there are approximately 1 million children and young people in Wales, and, as the Minister will be aware, childhood obesity in Wales is calculated at just under 27 per cent, which is over 4 per cent higher than in England and in Scotland. Given the £5 million that has been allocated and the 1 million children in Wales, the renew and reform plan ultimately means that approximately only £5 per child or young person will be spent on these activities. This sum of money will consequently mean that the provisions provided by the Summer of Fun could be inadequate to cover all those children who would benefit enormously from this programme. I believe that, as a nation, we should be committing more to addressing childhood obesity, therefore, can the Minister commit to providing more funding to the Summer of Fun programme?

Well, I thank Joel James for that question. The Summer of Fun is only one of the interventions, of course, which is being made by the Welsh Government through the renew and reform plan to achieve that objective, and it sits alongside the additional funding that supports the significantly expanded school holiday enrichment programme that we've just been talking about. And that provides, as I was saying, approximately 8,000 places across Wales for this summer through the SHEP programme alone. But it's one of a range of interventions. On the point that he makes about childhood obesity, part of our network of healthy schools is looking at the moment at extending its provision into an active education offer, working with Sport Wales and with the Arts Council of Wales to develop additional school day sports facilities and cultural activities, which I think is driving at exactly the point that he raises in his question—supporting the health of our learners—alongside developments such as the daily active offer, which is part of that strategy, which also supports better learning amongst our learners about their own health. And that drives at exactly the same sorts of objectives that he's asking about.