Before I begin, I just want to place on record that I should have declared an interest earlier in local government questions as being a member of Powys County Council for my supplementary to question 4, and I should declare here as well, as my in-laws are food producers.

I'd like to pay tribute to my friend Peter Fox, as a lover of Welsh food. I, along with many in this Chamber, have campaigned for a more sustainable food system here in Wales, and putting food security at its heart and ensuring that in Wales we can support our small, family food and drink producers to improve Wales's socioeconomic outcomes for the benefit of the people of Wales. And I firmly believe, Peter, that the Bill that you have proposed today delivers on that.

In Wales, we do have a great opportunity through this Bill to improve the health of the nation, enabling us to become healthier. In our country we have major health issues in the forms of the rising cost of living, obesity and climate change, and all those have been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bill that you have proposed, I believe, can really help deliver on Welsh Government policies like the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' strategy, and deliver on the well-being goals in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

A Wales food commission is a key part of this proposal and, I’ll be honest, as someone who does not like creating commissions or committees, for you, Peter, I might just make an exception this time, because I do believe that we have not seen the Welsh food and drink strategies being delivered as I think they should be. And I think it’s right that an overarching body such as this could add huge benefits to the food sector. I think all strategies need to be monitored and shown to be delivering for the taxpayer and delivering on our social values. Because bringing together the right skills and knowledge to develop the sector will help the environment for the better. And, as I said earlier, I believe a food commission will help us to deliver that.

As you outlined in the Bill, this is not the first time that this has been called for. A number of stakeholders in the past have previously called for an overarching body, and I know you have done an extremely large amount of work to engage with the industry, as you mentioned, with the NFU, the FUW and others, and obviously other Members in this Chamber to get cross-party support for that Bill. I’m sure that all those people will be very pleased that you are bringing this forward and bringing it to the fore.

You outlined in the Bill the aim to strengthen the resilience of the local supply chains by ensuring that local public bodies increase their procurement of locally produced food. I think that’s really, really important for helping the local economy and helping local businesses to develop. It’s very good and this fits, really, hand in glove with the Welsh Government’s own social partnership and public procurement Bill, because I think that’s really important, what was raised earlier in the Chamber, and, as I’ve said, about ‘Health Weight: Healthy Wales’. I think if we can get better food, higher quality food into public procurement, that will really help our young learners and I think that’s something that we’re very keen on on the education committee, to make sure that we’ve got good, wholesome food provided for our children.

In your Bill, you also talked about food labelling, and we're all clear in here that food from Wales must be clearly labelled to show its country of origin. I think the Bill will deliver the better labelling of food products, and that in turn helps local business and makes people have better-informed choices when they get to the shops, and it makes them have better food and it also, as you said, helps that farm to fork element of it and really does show people where their food comes from, makes it more sustainable and actually helps to reduce our environmental footprint, which is really, really important.

I know we are probably going to run over time, so I'll be quite short, Deputy Llywydd, but I do really want to support you on this, Peter, and you will have my support today. And I do hope that Members right across the Chamber support you, because I think this Bill is a great piece of legislation. It's really going to improve the economy of Wales, the lives of people in Wales, and I'm very happy to support you today.