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false | Julie, I think, to be fair, there are some people who think the scheme was absolutely fantastic. I've had feedback from people who didn't think the scheme was helpful at all—in fact, they felt it was a hindrance. I'm very much of the view that the scheme worked really well for some schools in some areas and had less impact in some areas. There is a mixed picture. What's important to me is that we understand what it was that led those schools to make those big changes, how we can—like Mark talked about, the expertise—how we can keep that expertise in the system, and how we can apply the lessons to all schools. | QMSum_44 |
true | The next questions, and the final questions, are from John. So, we're going to need succinct questions and succinct answers. | QMSum_44 |
false | Some questions on regional consortia, Cabinet Secretary, and, first of all, the role that you believe they should play and how schools use PDG. | QMSum_44 |
false | Well, it's an absolute—. It's one of the things that I have been very clear to the regional consortia that I expect their challenge and support advisers to be asking schools about. So, one of the conversations that they need to have when they are in schools is exploring, with that school, how they are using their PDG, and how they're demonstrating an impact for those resources. So, it's a fundamental role for the challenge and support advisers in the regional consortia in their school improvement work. It's crucial. | QMSum_44 |
false | That sort of brings to mind some of the research that's been done on the role of the challenge advisers, Cabinet Secretary, which suggested that they're not actually challenging schools in that way, and that there's very little evidence of schools changing their decisions on the use of PDG as a result of any challenge from those challenge advisers. So, how would you respond to those findings? | QMSum_44 |
false | Well, as I said, in my scrutiny of the role and success of our regional consortia, I specifically asked them about free-school-meal performance and the use of PDG within their particular region. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that good use is being made of that resource, and I think that is being fed back into us. Estyn tell us that it's one of the areas of school expenditure that is closely linked to research and an evidence base. But, clearly, there is more to do, and that's why we have appointed the new regional advisers for PDG going forward, because we think there can be improvements in how this agenda can be supported at a regional level. | QMSum_44 |
false | Okay. So, you would recognise the findings from that research. | QMSum_44 |
false | Yes. There's always more that we can do, and we are strengthening that role by the appointment of the new regional PDG advisers, so that individual school challenge advisers know what they should be looking for, know what they should be doing, and there is a regional approach to good practice. | QMSum_44 |
false | Okay. Could you tell the committee, Cabinet Secretary, how effective you believe the relationship was between the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the regional consortia's school improvement functions, and to what extent it varied by region? | QMSum_44 |
false | I think it's fair to say that, on occasion, I have received feedback that there was a conflict between what was going on at an individual school under the school improvement programme and whether, then, they welcomed support from the regional consortia as part of that. So, in some cases, if we're being absolutely honest, there could sometimes be tensions between the two, but in most cases, the relationship was very, very positive and there was continuous feedback between the work going on in the schools under the programme and the regional consortia challenge advisers. But I'm going to be blunt and honest with people—in some cases, it has been reported to me—it's only anecdotal evidence; I haven't got hard and fast evidence—that there sometimes was a conflict: 'We're a school challenge school so we don't need to participate or listen to any advice that's coming from the regional consortia.' Or, a local education authority said to me, 'We felt that we couldn't get involved in that school anymore because it was part of a different programme.' Those were isolated incidents, and, as I said, it's only anecdotal feedback. In most cases, the relationship was a very positive one. | QMSum_44 |
false | Just very quickly, I think that, across the board, it was more complex in the beginning, getting—[Inaudible.]. But when the programme itself recognised that they needed to work with the regions, and the regions needed to work with them—and I think Mel Ainscow in his evidence referred to this—it strengthened after some early challenges. I think Mel Ainscow was working in a number of regions—I can't remember which ones—so he's established relationships—[Interruption.] Sorry? | QMSum_44 |
false | Central south. | QMSum_44 |
false | Central south. He has already been working in that, so I think it possibly had a stronger springboard in terms of the early working. | QMSum_44 |
false | Because he already had relationships that he had already developed in that particular region. As always, with many of these things, it's about individuals and relationships. | QMSum_44 |
false | Okay. Finally from me, Cabinet Secretary: in 2015-16, Estyn reported on regional consortia not sufficiently focusing on particular groups of pupils and tracking their outcomes—for example, vulnerable pupils. I just wonder what you are able to tell us in terms of to what extent there has been necessary progress since 2015-16. | QMSum_44 |
false | Okay. Well, I think it's important to recognise that all four consortia underwent monitoring visits in the autumn of last year, of 2017, which weren't reflected in the Estyn annual report for 2015-16. Estyn, through these 2017 inspections, have said that three out of the four regional consortia are making strong progress in their particular work, and we are continuing, as Welsh Government, to work with the other regional consortia to address the findings of the Estyn report. | QMSum_44 |
false | And that would include these particular issues. | QMSum_44 |
false | Yes, absolutely. The committee probably hasn't had an opportunity to see, but, only this morning, Estyn has released a report on more able and talented, and has positive things to say in the field of more able and talented, which was being asked about earlier by Members—you know, evidence of improved working and support in that particular arena. But, again, we need to ensure a consistency across all the regions, and that the findings of Estyn's most recent reports into regional performance are followed through. | QMSum_44 |
false | Okay, thank you. As we've got a couple of minutes left, if I can just jump back to the issue of practical uses of the PDG—because it's the only thing we haven't really covered and it would be good to get on the record—can I ask to what extent you'd like to see the PDG used to track the progress of eligible pupils? And the committee's heard that there are several different tracking systems and tools used by schools. To what extent is that an issue to do with what the Welsh Government is promoting? Or is it down to consortia or individual schools? And do you think there needs to be a more centralised push on how the tracking is undertaken? | QMSum_44 |
false | Firstly, can I say it's absolutely crucial that we track performance, absolutely crucial? That's the bedrock. We don't dictate to individual schools the nature of the system that they should employ in their school. There are a number of different programmes that allow schools to do this, but we are absolutely clear, and best practice and evidence shows us, that individual pupil tracking is key and crucial. And, as I said in the beginning, where we weren't tracking pupils at all, initial investment in PDG was used to establish these systems within schools. Again, one of the outcomes from the schools challenge review, and one of the lessons learnt, was, again, the importance of individual tracking of pupils throughout their school career. But we don't dictate a single system. | QMSum_44 |
false | Okay, thank you. | QMSum_44 |
false | But the principle is a really important one. | QMSum_44 |
false | Okay, and you don't think there's more scope to look at what the best system is that can be recommended to schools. | QMSum_44 |
false | That's not something we're actively looking at. I am actively looking at developing a Welsh toolkit around good practice, evidence base and research. At the moment we use the Sutton Trust toolkit, which is fine and excellent, but we are having active discussions about whether we're in a position, now, to look at developing a suite of a Welsh toolkit to support this agenda, and that's under active consideration. | QMSum_44 |
false | Okay. Well, we've reached the end of our session. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and the officials for attending and for answering such a wide range of questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for coming. | QMSum_44 |
false | Thank you very much. | QMSum_44 |
false | Thank you. Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children and Social Care on Families First funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, updating us on the supply teacher issue. Paper to note 3—another letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, providing further information following our meeting on 15 February. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the WJEC on availability of textbooks. Paper to note 5—a letter from Qualifications Wales, also on availability of textbooks. And paper to note 6 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, following up on the dialogue that they've been having about our inquiry. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. | QMSum_44 |
false | Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people. | QMSum_50 |
false | Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults—we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues—diabetes is often cited—cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance. | QMSum_50 |
false | Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy? | QMSum_50 |
false | Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices. | QMSum_50 |
false | I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already. | QMSum_50 |
true | And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Siân Gwenllian. | QMSum_50 |
false | Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed? | QMSum_50 |
false | My advice was not that we don't need a target—we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on—but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question—'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?' | QMSum_50 |
false | Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target. | QMSum_50 |
false | It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy. | QMSum_50 |
false | And is that your opinion too? | QMSum_50 |
false | Yes. | QMSum_50 |
false | Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there? | QMSum_50 |
false | I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process—and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn—we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions—that's the point we need to consult on. | QMSum_50 |
false | Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan? | QMSum_50 |
false | Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of £8 million to £10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy. | QMSum_50 |
false | But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well. | QMSum_50 |
false | And does the level of investment depend on what the target is—what the goal is? | QMSum_50 |
false | I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place. | QMSum_50 |
false | But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for? | QMSum_50 |
false | Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have. | QMSum_50 |
false | Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to—? | QMSum_50 |
false | Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the £7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular. | QMSum_50 |
false | You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure? | QMSum_50 |
false | I'm sorry, could you repeat the question? | QMSum_50 |
false | You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure? | QMSum_50 |
false | The figure that I have in mind is about £56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated—. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures. | QMSum_50 |
false | Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised £150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was £520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation. | QMSum_50 |
false | And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential—£150 million. | QMSum_50 |
false | On a UK level. | QMSum_50 |
false | Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential? | QMSum_50 |
false | Fifty-six. | QMSum_50 |
false | Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing £8 million to £10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme. | QMSum_50 |
false | Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing. | QMSum_50 |
true | Can I just ask on that before Siân moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to—? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that? | QMSum_50 |
false | I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from—. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about—? | QMSum_50 |
false | Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things. | QMSum_50 |
false | Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference—it's a personal view—is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention. | QMSum_50 |
false | No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy. | QMSum_50 |
false | I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying, 'Here's a sugar levy', and 'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.' Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful. | QMSum_50 |
false | You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask— | QMSum_50 |
false | Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter.] | QMSum_50 |
false | Your point's taken. | QMSum_50 |
false | Thank you. | QMSum_50 |
true | Thanks. Siân. | QMSum_50 |
false | The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that? | QMSum_50 |
false | It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see—and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too. | QMSum_50 |
false | Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. | QMSum_50 |
false | Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister? | QMSum_50 |
false | Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as—I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government. | QMSum_50 |
false | I know my colleague Siân Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives? | QMSum_50 |
false | Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us—. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese— | QMSum_50 |
false | Could I just ask—sorry to interrupt—how up to date is that? | QMSum_50 |
false | The last survey was just last year. | QMSum_50 |
false | The data was published last week. | QMSum_50 |
false | Yes, the lastest data was out last week. | QMSum_50 |
false | It is pretty up to date. | QMSum_50 |
false | So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows—. It's not getting radically worse—there's always statistical variation in these things—but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way. | QMSum_50 |
false | It is shocking. | QMSum_50 |
false | So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question? | QMSum_50 |
false | Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed? | QMSum_50 |
false | Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11—at age 11 or 12., that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation—the point that was made earlier. | QMSum_50 |
false | And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be—. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful. | QMSum_50 |
false | Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you. | QMSum_50 |
false | Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data? | QMSum_50 |
false | I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years—what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to, but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course. | QMSum_50 |
true | Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden. | QMSum_50 |
false | Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation? | QMSum_50 |
false | It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got—we need to deploy them all. | QMSum_50 |
false | Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know—. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system—and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that? | QMSum_50 |
false | I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question—a really important question—about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now—some London boroughs are now—experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes. | QMSum_50 |
false | Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around? | QMSum_50 |
false | Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes—. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would—it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue. | QMSum_50 |
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