Written question WQ100642

Our ambitious programme for government lays out our plans to support children and families to live happy, long and active lives. We know this requires a collective effort across government to create healthier environments that support healthier choices and transform life chances for people of all ages. This includes supporting children to have the best start in life and improving physical and mental health and wellbeing for everyone.

As well as a continuing focus on supporting healthy behaviours, like eating a healthy, nutritious diet, tackling smoking and vaping and being more active, we will also look to support families with the necessary tools to improve their own health and wellbeing.

We will do this through plans such as extending our childcare offer, helping children get the best start in life and parents the opportunity to study, work or increase their hours. We will use the Food Strategy to seek to ensure that healthy, nutritious and affordable food is available to people wherever they live, as well as building on our record of delivering free school meals by extending more provision into secondary schools.

We are also making tackling child poverty a defining mission of this government. Work has already begun to develop and deliver a new plan to tackle child poverty, setting clear targets, benchmarks and milestones to drive ambitious, deliverable change. We will also seek to pilot Cynnal, Welsh Child Payment, providing a direct weekly payment for young children in families claiming Universal Credit