That type of initiative is wonderful, but fewer and fewer children are walking to school, and an awful lot more are being taken there by bus or by their parents. The Health Committee report reminds us that the latest figures show a fall in physical activity. In 2012, only 21% of boys and 16% of girls did enough exercise to meet the Government’s physical activity guidelines. That is a fall from four years earlier, when the figures were 28% for boys and 19% for girls. We are therefore going in the wrong direction, and we are all becoming couch potatoes. We might worry about this for ourselves, but it is a great concern when children are involved.
I am a former member of the Health Committee, and it is a pity that little emerges from the report, which simply reiterates and endorses the findings of its predecessor Committee’s inquiry, in which I was involved.