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We have child surveillance data—that programme has continued during the pandemic. We have local reporting on child healthy weight pathway standards. We have collected data that shows us the inequality gap, so we can see quite clearly that obesity is more of a problem in more deprived areas. It is a poverty issue—it is related to the level of poverty in the family and in the community as much as anything else. I would say that we have some good data that tells us where we need to target our interventions.

We can always get more data and we can always have better data. You and I are both clinicians, Dr Gulhane. I am a big fan of evidence-based practice, and in order to have high-quality evidence-based practice, you need good data. However, I would say that we have sufficient data on childhood obesity to tell us that there is a problem and to indicate where we need to turn our attention to.

What we see is a strong inequality gradient, so this is a poverty-related issue. We are tackling poverty with at least one hand tied behind our backs. You are a general practitioner and you work in Glasgow, so you ought to understand the social determinants of health very well. People will struggle to see improvement if they have one Government that gives—a Government that pulls a lever to improve child poverty, such as the £20 Scottish child payment—and another Government that takes away, such as the Westminster Government of your party. Add to that two years of a pandemic and the impacts on the level of physical activity for children and young people, which we have detailed clearly—impacts such as a reduced level of active travel, not attending school, people living in poverty and an inability to access the outdoors and exercise. You can therefore see that things would undoubtedly get worse.

We have an obesogenic environment and we have to acknowledge, understand and work on that. Some good work is being done on a four-nations basis with the UK Government to tackle that obesogenic environment. The UK is bringing in policies around advertising before the watershed of foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar. I am very pleased about that—we have been asking about it for a long time.

We will work together where our policies are aligned, but we need to tackle the food environment as well as the opportunities for physical activity. Fundamentally, we will not solve the problem without tackling poverty.

I recall from my time as Minister for Children and Young People—

It is a good question, and a challenging one. One of the challenges related to that question is that holistic family support will definitely look different in different parts of the country. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution; delivering services to support families in an urban area requires a different approach to doing so in a more rural area. Holistic whole-family support is absolutely central to our aim in Scotland. It is central to keeping the Promise and it builds on work that has been done for years. For example, GIRFEC is very much about pulling together all of the people who need to be involved with the child and collaboration and prevention. Holistic family support will build on that.

The independent care review shone a light on some really difficult stories and it is impossible to ignore them, and we in Government and the Parliament have made a promise to our care-experienced children and young people that we will do more to support families to prevent children ever requiring the care of the state and needing to come into care.

We have a lot of investment in that area, but we have a long way to go before we get to that genuine holistic preventative family support. Too many families in Scotland reach crisis before support is there.

I have talked a lot this morning about universal services that are available to support families. However, we need to get better at identifying those families who are really struggling and need more support so that we can put in extra support before the family is in real trouble. Children live in families and families are vital.

Absolutely. I have loads to say. I will stop and let you guys ask some questions.

I have done my daily mile this morning.

I absolutely agree that we need to increase the investment. That is why we are doubling the investment in sport and physical activity in this parliamentary session, with a particular focus on inequalities. We want to reach those communities. We also want to reach women and girls, who we know are not participating in sport, and disabled people, and we want to see more people from black and minority ethnic communities participating in sport in Scotland. We recognise that that is an area in which inequalities have an impact.

We are doubling that investment and looking to improve participation and offer opportunities. Over the course of the pandemic, active schools co-ordinators have been redeployed into schools to lead physical activity, and physical education has been prioritised. Through that universal offer, there are ways that we can ensure that children and young people still have an opportunity to participate.

As we came out of the pandemic last year, there was investment in a summer of fun or a summer of activities. Active school co-ordinators made a real effort to support children and young people to be active. Again, that was targeted at more deprived communities.

There are discussions to be had—I have those discussions on a regular basis—about whether there is support for the school estate in all communities in Scotland, for example. There are arm’s-length trusts in some local authority areas, and there is a challenge in hanging on to the sporting estate in some of them. In some communities, that has been quite welcome. Sports clubs have stepped up, taken over the running of facilities, and improved how they meet the community’s needs. That is community empowerment in action, but that is more challenging in some communities.

There will not be a one-size-fits-all solution. We are looking at the issue very closely to ensure that whatever is done in each community meets the community’s needs and people are not left behind.

There is another thing that I need to work on, which is difficult because we still have Covid in this country and we are not out the other side of the pandemic yet. Despite the fact that we dipped under 6,000 cases yesterday, we still have reasonable levels of Covid in Scotland.

We need to ensure that children can access the school estate. We need to work towards that, and there are good pilot programmes. Last time I was at a meeting of this committee, I talked about some of the work that is going on in Dundee to ensure that children can access the school estate for sporting and cultural activities. Both have good evidence bases to support protection and mitigation against adverse childhood experiences. We need to work with our local authority colleagues to ensure that we are all absolutely focused in the same direction and are improving the situation for our children and young people.

I will ask one of my officials to comment on that, but I reiterate that the whole purpose of the framework is to prevent disputes from arising. The point is to enable close collaboration between the four UK nations and to enable policy divergence, should that be a choice. It respects the devolution settlement, so the circumstance that you describe, with the need for dispute resolution, should not arise. The point of the framework is to prevent that from occurring.

The dispute avoidance and resolution arrangements that exist are robust, as you would expect. Formal processes are in place through the appropriate intergovernmental structures to resolve disputes at the lowest possible level. If that is not possible, the matter can be escalated right up to ministers. However, I ask one of my officials to comment.

No. It is an incredible gift that people give when they donate their organs and I reassure them that we are grateful for that and will use organs all over the UK to help people who need them.

I am not aware of any concerns being raised, certainly on the specific frameworks that we are discussing. There is a general concern about the way that the frameworks operate and the powers that were repatriated from the EU, and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 certainly causes all the devolved Governments real concern. It was not given consent in Scotland or in Wales. There are some general discussions, but I am not aware of any concerns being raised in the specific policy areas that we are discussing. In fact, it is in our interests and everyone’s interests for us to work together closely in order to meet the needs of our citizens on this front.