SENEDD members have condemned the “shameful” lack of healthy food in the poorest areas of Wales in a report issued today.

The Senedd’s equality & social justice committee says urgent action is needed to help the 37 per cent of people in Wales’s most deprived communities deemed “food insecure.”

Committee chairwoman Jenny Rathbone said: “It is shameful that far too many people struggle to afford and access healthy food in one of the richest countries in the world.”

The Food for Thought report makes seven recommendations for the next Welsh government to adopt to make healthy food affordable and accessible.

The committee heard evidence that diet contributes to a significant gap in healthy life expectancy between Wales’s richest and poorest communities.

Big Bocs Bwyd food project’s Janet Hayward said: “Between Cadoxton and Cowbridge there is a 20-year difference in healthy life expectancy, and we know that’s largely because of the food that our children are eating.”