Lord Bates (Con)
My Lords, this has been a very well informed debate and I will do my very best to convince the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the Government’s policy on sport. It has been a very high quality debate and I was thinking, as we were going through it, that there is probably sufficient talent within this very Room to start a House of Lords ladies cricket team, which would be quite a strong team at that.
There was immense expertise and knowledge, which was particularly evident in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, introduced the debate. There was great passion and concern for the subject of sport in school, to which I think people on all sides of this Committee are totally signed up. What we are arguing about is purely the best way of achieving the ends that we are all agreed on, and those ends are focused on ensuring that people engage in sport beyond their school age. That is the objective which we are aiming for. We know that the earlier people start, the more likely they are to do that.
The movement towards competitive sport is not a thought or a passion based on ideology: it is simply that our sporting clubs in the United Kingdom are primarily competitive sporting clubs, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, and, therefore, if we want people to take part in sport in later life, then probably it will be through competitive sport.
There are two elements to this: the first is to go younger and younger to reach people and inspire them to take part in sporting activity from a young age; and then, secondly, to introduce them to competitive sport, which will enable them to link up with sporting clubs and continue that activity into later life.
With those remarks, I shall try to respond to as many as possible of the points made during the debate. I applaud the discipline shown by all Members of the Committee in constraining their remarks.
I turn, first, to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, who introduced the debate and referred to school sports partnerships. The Government recognise that these were introduced with the objective of increasing participation and that in a number of areas there were some successful partnerships. However, the wider view was taken that they were too bureaucratic, too top down and too expensive and were not delivering the results we all sought. Therefore we decided to distribute that additional funding at school level—and to focus it particularly on primary schools through the primary school premium—so that each school will receive £8,000.
It was often felt that some school sports partnerships were too large. Some of them worked but, where you were talking about eight secondary schools and 40 primary schools linking up with an FE college, sometimes it was difficult to get a sense of where things were tailored to a particular school. The argument we put forward is that focusing on individual schools—not only by writing a cheque but by ensuring that the money is ring-fenced specifically for sport and by ensuring that Ofsted has a responsibility from September 2013 to assess how schools are doing in spending that money—is an important part.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, referred to the need for a strategy. I understand her argument and where she is coming from but, as so many different organisations are involved in this, the fear is that people are getting lost in the gaps. I commend to her the Sport England youth and community sports strategy which seeks to bring together the sporting clubs and schools. This is not only backed by a strategy but by £1 billion, which can make a real difference.
I took the point of my noble friend Lord Moynihan—who of course has immense expertise and knowledge in this area, particularly in protecting the legacy of the Olympics—when he rightly said that no school is an island. However, the school sports partnerships were not abolished and it is still possible for individual schools to come together if that is how they choose to spend their money.
My noble friend mentioned the Get Set and Plan Your Legacy schemes. Get Set was a great way of involving more than 22,000 schools in the Olympics and Plan Your Legacy is a key part of ensuring that the progress that was made and the inspirational performances that we saw in both the Olympics and Paralympics are not lost.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, spoke about competitive sports, and this is, like rugby, something about which he knows a great deal. We both participated in the winning team—a rare winning team—in the House of Lords versus House of Commons tug-of-war match on the only time the House of Lords has actually won. He reminded us about competitive sports. So this is not an ideological obsession, it is simply trying to link together the satellite clubs—the sporting clubs—with what is going on in schools.
Sainsbury’s School Games have transformed competitive sport in schools. More than 60% of schools are taking part in the School Games, offering every pupil, regardless of ability or disability, more chances to compete in sport, not only intra-school but also between schools and at county festivals. More than 100,000 young people took part, 10,000 of whom were children with disabilities. The national finals were held in Sheffield, and next year they will be in Manchester. That is an example of what we are doing in this area.
The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, spoke with immense passion and knowledge. I know that as a distinguished spokesperson on this issue, and with her involvement in various tennis organisations, she is frustrated about school sports partnerships. I want to reassure her, however, that this is not lost; it is part of a wider strategy. The money is still going into schools. It is going in at a younger age and it is being monitored. There are moves to bring in more sports clubs to link with schools. Another concern she has is over the quality of physical education teaching, particularly in primary schools. Secondary schools have that, and that is why we are now funding extra places for teachers to train in physical education particularly for primary schools.
The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, spoke about the health benefits of sport. I think we are all broadly agreed on that. I noticed a survey by the Young Foundation which identified the health risks to the nation. It found that while 20% of people were vulnerable to smoking, 61% to 70% were vulnerable to inactivity, so it is a very substantial concern.
I know that there was some disagreement between the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and my noble friend Lady Hanham over the figures. There was a slight decrease in overall activity from the 2008-09 baseline, from 91% to 88%, but there was a significant increase in some sports, notably cricket, dodgeball and rounders. We are committed to doing more to promote this through the School Games.
The noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, reminisced interestingly about her cricket career against the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and talked very positively about what is being done in schools. The Government believe in the value of sport, and £500,000 has been put in place to continue the legacy of the Olympic Games. Furthermore, physical education remains an essential part of the national curriculum.
The noble Baroness talked about particular schemes, and I was particularly struck by many of the contributions, including that of my noble friend Lady Hanham, who referred to the role of parents and volunteers in delivering much of our sport around the country. It is important that they continue to do so.
My noble friend Lady Hanham referred to the competition between competitive sport and computer games. Let me pay tribute to her. During her time as Minister she did something substantial, which was to block the pathway to the selling off of playing fields. I do not wish to make any party-political points on this but under the previous Government playing fields were sold off at a rate of 28 per year, and the rate has fallen to 16 per year. Now, because an application goes directly to the Secretary of State for Education, the only way that you can sell a playing field is if you can show that all the proceeds of that sale are going to go into new sporting facilities with other schools. That has been done, and it is welcome.
I shall comment briefly on what the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, said. I was fascinated by her example of the London Tigers and I certainly want to learn more about them. She talked about the importance of encouraging girls into sport. There has been a growth in the number of girls-only sporting clubs. One hundred of these clubs have started up and an extra £1.7 million is going into them to promote more opportunities for females. The noble Baroness is absolutely right to say that we need to address that issue in particular and I am grateful to her for raising it.
My noble friend Lord Selborne referred to behaviour change. This is a critical area where we need to look more at how we change behaviour without legislating for it. We have enough legislation and regulation on the books already. As he said, it is critical that we inspire parents. Again, that speaks to the importance of getting sport into primary schools to do that.
I particularly enjoyed the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. It was brief, succinct and to the point and reminded us that, in an age of pessimism, we have to focus on the positives. Certainly the optimistic nature of sport teaches us always to think about the future with optimism. That is something that I have had to learn through nearly 50 years of following Newcastle United Football Club. I am still struggling with it although we did slightly better last weekend.
Finally, I come to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. She spoke, of course, very passionately. She is concerned that we get this right. She talked particularly about the two hours minimum of physical education. It is important to recognise that it was never enforced or mandatory; it was always aspirational. It will now be covered by Ofsted and primary school teachers will be encouraged to provide quality as well as quantity of sport, and to enhance that through the school sport premium and the youth and community sport initiatives.
I have run over time. I trust that the Committee will forgive me for that. This has been a fascinating debate and a great opportunity to raise these important issues, the aims of which we are all agreed on. It is also important to monitor progress along the way, and I hope that I have provided some reassurance in that regard.