Children: Sport

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for giving us this opportunity to debate participation in sport. We would not be participating in this debate if we did not all feel very strongly that this is an essential cause. Children must be encouraged. The noble Baroness gave us a number of very good reasons why the Government and others should encourage children to participate, whether they be improving performance in school or keeping people from crime.

Above all, the reason I feel passionately that sport must be encouraged is because of the health benefits. Whether we know it or not, we are suffering from an epidemic of obesity. The figures are astonishing. Just under 10% of children coming into reception class can be categorised as obese, and that number will double by the time they get to year 6.

I shall draw on a different Science and Technology Select Committee report to the one to which our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, referred. Two years ago, we did a report on behaviour change. How do Governments influence behaviour change? This is a very difficult and to some extent intractable problem wrapped up in our lifestyles. We know why this epidemic of obesity is happening. It is because we are sedentary, we eat far too many high-energy foods and drinks and there are computers and games boxes. All those things contrive to make us very much more sedentary, and our jobs are not as manual as they were.

My noble friend referred to a marathon, and it is certainly a marathon we are talking about here if we are trying to change people’s lifestyle. We are trying to participate in partnership with any number of organisations. Of course the Government are one, but there are youth clubs, schools and parents. Parents are the key. Once you get parents on side and get them to take seriously and insist on opportunities, whether in school or youth clubs, you will get traction and momentum. That is why when we looked at all the nudges and prods in the behaviour report, we recognised that although labelling would play an important part and any number of other nudges would be significant, ultimately, if you want to change our attitude to sport, you start in the primary school, get parents involved and make sure that we all change our attitude to what is an acceptable lifestyle, not just for children but for adults as well. I commend those schools which have drawn attention in their policies to how they involve parents in promoting sport. When Ofsted takes the more rigorous approach which we are promised it will take, I am sure that this should be a very strong criterion on which everything should be judged. Partnerships are important. I do not think any one partnership or strategy is going to resolve this problem, but partnership is a very sensible word to use, and it must involve parents.