Young People: Sporting Activities
Debate between Baroness Smith of Malvern and Baroness Gohir(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an important point: activity is important, but not every young person will want to do the same sport. Although, as we can see with the Lionesses, football has arguably become much more popular for girls, the focus has quite often been on traditional sports. This has meant that girls, for example, have not necessarily found the things that they would like to do to keep active. I can absolutely commit that it will be part of the Government’s intention, both through this partnership and more broadly, to ensure that there is a range of opportunities to enable everybody to find sport and activity that they enjoy, and to keep healthy.
Baroness Gohir (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister say what specific action the Government are taking to close the ethnicity gap with children in sport? Even within different ethnic groups, children access different types of sports. Addressing this gap will help with integration and community cohesion.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes a very important point. It partly relates to the extent to which we can provide a whole range of opportunities for people to engage in activity, and the way we use the new partnership arrangements locally to see what sort of provision is available and how we can link schools more easily to that local provision, which may well come from and be promoted by different parts of the community. This must be an approach that ensures everybody has the opportunity to benefit from the obvious advantages that come from being more active and taking part in sport.
Education: Early Years Attainment Gap
Debate between Baroness Smith of Malvern and Baroness Gohir(7 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right that the quality of staff is fundamental, but so is the number of staff. We have a big challenge to ensure that we have sufficient staff in place by next September to deliver the outlined entitlement. We are working to provide additional training for staff. I take his point about the training and ongoing support that we need to provide for the staff who do such an important job at the beginning of children’s lives.
Baroness Gohir (CB)
My Lords, the largest number of nursery closures in recent years has been in the poorest parts of the country, particularly in areas with large minority-ethnic populations. Will the new and expanded nurseries that the Government are allocating be proportionately allocated in those hardest-hit areas?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that those are the areas where need is very great. In our recent announcement of £15 million-worth of investment in the first 300 nurseries based in schools, we will be encouraging applications from those where there is a particular need. We will be using evidence of those applications to ensure that we are able to improve the provision in the areas that need it most.