Migrant Children: Welfare

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate has reminded us that it is 30 years since Section 17 of the Children Act placed a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need in their area. Today’s debate, against the background of so many remarkable stories in the report, is about those in exceptional poverty; those at high risk of hopelessness, exploitation and abuse; those children and families without recourse to public funds; and the vital need for all concerned to listen to the voices of children.

Of course, the key finding of the deeply moving report by Project 17, Not Seen, Not Heard, goes far further than immigration issues, housing or homelessness. It has at its roots a challenge to us to listen to children and young people and, by listening, to act. So how should we listen? How best can we communicate, learn and engage? Ever since my youngest son ran the marathon to raise awareness and money for the outstanding charity YoungMinds, springing as it did from his deeply felt concern about the well-being of children and the growing incidence of mental ill-health among young people, I have learned that our concern should be not just for the poorest in society but for all those children whose voices go unheard—all those who are legally here.

As YoungMinds recognises, an estimated three children in every classroom has a diagnosable mental health problem, while 90% of school leaders reported an increase in the number or students experiencing anxiety or stress and low mood or depression over the last five years, yet fewer than one in three children and young people with a diagnosable mental health condition get access to NHS care and treatment. Since 2017, the YoungMinds “Wise Up” campaign has called for a rebalancing of the education system so that the well-being of all young people is as important as their academic achievement. Schools should not be expected to do the job of mental health services, but they have a crucial role to play in promoting good mental health in everything they do. It is time for important changes to the Ofsted framework. In that context, I ask the Minister if she will talk to her colleagues so that an outstanding school, for all children, is seen as one that prioritises the well- being of its students as much as its academic success.

I would also be grateful if the Minister could update the House on progress made following the Green Paper on children’s mental health, in which mental health support teams are to act as a link with local children and young people’s mental health services and be supervised by NHS staff. Surely an aim to roll out just 20% to 25% over the next five years means that the majority of all our children, and all our immigrant children, who need help will not be supported. When will we listen to the remaining 75%?

Our focus needs to be on challenging decision-makers to listen to and act upon the evidence of vulnerable children and young people. As Vicky Johnson wrote in the abstract for her exceptional article, Moving Beyond Voice in Children and Young People’s Participation, in seeking to understand if and how children and youth input was valued and acted upon by adults:

“Each case rested on the same value proposition: that inclusion of children and youth is critical to participatory democracy and so incorporating their views can move societies towards improved policies and services for”,


all children, all immigrant children, all young people,

“and a culture of mutual respect in intergenerational relationships”.

To me, creating participatory spaces and building dialogue and trust between children and adults are necessary preconditions for child and youth-centred transformational change in any society, particularly here at home, where such influence can be brought to bear.

Poor immigrant families are a prominent presence in the public realm but rarely have a voice. As Gill Main, who is undertaking excellent work at the University of Leeds in conjunction with the Child Poverty Action Group, wrote, children,

“rarely have the opportunity to influence how they are portrayed and to shape interventions purportedly designed to help them”.

To shape change, we need to shift our focus from what the poorest in society are doing and how they should change, towards listening to their perspectives on what they need and how society could be more fairly organised.

I was struck by Dave performing “Thiago Silva” at Glastonbury 10 days ago as he reached out to a 15 year-old boy, Alex, to join him on stage and accompany him through that complex rap in which Thiago Silva, the Brazil and Paris St Germain iconic footballer, who was once left almost for dead with tuberculosis in a small room in Russia, was recognised. Here, music became the language for Dave and Alex, representing a generation whose communication is through music. Today, I have spoken all afternoon on amendments to the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill to ensure that there is a legacy of listening to young people, inspiring them and lifting them out of depression and, often, away from the escalator to crime, through the medium of sport.

We have an overriding duty to help those immigrant children with ways to escape their daily struggles, and to provide hope—not just to dream about a future but to use everything in our power so they can have a future and discover what they can be; to find means of advocacy, mentoring and engagement. We have an especial duty to help those child refugees who have nothing, forced to leave their country because of war or for religious or political reasons, reaching out while we as a society too often fail to take their hand and listen, fail to place them at the centre of our policy-making and fail to use our two ears in proportion to our one mouth when in their company.

Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, the public judgment on the success of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was foremost a story about the remarkable achievements of our athletes. The Olympic board, which had oversight over every aspect of the Games, Olympic and Paralympic alike, numbered just four original members: the Secretary of State, the mayor, my noble friend Lord Coe as chair of LOCOG and myself as chair of the British Olympic Association. At LOCOG we were very fortunate to have the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, deliver Games organisation to a gold medal standard, and we welcome him to your Lordships’ House after an outstanding maiden speech.

For my part, I was supported strongly by my chief executive Andy Hunt and an outstanding team at the British Olympic Association. To me, the Games was above all about the athletes; every decision—from the tough, consistent, no-compromise position that we took against doping in sport to the need to secure long-term funding for the sportsmen and women that the British Olympic Association represents—was about the athletes. I have every confidence that my noble friend Lord Coe will be a major asset in taking that work forward.

I never predicted medal targets—an activity which should be left to the bookies—but I sought to ensure with my colleagues at the British Olympic Association that every athlete could be supported to the ultimate degree Puttham in other words, to deliver, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, rightly said, their personal bests. If that was achieved, the medal targets would look after themselves. The reputation set by Team GB on and off the field of play was exemplary and has been reviewed as a benchmark for sport in this country. The performance of the British Olympic Association’s 750 support staff within the delegation was outstanding and an excellent example of how over 50 organisations can come together as one team aligned behind a common mission to deliver high-performance sport, medals and a suite of personal bests.

It was a remarkable summer. The atmosphere in the Olympic park was inspirational. This atmosphere extended not just across London but across the country. During the summer of 2012 the United Kingdom became the Olympic park. Team GB became the driving force behind the success of the Games. The athletes of the world raised the stakes. Across the Olympic and Paralympic Games, 117 Olympic records were broken and 250 world records set. From our perspective we have never seen any British sporting success like this in our lifetime. As important as the success of our Olympians and Paralympians is, it is vital now—as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, has reminded us through this debate—to turn inspiration into participation.

Girl power was a key feature of Team 2012. Our women athletes led the way. Their energy, expertise and enthusiasm must now be translated into the involvement of more women at all levels of sports administration. It escaped nobody’s attention that the success of the women at the Olympic Games—boosted by 11 British gold medals—has led to calls for changes to boost women’s sport and bring to an end sports clubs that still deny women equal membership rights. I am in favour of removing the exemption to the Equality Act which permits discrimination against women in this context. The Royal and Ancient, I regret, is a classic example, for golf is now—after the London Games—an Olympic sport. Equality of opportunity should be a no-brainer for any true devotee of sport. The absence of women from the top table of so many national and international federations of sport would, regrettably, suggest otherwise.

Education’s rightful place should be at the epicentre of the Olympic sports legacy. We need a revolution, on the back of a successful Games, in the delivery of^. school sport. Every primary school needs dedicated physical education delivered to national curriculum standard; provided by well-trained, focused individuals; and supported by a vibrant, accessible and sustainable interschool sports programme which is, in turn, supported and linked into the national governing body competition calendars.

How should we do this? We need a review of initial training for specialist physical education teachers to establish quality physical education, which all our children and young people—both able bodied and disabled—need and deserve. Links should be established between all schools, both primary and secondary, and all sport and recreation clubs in their catchment areas. We should have a comprehensive audit of all our sports facilities and every one of them should be part of a concerted programme to ensure that they are used and do not lie idle for so much of the year. Our playing fields are needed and must be protected.

The delivery of quality training programmes for primary school physical education teachers is patchy at best. More than 60% of primary school teachers receive less than six hours’ preparation in total to teach physical education. As we all know, some providers do a great job. The Teaching Agency should ensure that there is a step change in the delivery of quality physical education for all teacher training programmes. I would hope that Ofsted could be required to expand its remit and inspect and report on curriculum-time physical education as well as out-of-hours sport in all schools. The success of the Games needs to be a catalyst not just for improved PE provision in schools; it should be a call for a wider healthy schools agenda, the provision for youths in general and the role of competitive sport in its proper context. What is needed is a greater concentration on the physical and emotional health and well-being of young people nationwide.

If there was ever fertile ground for David Cameron’s vision of the big society, it is through sport and recreation. Control, power, jobs and funding needs to be shifted from bureaucratic, micromanaged structures under the influence of Whitehall to families, clubs, volunteers, community groups and schools, who should be empowered with the task of translating the inspiration of the Games into participation.

While I have focused on the BOA today and the vital need to deliver on the Olympic sports legacy, there is no doubt that equal attention should be given to the British Paralympic Association and to sport for those with disabilities. For this summer gave us a moment to understand the abilities of the world’s Olympians, not their disabilities.

I hope that these objectives which I have shared with your Lordships can begin to deliver an Olympic sports legacy of which this country can be proud.

Millennium Development Goals

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the British Olympic Association and a member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games. Today I will talk about the importance of sport as a key contributor to the progress needed to deliver the millennium development goals. Over the years the Olympic movement and its constituency have applied immense resources in the area of development through sport, helping to promote formal education, culture, healthy lifestyles, human rights, sustainability, gender equality, understanding among peoples and peace, to name a few. As a family of some 205 national Olympic committees, we in the International Olympic Committee also assist several humanitarian organisations by providing sports equipment, educational material and aid to victims of wars and natural disasters.

Each of these programmes and activities offers a meaningful contribution to the achievement of the millennium development goals. For example, in community development we contribute to local socio-economic development through sport. In environmental protection we advocate environmentally sound sport practice and sustainable development. In HIV and AIDS prevention we promote healthy lifestyles through peer education. In humanitarian assistance we bring hope through recreation to people in need. In gender equality we ensure greater access to sport for girls and women, as well as leadership empowerment. In Olympic education and culture we promote Olympism and Olympic values throughout the world among youth. In peace and Olympic Truce promotion we work on conflict resolution and inter-community dialogue through sport—a subject close to the heart of my noble friend Lord Bates.

The International Olympic Committee and international sports associations co-operate with numerous United Nations agencies, programmes and funds, and with member states as well as non-governmental institutions, to develop and implement a range of initiatives, using sport as a tool for development. National Olympic committees and national sports federations play a critical role as they communicate with billions of young people throughout the world on a daily basis. They bring to the table specific organisational expertise that delivers a cadre of young, disciplined generations to be empowered and trained for the roles they will play as leaders of tomorrow. In this country my noble friend Lord Coe and we at the British Olympic Association do this through the programme International Inspiration. It is the main British project in this context. It is led by Sir Keith Mills and uses sport to touch the lives of more than 10 million people in developing countries as a result of our hosting the Olympic Games in London in 2012.

The decision by UN member states last October to invite the IOC to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly as permanent observer—a position strongly supported by the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown—has raised the level of partnership between sports organisations around the globe as a whole, and the political leadership of nations, to a whole new level that dictates that more resources should be provided to sport by Governments and by sport to deliver on its development commitments, so sport is an essential development tool and a key contributor towards ensuring progress towards the millennium development goals. We at the British Olympic Association are ready to assist government with a range of initiatives before and after 2012 so as to deliver a true and lasting legacy from London 2012.