Playgrounds

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the provision of playgrounds by local authorities.

Thank you for the opportunity to lead this important Westminster Hall debate on the future of playgrounds under your chairship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. Fixing our public services and securing our unity as a country are serious issues to consider and serious goals to pursue. We need to be on the side of working people. We also need to be on the side of playing children: we need to be as serious about the play of children as we are about the work of adults. If anyone listening is in doubt, that is because our country has trivialised play for too long. I am astonished that there has only ever been one national play strategy, which was launched 17 years ago. I am also astonished that this is the first debate on the subject in eight years and—at an hour—the longest for 17 years.

Is it any wonder that people feel pushed out by politics and disaffected by democracy, when playgrounds are so ignored that they have been left to fall to pieces, with large pieces of equipment missing, and largely exclude children with special educational needs and disabilities? Is it any wonder that our playgrounds are rotting, when our Parliament barely discusses them and when the last Government to invest in them—a Labour Government—did so 17 years ago, only for their £235 million programme to be cut three years later by the coalition Government?

Why does it matter so much for this new Labour Government to help children to play? Let me tell hon. Members, in the words of my constituents. I launched a survey before Christmas, once this debate was confirmed; we had sought the debate following a roundtable with local parents. I am pleased to see a constituent who attended that roundtable, Anne-Marie Burr, here today. Anne-Marie helped to launch the Our Spaces BCP Facebook group, which brings parents together to campaign for better play equipment.

My survey has received 642 responses, and I thank everyone who has shared their views. I have read every response and every comment on Facebook and Instagram. It is time to take the Minister on a tour of beautiful Bournemouth and of my constituents’ viewpoints.

First, the main thing that parents tell me they want from playgrounds for their children is a place to grow, to experiment, to push themselves, to learn alongside others and to be free from a screen-obsessed childhood. Niamh from Springbourne says it well:

“Creativity is built in these free spaces where kids create their games and realities.”

Niamh’s daughter was obsessed with the monkey bars. I can relate. They have built capabilities that Niamh knows only a playground could have built. For Skye in Pokesdown, playgrounds

“give children a safe place to play and explore.”

For Natalie in Southbourne,

“unstructured free play helps children develop in many ways, including their cognitive development”.

Charlotte, also in Southbourne, agrees:

“Playgrounds are essential for child development”.

Playgrounds provide critical space for imaginative play, in the view of Chloe in Springbourne, Susie, Milo and Lillie-May in Southbourne, Louise and Kelly in East Southbourne, Christine, Lucy and Amy in Queen’s Park, Angela in Muscliff and Verity in Tuckton. Mark in Littledown talks about the joy that his young children feel when they play and when they develop as they play. He says that

“they love to go to the park. It’s a good thing for them to do. It develops them both physically and in terms of engaging with other children”.

Thomas in Southbourne sees the same joy in his children’s play:

“Good playground equipment helps children to develop physical skills like bounce and grip, but most of all, they are fun!”

My second point is that in a cost of living crisis, playgrounds give families places to spend time at no cost. Joanne in Muscliff is right to say that they provide free activity; that point is echoed by Nicole in Moordown, Louise in Charminster, Laura in Springbourne, Sarah in Iford, Victoria in Muscliff, Victoria in Pokesdown and Candice in Tuckton.

The third point that residents have raised is that playgrounds are vital outdoor spaces for parents and families who do not have space at home. Stephanie in Littledown and Iford says it well:

“For some children they do not have access to outside space at home and therefore playgrounds are vital for the health of this group of children.”

Kimberly in Muscliff agrees that playgrounds provide

“a place to go and meet others…lots of children don’t have access to a garden or the kind of equipment that is in a playground.”

Rachel in Muscliff says it brilliantly:

“We need safe outdoor spaces for our children to be able to enjoy. It also helps with reducing isolation.”

When the world of children is constantly shrinking, that is even more important.

My fourth point is that sadly some politicians tell children to get outside more, but it is not fair to criticise them for spending time on their screens, enjoying play in the only way they know how. It is usually the same politicians who have forced them, through policies and funding cuts, to shrink their world to their home or—even worse—to the smartphone in their hand. When playgrounds are being locked up or sold off and when parents lack safe outdoor spaces, where is left for children to go? As Alice in Boscombe says:

“How can we keep our kids away from screens when playgrounds are broken, unattractive, a lot of times unkept and dirty?”

What will the consequence be?

Parents know that few of the social skills that children need as adults will be acquired through the scrolling of bottomless social media feeds. Anyone who has seen a two-year-old master the touch-and-swipe interface of a smartphone knows that we risk more and more children at younger and younger ages spending more and more hours scrolling through bottomless feeds. Parents are concerned. Helen in Southbourne says that

“with the rise of screen time in the younger generation, we as adults must provide exciting, enjoyable and affordable alternatives.”

Sian in Springbourne says that we need playgrounds

“so children aren’t stuck behind screens all day.”

Young brains are being rewired. We want children to be children, because that is a good thing in its own right, but we must keep it in mind that the growing number of children hooked on social media today may become a growing number of patients of mental health services and economically inactive adults, contributing less in tax to the Treasury while increasing demand on already strained publicly funded services. Just as our predecessors in Parliament passed legislation more than a century ago to protect children against work-based childhoods, we can pass a safer phones Bill to make smartphones less addictive for children.

My fifth point is that playgrounds are important places for children with special educational needs and for their carers. Our lack of play spaces shrinks the world of children, but it particularly shrinks it for those with special educational needs and disabilities. Terrie from Springbourne told me:

“After my autistic daughter’s school were unable to meet her needs, I ended up home educating her. The local park is a place where she can socialise, get fresh air and exercise. She genuinely looks forward to our daily park time.”

Kathryn from Boscombe says:

“Aside from children’s physical development, it’s also a place children (and parents) can go when mental health takes a dive. As a mum of children with SEN this is essential to our daily routine!”

Terri from Muscliff says:

“There is barely any accessible play equipment in our local area for children with complex needs. If a child uses a wheelchair, there is nothing that they can do in parks.”

Hon. Members will be pleased to know that I am coming to my sixth and last point. Playgrounds can also help to end the isolation that parents can feel; it is not just children who benefit. Anna from Southbourne says:

“On lower, more exhausted days I’ve had some really special moments of connection with parents I don’t know in playgrounds while our children play.”

For Matthew from Springbourne, playgrounds offer

“a place to meet friends and other parents alike.”

Laura, also from Springbourne, says:

“The social and psychological value of play parks as part of the fabric of a healthy community should not be underestimated. As a parent to my young daughter, the park was often the only place I might interact with other adults/parents on a given day, and it was a nexus for exchanging local information and support.”

Most heartbreakingly, Mary from Queen’s Park says

“Playgrounds can be a lifeline for mothers who are in distress. I have met mothers who are escaping domestic abuse, poor housing, depression, loneliness or just need a change”.

In an age of isolation, polarisation and insecurity, society can be reinvigorated in the playgrounds of our country. Democracy is made in the playgrounds and given new life among the monkey bars, swings and slides and between strangers on benches. Parents may have their children as the unifying feature at first, but over time all kinds of conversations bubble up on that bench that would not otherwise have happened. This Parliament can only be as strong as our playgrounds.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making excellent progress; I love the six points that he has given us. I am happy to say that my constituency has a number of historic parks such as Alexandra Park and Platt Fields Park. However, as he points out, a third of British young people have no access to any nearby playgrounds. Surely that is not acceptable. Does he agree that we need to increase access to nature and green spaces to give children and young people better and stronger emotional and physical wellbeing?

[Tom Hayes]

I could not agree more. My hon. Friend is a champion for play in his area. In Bournemouth East, contact with a play area is at 35%, which is a significant problem, and I know that it is worse around the country.

I ask the Minister to help. First, as we have an hour for this debate, I invite him to meet Eugene Minogue of Play England, who is here today, with visiting Bournemouth residents, such as Anne-Marie, and with me to take the matter further.

Secondly, this is unfinished business for Labour. Ed Balls and Andy Burnham—whatever happened to them?—published the first national play strategy for England 17 years ago. Much of the strategy stands up today, but my view and that of important leaders in the sector is that it could be dusted off. The Minister could be the new Andy Burnham. He could be the new Ed Balls: he could help people to “Strictly Keep Playing”. The Minister and the Treasury may be reassured to know that a strategy does not necessarily require significant additional funding. All we need is changes to policy to better spend the money already in the system.

Thirdly—I am eager to discuss this point at greater length—the Government could implement play sufficiency legislation for English children to achieve equality with Welsh and Scottish children. A perfect opportunity to do so exists through the planning and infrastructure Bill; that was in Play England’s general election manifesto. The Government could give playgrounds the same status as sports facilities by extending Sport England’s remit to play areas so that consideration of playgrounds becomes a statutory duty, as with sports facilities. Following this Government’s welcome change to paragraph 104 in chapter 8 of the national planning policy framework, which provides protection for formal play spaces, I would love to work with the Minister to bring that into meaningful practice.

I urge the Government to mandate local authorities to map play facilities and their current state and quality. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council has done so voluntarily, not because it was mandated. I commend BCP council for agreeing to the Plan for Play strategy—and I am not doing so purely because the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade), is the last leader of the council and will respond to the debate.

I commend local councillors across Bournemouth East, particularly Sharon Carr-Brown, who has been advocating for play areas in her ward of Queen’s Park and Charminster. Indeed, it reflects the advocacy of Sharon and her co-councillor for the ward to be focused on. We will see a £75,000 grant funding bid this week; if successful, that will be flexibly spent in the ward. Some good news for Cyril Gardens is that it is about to see the replacement of a long-broken toddler swing, which just goes to show that when you campaign you can get things done.

In 1999, Tony Blair said:

“If we are in politics for one thing it is to make sure that all children are given the best chance in life.”

In 2024, the Prime Minister said that

“arguably nothing says more about the state of a nation than the wellbeing of its children.”

We have had such consistency over so many decades. Now is the opportunity for this Government to finish the business of the last Labour Government. I want to support this Government as they support Bournemouth children and families to improve their wellbeing. We can do no better than to start with a long-overdue, once-in-a-generation improvement of playgrounds.