Water Safety Education

Amanda Martin Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) and I praise Nessa for her tireless campaigning.

As a former teacher who taught swimming in my NQT—newly qualified teacher—year, as a mum of three young men who are all confident swimmers, and as the MP for Portsmouth’s coastal community where water is a part of daily life, I know just how vital water safety education is. Every child should not only learn how to swim, but understand how to stay safe around water. As has been said today, warn and inform. That is why I welcome Labour’s continued commitment to the PE and sport premium, with £320 million for 2025-26, which schools can use for teacher training and to top-up swimming lessons.

Labour’s new Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will mean that all state-funded schools, including academies, will be required to deliver the national curriculum, which will include swimming and water safety. In addition, the interim report from Labour’s curriculum assessment review recognises the urgent need to rebalance priorities, especially in PE for our older pupils. However, if we are to teach children to swim, we need to ensure we have access to facilities—affordable facilities—in which to have lessons. I am pleased that Hilsea Lido is having a revamp for local use, but we need to help schools work with local facilities, be they private or council, to ensure that pools and transport are a real option and are really affordable.

I also want to echo the praise for, and the promotion of, the Royal Life Saving Society for the work it is doing to help to educate us. Its resources are brilliant and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. I have seen the great work of my local National Independent Lifeboat Association. Alongside Portsmouth RNLI lifeboat and lifeguards, Portsmouth Southsea Voluntary Lifeguards and our local police and fire services, they all go the extra mile.

Raising awareness helps inform and warn, but it needs to be put into practice to save lives. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham and Beckton (James Asser) noted, I also remember the childhood public service broadcasts some 40 years ago. They do work, and it would be a great and positive use of our online media platforms. In Portsmouth North, where children live near the sea, ponds, shorelines and marshes, these reforms to water safety education and swimming are not optional, but essential. I fully support the Government’s steps to ensure that every child leaves school with essential lifesaving water skills. I fully support the extra calls from my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen. I pledge to work with him and others on behalf of our constituents to make a national strategy for water safety a reality for our kids and for all our communities.