Health: Active Lifestyles

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, I am delighted to be able to speak in this debate, and I thank my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint for bringing the subject to our attention. I have to start by making an admission. Last night, I was very inactive. I was glued to the television, first, because of “Strictly Come Dancing” and, secondly, because of “BBC Sports Personality of the Year”. The interesting thing was that one of the people lost from “Strictly Come Dancing” was a jolly competitor. I think that she proved to everybody that you do not need to be slim and slight to be a good dancer and to have fun. Knowing that we were going to have this debate today, I said to myself what a good message it sent out. Sadly, that person did not make the final but it really was quite amazing.

The second thing that really struck home last night was the recognition of the wonderful contributions made at the Olympics this summer not only by the Olympians but particularly by the Paralympians, too. They said to the world, “Look, we might have disadvantages but we are here, we can do the best we can, and achieve”. I thought that some of the presentations and reflections on this summer were very moving. The winner was Bradley Wiggins, followed by Jessica Ennis and Andy Murray. They come from three very different sports and three different regimes.

I want to pick up on two things from the awards. The first is Martine Wright, who won the Helen Rollason Award for achieving the gold medal in the sitting volleyball competition, having lost her legs tragically in the bombing of 7/7. The second comes much closer to home: the award for unsung heroes. The winners came from Desford, not exactly my home village but it is close to me in Leicestershire. Sue and Jim Houghton were given the award for their commitment to community activity. They formed a sports centre aimed at young people, but which takes on both the young and the young at heart. I thought that this was very moving.

I move on to a recent report by the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee. The report, published earlier this year, questioned how robust the research and evidence base is for improving the performance of elite and non-elite athletes, and how this knowledge can be translated into treatments and preventive interventions to improve the nation’s health. The Government responded in many ways; I have picked up on two things in particular on which the Minister might like to comment. First, the Government have said that they wish to target investment to support the translation of biomedical research. Secondly, they have provided some £30 million of funding to develop the country’s first National Centre of Excellence for Sport and Exercise Medicine. These are indeed welcome commitments. However, I wish in my time to enlarge upon two other areas identified by the committee. The first was to increase grass-roots participation in sport, particularly by young people; the second was to increase community engagement to bring people together over a national event.

I am also grateful to the BMA and Bupa for the briefs which they sent, I suspect, to everybody taking part in the debate. They picked up particularly on walking, which was briefly mentioned earlier. It is a key thing that any of us can do very easily. It costs virtually no money—sole leather, maybe—and it gets people out and about in the air, giving them the chance to keep physically fit. When driving the other day, I came up behind a car in the window of which was written, “Dogs are for life, not just for Christmas”. I thought below that should have been added, “Walking is for life, not just for now”. Clearly, walking is one of the very good ways in which one can keep fit. The BMA’s study paper this year considered healthy transport, healthy living and active travel. It particularly looked at walking and cycling. Several local authorities have become aware of the need to create more cycle routes for people, and we have done so in Leicestershire too.

In 2012, Bupa produced a report titled Get Walking and Keep Walking which stated that,

“just 15 minutes a day of brisk walking can have significant health benefits, adding up to three years to life expectancy”.

Walking need not be boring; it can be fun. I suspect many of us in this Chamber have taken part in walks or runs—I do not run these days, but I do walk—to raise money for charity. The amount of money raised for charities reflects on people’s ability to get fit—one need only think of the London marathon. When I came across a walking group just this weekend when I was out walking the dog, I stopped and said hello to one man I had not met before. He said that he had just moved to the village from another area, and that it was a wonderful way to get to know people. As I found to my great interest, it is a double bonus.

I turn to the particular area of expertise of the Minister to take a few minutes to talk about the NHS. In many ways it gets a very rough passage, but many of us—including me and, recently, my husband—have reason to be very grateful for the wonderful service it provides. I will concentrate on one aspect. After a major operation, one comes out with uncertainty and a lack of confidence about what one should do and how one should do it. I give great credit to the recent work of the physiotherapists who were an enormous help to my husband after his stay in hospital. When one is very weak, the first thing they want to do is to get one up. That is quite right; up one should be. Then one starts to move around, leaning on a walking frame. For somebody who is very tall, this is not easy because their core balance is going in the wrong direction. Very quickly, they prescribed for my husband some elbow crutches. They made a huge difference. Instead of leaning forward with his weight going in the wrong direction, he was balanced on his core and able to recover much more quickly. He went from zimmer frame to elbow crutches. When he came home he was more confident; he went out and about, starting with short walks and then taking longer ones.

Often when one mentions exercise, people think of pounding away in a gym. For a lot of people, exercise is just that. They enjoy going to the gym, and I go occasionally. However, there are much simpler ways of keeping fit. When a cat or dog sits up after relaxing, it stretches. I was sorry not to be able to speak in the debate on Friday. Often as one gets older, one loses the ability to move around physically in the same way as one did when one was young. However, moving neck muscles and using very basic movements can be a help to people who are not able to get out and walk as much as they were able to in the past.

Unfortunately, we are becoming a country of very sedentary people. The young sit fascinated and do not get out and about. I totally agree with other noble Lords that the more we can do in our schools—and by linking schools to clubs, because that is where it all happens—the better. My introduction to cricket was when I attended a school in Scotland where playing cricket was the norm. I was lucky enough to be introduced to it. I never went very far with it and never became very good, but it was interesting to play another sport.

Perhaps I should have declared that for 10 years I taught tennis in schools and clubs. I am not a professional—I was what they called an associate—and I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Addington that one of the joys of sport is when a child connects. Somebody asked me if my best result was when somebody reached something. I said no, it was when they could physically connect with a ball and track its bounce and rise. There are many ways of engaging young people in activity but the most important thing for the young—or young at heart—is that it must be fun and that people must be able to enjoy it. I am very grateful to my noble friend for securing this debate and look forward to what the Minister has to say.