EUC Report: Grass-roots Sport

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I very much welcome the debate today, and I start by declaring my interests in sport, which are many. I am a board member of the London Marathon and UK Athletics, a trustee of the Sport for Good Foundation, which is part of the Laureus World Sport Academy, and an ambassador for International Inspiration. I sit on several committees of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, and I am chair of the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation’s Commission into the Future of Women’s Sport. We are investigating areas such as commercialisation, investment, leadership and profile, which all have a massive impact at every level, and ultimately affect how sport and physical activity is run in the UK.

This is a very positive and important report and it makes a lot of sense about the power of sport. As others in your Lordships’ House have already said, sport teaches young people about rules, life skills, discipline, and working as a team—all things which are important in society. I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, on the report, because it strongly highlights that those who currently do the least have the most to gain. That is very simple, but oh so important.

In a visit to Rwanda with the Sport for Good Foundation, a couple of years ago, I saw at a very practical level how sport was being used to bring together and provide support for those who had been affected by the genocide. I have been fortunate enough to make visits with both the Sport for Good Foundation and International Inspiration to see that in other parts of the world.

I very much like chapter 2, which is summarised in paragraph 27, where reference is made to the groups who can benefit, which include women, an area of particular interest to me. I also very much welcome the highlighting of those areas and the positive response of the Minister for Sport and the Olympics in the other place, Mr Hugh Robertson.

It is important that more support is given to those groups and organisations that promote the inclusion of underrepresented groups. I emphasise that work is needed not only across Europe; there is a still a lot to be done in the United Kingdom. The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, mentioned the lack of participation among women. It is important to emphasise not just that women participate in sport much less than men, but that, in the UK, 80 per cent of women and girls do not do enough physical exercise to benefit their health. That has major long-term implications for the health of our nation.

From recent research from the Commission on the Future of Women’s Sport, published last week, we also know that the amount of money that goes into men’s and women’s sport varies considerably. That impacts on participation and the interest in sport for women. If we look at the commercialisation of sport, 39 per cent of money goes into mixed sport, which include sports such as tennis and golf, which are relatively equitable, but also rugby and football, which are not. An average contract for a woman who plays football for England is £16,000 a year, plus a club contract of around £20,000 to £30,000.

If we look at where the rest of the money goes, we see that 60.5 per cent of it goes into men’s sport. That leaves a scant 0.5 per cent for women. That figure will be pushed up by the Olympic and Paralympic Games next year to around 1.5 per cent but is likely to drop afterwards, and is still shocking. We are therefore stuck in a closed circle. With fewer women participating now, there is less interest in the commercial side of sport, and therefore less media interest. In an average year, only 2 per cent of media coverage is devoted to women in sport. In the UK, we need to break this cycle if we are to change the pattern.

If we see more women doing sport on TV, that encourages more women to do it. The myth that people do not want to watch women play sport is simply not true. People who like sport want to watch women play sport. In the last women’s World Cup semi-final, 1.6m people watched England play France.

What about some solutions for the UK? What I believe is needed is for the sports sector to take a radically different approach from that it is used to. Rather than just opening the doors and expecting a different mix of people to come through, sport needs to adopt basic business techniques of identifying a target market, developing an understanding of what that market wants, and then delivering sport to meet the needs and preferences of that market.

There are a few good examples. England Netball’s Back to Netball campaign has allowed thousands of women to play regular netball without having to join a club or pay an annual membership fee. Other national governing bodies are also trying. It would help considerably to keep up the pressure on national governing bodies that take public money but fail to succeed in increasing participation among underrepresented groups. I ask the Minister for continued support in this.

Many national governing bodies could benefit from looking at how private sector providers, such as military fitness or Zumba classes, develop markets and deliver their offers. There is definitely more to be done in schools, too, and the latest research from the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation shows that girls leave school half as likely to meet recommended activity levels as boys. The introduction of the School Games and the current review of the PE curriculum provide a good opportunity for schools to redefine and redesign competitive sport so that it encourages all pupils to be active regularly, rather than just those who make the first team.

Paragraph 42 talks of the need to share best practice across Europe. I should like to suggest that British national governing bodies look at how the commercial sector operates in order to make real improvements. I also suggest that they use their own networks across the European international federations to share this best practice.

Paragraph 48 of the report identifies the need for more wide-scale research into the societal and personal benefits of sport. This is very important, and further work must be done—not because we are unsure whether sport for women has a value but because, as a sector, we need to be much better at turning anecdotal evidence into hard facts which will convince potential funders of the value of sport. I suppose that the flip-side is that we spend too much on research and monitoring, and then the amount of cash available for the delivery of projects diminishes, but there is a balance to be struck.

Box 4 on page 24 of the report highlights the case study of the Women’s International Leadership Development Programme and the links that this can provide to the wider gender and diversity equality movement. It is useful in ensuring that British national governing bodies have the chance to consider the opportunity that having a more diverse leadership would offer them.

Again, figures from the Commission on the Future of Women’s Sport show that only 20 of the national governing bodies’ board members are female and that eight national governing bodies, including the Football Association, have no women on their boards at all. The lack of diversity on the boards of national governing bodies is perhaps the biggest single factor that stops these NGBs achieving their potential in terms of participation growth and elite success. Such a change is completely within their own grasp.

Finally, I realise that what I have said may be seen as all doom and gloom, but there is some exciting work going on and we have a chance to really make a change. Rather, the areas that I have covered should be seen as an opportunity to do things differently and to do them better. We owe that to the young women and girls in our society. This report makes a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the wider context.