School Sport

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to today’s debate on behalf of the Opposition, Mr Amess. I wholeheartedly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe) on securing this important debate. I also congratulate him on his work as the Minister with responsibility for sport in the previous Government, when he worked tirelessly to extend opportunities for engagement in sport to children and young people.

Given the contributions made during the debate today, it is clear that this matter needs to be far from a political game in this House. There have been positive contributions, and I am pleased that there still seems to be cross-party agreement on the importance of sport for children. The previous Labour Government and the coalition have focused on the Olympics in school sport. That emphasis is correct, given our commitment to host the Olympics next year. However, I want to use this debate to urge the Secretary of State for Education, through the Minister responding today, to rethink the Government’s decision to make such drastic and damaging cuts to support for school sport—I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) that the support has been cut—not just to ensure that we deliver on our Olympic promise, but to ensure that young people today get the sporting opportunities that can transform their educational outcomes and their lives.

School sport partnerships were at the forefront of ensuring that the second key Olympic pledge—to transform a generation of young people through sport—was met. Sadly, and regrettably, the coalition Government do not seem to have recognised the value of SSPs, despite their international acclaim. They were one of the reasons—along with the hard work of teachers, sports leaders and volunteers around the UK—why between 2002 and 2010 the number of young people doing at least two hours or more of sport a week rose from 25% to 90%. There has been a marked drop since the figures for 2010 were released, which is extremely worrying.

All the evidence suggests that cutting funding for school sports results in fewer young people accessing high quality sport opportunities. Some reduction in funding was expected, but to announce a cut to the entire £162 million grant so close to the Olympics, and when childhood obesity is such a key public health concern, was clearly wrong and sends out alarming signals.

The Secretary of State’s justification for the cuts is that the Government want to focus on encouraging more children to play competitive sports through the school games project which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham explained, is funded by multiple bodies including the Departments for Education, for Culture, Media and Sport and for Health, as well as the national lottery. There are, however, serious concerns about whether that funding will go any way to meet the requirement for sustainable funding that the school sport partnerships initiative offered our young people, and I seek clarity from the Minister about what consideration his Department has given to school sport post-2013.

Now is not the time to put our children’s sport at risk. One simple reason for that is because the cost of the sporting activities taken up by a young person, regardless of their ability, will negate the potential cost to the Exchequer of treating obesity and health-related problems later in that person’s life. In my constituency, about 25% of pupils in year 6—10-year-olds—are defined as clinically obese. They are not just overweight; they are obese. If the Government do not make a commitment now to provide sustainable funding for school sports, there is a genuine risk, both in Newcastle and around the country, that that percentage will increase, as will the cost of providing obesity-related health care.

We have not yet mentioned the benefits to educational standards that derive from participation in sport. Research from Sport England, and around the world, has shown that young people who participate in sport are higher educational achievers. I do not doubt the Government’s sincerity in wishing to raise educational standards, but I wonder whether they genuinely appreciate the support that schools require to increase levels of participation in sport, and the lost opportunities for academic attainment that will result from cutting that support.

We warmly welcome the funding that has been committed to school sport by the Department for Education and will provide £32.5 million per year for PE teacher release funding over the next two years. There is, however, still great uncertainty about the future of that money and the extent to which it will be ring-fenced and protected. In allocating that money, the Government have deliberately placed a focus on competitive sport. That is important if we are to encourage the talented sportsmen and women of the future, and so that children and young people have the opportunity to engage in competitive sport and enjoy the challenges and benefits that it brings. None the less, competitive sport and non-competitive sport are not mutually exclusive, and we should encourage young people to participate in sport regardless of whether it is competitive. There are clear advantages for the health and general well-being of an individual if they engage in sport and exercise, in whatever form.

The Department for Education must accept that sport plays a key role in encouraging all children to be the best they can, both academically and in the lifestyle choices that they make and the relationships that they form with their peers and others. Sport plays a vital role in that development process, and the results achieved by school sport partnerships in reversing the trend of youth inactivity were clear and—as my hon. Friends have noted—internationally acclaimed.

A huge concern has been raised about the Government’s ability to measure their success or failure with regard to school sport. The school sport survey was conducted annually from 2003-04 until 2009-10, and those data have been invaluable for measuring the success of policies and highlighting opportunities for improvement. When defending their actions on school sport, the Government routinely respond with the claim that only 21% of children regularly took part in inter-school competitive sport. I reiterate the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South who called on the Minister to avoid reeling off misleading statistics when he responds to the debate.

Although arguments about the use of the school sport survey as a measure of success have been well rehearsed, my point is that the Government relied on that survey to make their case for cutting some support for schools, and to increase funding in other areas. That survey has now been scrapped in the name of reducing red tape, and it will make it difficult—I would hate to think that this is intentional—to measure the success or failure of the Government’s policies on school sport, and in particular the level of participation in sport and the effects of the cuts to school sport partnerships. Data from the active people survey show that adult participation in sport has—unsurprisingly—fallen in 19 sports over the past year, and increased in only four. That is the first fall in levels of participation in sport among people aged 16 and over since we won the Olympic bid in 2005.

Although the Government have definite ideas about deficit reduction, it is crucial that short-term savings are not made at a greater expense to the public purse in later years. Participation in sport at school plays a vital role in combating inactivity among young people, which can contribute to ill health, obesity and lower educational attainment.

I welcome some of the constructive comments made by the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) about areas in which the Government could invest and improve participation in sport for young people. He made a constructive suggestion about a national insurance deal to aid sports leaders, volunteers and teachers in encouraging out-of-school activities for young people. He also made useful comments about the way that school sport is judged by Ofsted, and whether encouraging sports teachers and rewarding them for their hard work could provide an incentive and help achieve higher levels of participation in sport. Sports teachers contribute many hours to running clubs for young people or sports centres, and that work often goes unrewarded and unnoticed. I am conscious of the number of sports facilities in this country that fall within the remit of the Department for Education. The vast majority of sports facilities in this country are found in schools, and it is vital that those facilities are made available to all young people.

School sport partnerships undeniably played a major role in increasing and supporting wider participation in sport. The Government have not only put those partnerships at risk, but dismantled the means by which the impact of the funding changes can be measured. The health and well-being of our nation is greatly enhanced and enriched through participation in sport—all sport, whether competitive sport or that aimed at increasing a person’s fitness levels or mental agility—and I am sure that all hon. Members share that vision. Will the Minister reassure hon. Members, as well as our young people, their parents and teachers and the army of sports teachers and volunteers up and down the country, that we will deliver not only on our Olympic promise, but on our commitment to helping our nation’s children develop into healthy and active achievers of the future?