Tennis

Debate between Chris White and Meg Munn

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to be here and to see the Sports Minister, who will respond. I am pleased to have secured the debate and to welcome my hon. Friends—we are all friends when it comes to tennis. I am secretary of the all-party group on tennis, or as it is more commonly known, the Lords and Commons tennis club. The most enjoyable part of holding that position is getting to play.

Tennis is a sport open to all. It is played by children, as soon as they can hold the racket, through to the older generation to maintain agility, balance, flexibility and strength. It can be enjoyed by two people competing for victory or by groups and families for leisure. It is flexible and fun. Unfortunately, despite all those positive attributes, the country suffers from low participation. Sport England’s Active People survey shows that tennis participation has fallen to 402,000 regular players—way short of the 550,000 target for September 2011. Shockingly, the number of tennis courts has declined in the past 10 years from 33,000 to only 10,000.

Research shows that the public are keen to play more tennis. According to a ComRes survey carried out on behalf of Tennis for Free in September 2011, nearly half the people surveyed would be more likely to play tennis if facilities were free to use. It also found that 69% of people think that local facilities should be free and a massive 84% believe that they need to be more accessible. The serious lack of interest in the grass-roots level is a missed opportunity. Getting more Britons inspired by and involved in sports was a pledge that helped London to secure the 2012 Olympic games, but that cannot happen unless we invest in small organisations that promote grass-roots sports.

[Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Is she aware that Leamington Spa is home to the first lawn tennis club, established in 1872, which was three years before Wimbledon? In the Olympic year, could we not make an effort to ensure that we improve young people’s understanding of the history of tennis, so that the legacy is not concentrated only in London?

[Meg Munn]

As an MP representing a constituency even further away from London than the hon. Gentleman’s, I am obviously keen for the legacy of the games to be felt throughout the country. I have spent time in Leamington Spa, but I was unaware of its history, so I am delighted to have been educated. Let us get kids out playing and then teach them the history, but I welcome his intervention.

In 1997, when the Labour Government came to power, school sports were poorly funded and communities relied on badly funded local authority provision and voluntary clubs. The Labour Government set out to create a proper structure to encourage greater participation, which included the Youth Sport Trust, for schools and youth clubs; Sport England, for community support through national governing bodies; and UK Sport, for elite sport throughout England.

In December 2008, Sport England announced a £480 million investment to provide grass-roots sporting opportunities and a lasting Olympic legacy of 1 million people playing more sport. It awarded sports funding based on their expected ability to increase the number of people playing sport and to ensure that young, talented players could be identified and supported to develop their skills.

Through the four-year whole sport plan, tennis received a block grant of nearly £27 million for 2009-13—the fourth largest grant given to any sport—from Sport England. That money is channelled through the sport’s national governing body, the Lawn Tennis Association. It was originally built on a club structure, but there has been a shift to include more local authority-run parks and school sites. Almost 200 park sites, which offer affordable tennis, are accredited as beacons and the LTA also invested £200,000 in revenue funding last year to support free and affordable activities. Sport England targets tennis funding at three areas, for which it uses the terms: grow, sustain and excel. For those of us who do not like such short descriptions, they mean increasing the number of people playing tennis, sustaining their number through measuring existing participants’ satisfaction and helping young, talented players to progress and excel.