Community Sports Facilities

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to join the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, for the first time, I believe. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie). She has been a doughty fighter on behalf of sport in general. She has made many contributions both in the Chamber and Westminster Hall on behalf of sport and young people, pointing out the role that sport can play in encouraging participation among young people, challenging some behaviour and turning lives around. I have certainly seen many examples of that in my constituency. I commend her for the work she has done to bring the matter to the attention of the House.

Sport is a very important part of not just our society and culture, but our economy. It contributes in the region of £3.8 billion, according to the British Institute of Sport and Leisure. The health and sport industry makes a major contribution to employment, as well as to the well-being of many of our constituents. It also offers many opportunities for communities to come together. We have heard an enormous number of examples from hon. Members today of not-for-profit organisations where public-spirited people come together to run them and make a major contribution to our local communities.

I am grateful to the Sport and Recreation Alliance for providing figures. One of its reports, under its former guise of the Central Council of Physical Recreation, stated that 26% of volunteering takes place through sport and recreation; and that the economic return of volunteers outnumbers investment in the sector by a ratio of 30:1. There is an argument for sport not just for enjoyment but as a significant contributor to local economies. It also contributes to health, as the hon. Lady said. There are enormous costs to our NHS from obesity and diabetes. As she said, the cost of dealing with illnesses related to the body mass index is currently about £15.8 billion. That is due to rise by 2050 to a staggering £49.9 billion, if current trends are not addressed. It is important to recognise the potential cost to our country and economy of not tackling such issues. It is also important to recognise the value of sport and how it can contribute.

In these economically straitened times, when people’s disposable incomes are stretched, it is also important that we do not exclude people from accessing sport because of cost, particularly those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Many people have referred to problems with increasing costs, especially at private finance initiative schools. A PFI school in my constituency is just being completed. Its policy is certainly to open its doors to the local community and groups, but it must also cover the costs of doing so, which creates a problem for local organisations that want to access those facilities.

We must do all we can to ensure that people are not excluded from using the excellent facilities that have been developed in many schools, as that is key to improving accessibility to sport in future. It is important that the Minister has regular discussions with his opposite numbers in the Departments for Education and for Communities and Local Government to ensure that access to sport is maintained. Costs are likely to rise in the current economic situation, but we must not exclude the most disadvantaged people in our communities.

As the Minister knows, many people are disappointed by the cuts to school sport partnerships. He has made it clear that that is not his specific area of responsibility, but I refer him to an answer that the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt) gave at Culture, Media and Sport questions. He said:

“Some school sports partnerships did an excellent job but, overall, participation among young people fell under the last Government—it has fallen from 58% to 54% over the last four years”.—[Official Report, 15 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 915.]

I have searched, but I cannot find that figure. If the Minister has the answer now, I shall take it, otherwise he can write to me.

[Hugh Robertson]

The hon. Gentleman will find the answer in the Active People survey. It refers to people between the ages of 16 and 24, and, I think, relates to a period from 2005 to 2011. I think that the point that my right hon. Friend was making, correctly, was that whatever the successes of the school sport partnerships in schools may have been, they were not tackling the post-school drop-out, which got worse, not better.

[Clive Efford]

I am grateful for that. I suspected that that was the answer. School sport partnerships are for school-age children, not for 14 to 24-year-olds, so the survey did not compare like with like. My concern is that the figure has been used as an example.

I think someone said that “prizes for all” was the previous Government’s policy on encouraging people to participate in sport. Encouraging everyone to experience many different types of sport is in no way contrary to encouraging them to participate in competitive sport. Most people who play sport understand that the first competition they must win is the one against themselves. Whether we are playing in a team, on our own or just training in a leisure centre, we are competing first and foremost against ourselves—everything else is secondary. Encouraging young people to experience that enjoyment and opening them up to as many types of sport as possible through excellent schools facilities is essential if they are to have a lifetime’s association with sport.

On the national planning policy framework and the changes to planning policy guidance 17, what discussions is the Minister involved in to secure a replacement of facilities where there is an application to build on playing fields? PPG17 and the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 required developed playing fields to be replaced. Sport England and other consultees must still be consulted under the new requirements in the NPPF, but there is no guarantee of replacement in the wording. Is the Minister lobbying hard on behalf of sports-lovers everywhere, who want our playing fields to be protected in future, to ensure that the replacement guarantee is retained? It was successful in reducing the number of school playing fields that were lost. It might surprise some Government Members to know that between 1979 and 1997, 10,000 school playing fields were sold.

[Hugh Robertson]

The hon. Gentleman must give way on that point.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Order. I point out to the Minister that the hon. Gentleman does not have to give way.

[Clive Efford]

I shall give the Minister a chance to come back; I am a fair individual. After the 1998 Act—this is available through freedom of information and is on the Department’s website and the website of the Department for Education—was introduced, only 226 school playing fields were lost. A myth has built up that school playing fields have been disappearing at an alarming rate over the past 13 or 14 years. That idea is incorrect and must be put right.

[Hugh Robertson]

I am afraid that the 10,000 figure is incorrect. When we were in opposition and I was doing the hon. Gentleman’s job, we were always slaughtered with it, so I spent a considerable amount of time looking into it. No figures were collated for the loss of playing fields until 1999, so 10,000 is a guesstimate. I met the Labour special adviser who dreamed up the figure. In the days when Tom Pendry was doing his job, a set of figures was aggregated. They ran that out over years and produced the figure, and it became accepted wisdom. There is no statistical backing for it at all.

[Clive Efford]

I do not have much time left. The 226 figure is an answer to a question to one of the Minister’s colleagues. The 10,000 figure dates from an FOI request in 2009, so I do not know where the former Minister, Tom Pendry, comes into it. Needless to say, even if the figure is out—even, to be generous, by 50%—the difference is staggering. It is essential, therefore, that the Minister lobbies hard to ensure that the replacement requirement is included in the planning framework when it is finally agreed.

I shall move on, because I want to give the Minister a decent run at answering his colleagues’ questions. I have a concern about opening up schools and school clubs under the 14 to 25 strategy announced by the Department and Sport England. Under the policy, by 2017, the Department will have created 6,000 partnerships with local sports clubs. Is the Minister aware that, on average, 4,000 secondary schools across the country already have partnerships with 14 sports organisations? By my reckoning, that totals significantly more than 6,000. Can he explain where the existing partnerships will fit alongside the 6,000 that he intends to create? Will they be new partnerships or will they be in addition to existing ones? What is the future for existing partnerships?

It is ironic that the strategy will be based around schools. I fully support the intention to open up schools. A lot of work has been done on that, as existing partnerships indicate. However, many of the best facilities in which clubs will be set up are in Building Schools for the Future schools. In my constituency, the facilities built as part of that £6.5 billion programme are state of the art. Sadly, some sports clubs will be set up in sub-standard facilities, because not all schools enjoyed BSF, which would have improved, rebuilt or refurbished every secondary school in the country. Alongside that, enormous benefit would have been gained from improved sports facilities. It is worth nothing that, since 2000, in addition to what was going to be spent on BSF, Sport England has invested £1.5 billion in capital investment throughout the country and local authorities have spent up to £650 million on improving sports facilities. Therefore, although the money announced by the Government is welcome, it appears to be woefully inadequate.

My final point is about planning and floodlights. What discussions is the Minister having with his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to ensure that problems with floodlights do not continue? Modern technology means that they are not as intrusive as they have been in the past, that they do not damage quality of life, and that many of the fears in local communities about them are misconceived. As has been mentioned by some of the Minister’s colleagues, of the about 2,400 3G—third generation—or artificial surfaces in this country, fewer than 2,000 have floodlights. Few grass pitches are floodlit—grass pitches can only be used for up to six hours a week if they are to be maintained to any standard—so it is important that we increase the provision not only of artificial surfaces, but of floodlights. What work is the Department doing in that regard? With that, I had better sit down to give the Minister an opportunity to respond.

[The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. Members may not be aware that our Chairman is one of the finest slow left-arm bowlers ever to have represented the Lords and Commons cricket club. It is nice to have a Chair with expertise in the area under discussion, although he is probably the only slow left-arm bowler to have ever represented the club.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) for securing this debate. I also thank her for her work with the all-party boxing group on boxing and as the president of a number of amateur boxing clubs, including some in her own constituency.

This is an important debate at an important time. I am always keen to stress that London 2012 is not the story about sport in this country, but the start of the story. It would be only right to congratulate the England and Wales Cricket Board, which recently secured the 2013 champions trophy for this country. After 2012, we will have the rugby league world cup and the champions trophy in 2013; the Commonwealth games in 2014; the rugby union world cup, the world canoeing championships and the world gymnastics championships in 2015; the world athletics championships in 2017; and the cricket world cup in 2019. There are also bids outstanding. We are, for example, contemplating a bid for a youth Olympics and a series of other smaller competitions. London 2012 is, therefore, very much the start of the story, not the end of it. It is crucial that we use this period to do what so many hon. Members have spoken about, namely to drive an increase in participation in sport.

That will be testing against the current economic backdrop, but the lottery reforms that we implemented in May 2010 have already, according to Camelot’s figures, resulted in an upturn of money, so the amount of money going into sport as a result of the end of the Olympic levy, as well as the lottery reforms and the fact that those changes are driving greater ticket sales, will go up from the £1.3 billion in 2010 to an estimated £1.8 billion. That is an extra £0.5 billion over a six-year period, so the reforms could have a considerable impact.

I suspect that most hon. Members would prefer to hear me respond to the points that they have raised—although that might be a novel theory—than listen to my prepared speech. My hon. Friend spoke movingly and correctly about the beneficial effect of sport on young people’s lives. I agree with her and suspect that everyone else present does, too. Like her, I pay tribute to the Riverside youth club in Bristol, whose work I have heard about, not least from my hon. Friend, as well as other, independent sources.

My hon. Friend made a good point about floodlights, which the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) also touched upon. Floodlights have historically been a difficult issue, because everyone who wants to play sport wants to have sports facilities with floodlights, but everybody who lives near a sports facility with floodlights want them turned off at 10 o’clock at night. The shadow Minister is right that the latest generation of floodlights cause significantly fewer light problems than earlier generations. Bizarrely, the taller the tower on which the lights are put, the less pollution, because everything goes down, whereas with a shorter tower, it spreads out. As part of the Inspired Facilities fund—I had a feeling that this was true, but have just checked it to make sure—sports clubs can apply for floodlights, so provided that they can get planning permission, which is often the sticky bit, they can, in theory, apply to the fund and get floodlights built.

My hon. Friend is also right about the need to reduce the dependency on the state. That is one of the reasons why I have been so keen—against opposition from those involved—to progress with the restructuring of UK Sport and Sport England. Sir Keith Mills, who has looked into this, is clear about the combined commercial opportunity if the success of elite athletes is married to the mass participation strategy—the mass market—for any commercial sponsor. British sport’s ability to drive commercial sponsorship has been poor. Some individual sports have done well, but non-departmental public bodies have not done well in driving sponsorship. The Team 2012 initiative was not a great success. It needs a new start around a different commercial property to make it work.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) talked about local authorities investing in sports hubs. He is right that, if we started with a fresh map, we would undoubtedly build sports hubs, because the whole family could go to them and everyone could participate. The problem is that sport in this country has not grown up in that way. Most towns and cities have their rugby, football, tennis and cricket clubs, and swimming pool, in different places, but he is right that hubs are the way forward. I encourage him to get Sport England involved in discussions. He should probably make an application for his new sports hub to its Iconic Facilities funding stream—I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), as Sport England’s parliamentary fellow, will put in a good word for him with the chief executive. I wish him well with that.

Access to school facilities is a nut that we have not cracked over many years in this country. The new sports strategy has a particular funding stream. Members throughout the House will have shared my frustration of driving past schools with unused football pitches on a Saturday morning, while people are queuing around the block to use the local authority facilities. That is sometimes down to insurance and caretakers, but often it is due to lack of will-power. Where schools want to make it work, they can, and where people do not, they do not. The new strategy has £10 million to help people get over the hurdles and I hope that that will start to iron things out.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon is also right about coaches and the impact that they can have. The schemes work very well in some places. Charlton Athletic is a shining example of how a football club can have an influence on a local area. I am sure that my hon. Friend’s own football club in Swindon does something similar. Charlton Athletic draws funding from Kent county council to run precisely the sorts of schemes that he has mentioned. I encourage him to look at that model and then see if he can interest his own county council in funding Swindon or similar sides.

My hon. Friend was on the money once again on the question of business training for not-for-profit organisations. The organisation that he should speak to in that regard is one that has been set up by Keith Mills—that is his second name-check of the afternoon, but he is a marvellous man who does a lot for sport. He has set up a small charity called sported, which exists precisely to give business training to not-for-profit sports organisations—people who are keen to do something about their local sports facility, but who lack the technical expertise to bring it about.

My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) spoke well about her sports facilities in Redditch. I have actually been to some of them in a previous incarnation, before her time in Parliament. Some interesting models are emerging from the Localism Act 2011 in relation to community asset transfer and how it can be used to pass the ownership of sports facilities to the groups that use them. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the Special Olympics, which represents a remarkable movement full of remarkable people. The difficulty for the Special Olympics is that it has a constant battle with the British Paralympic Association about whether those involved are Paralympians or Special Olympians and all the politics that goes alongside that. I am delighted that as a result of the new disability strategy at Sport England, the Special Olympics has got funding for the first time. Some £250,000 of funding will go to Special Olympics Great Britain. I hope that that will encourage those involved in the belief that people are taking them seriously and that they are a valued part of the sporting landscape.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) spoke very well about Stroud rugby club and, indeed, its move. One of the things we did when we were trying to settle the listing debate in 2010 was to recognise that it is up to sports to market their own broadcast rights as they see fit. In passing, we should congratulate the ECB on the renewal of its new contract. By allowing sports to have that freedom, we encourage them to invest a proportion of their proceeds in community sports facilities.

The Rugby Football Union was one of the national governing bodies that signed up—indeed, all of them did—to a commitment to invest 30% of their UK broadcast income in grass-roots facilities. If my hon. Friend is keen to help Stroud rugby club move, it would be well worth his while spending some time with the RFU and Sport England to see if he can get them together to discuss what can be done to help. Again, he made exactly the same point about the need to lever in more corporate money. That is very much at the centre of what we are hoping to do as part of the restructuring of the non-departmental public bodies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who is doing a sports fellowship with the Football Foundation, made me laugh—unintentionally, probably. I spent three quarters of a year at the Royal Military Academy, and the concept of a Sandhurst fitness fun day was absolutely not a part of that particular period of my life. Sheer agony for hours on end seemed to be the key. He spoke very well about the various different sports facilities in his constituency. He is absolutely on the money about the issue with the Football Foundation. It has been a central tenet of the Football Foundation’s existence ever since it was set up to look for match funding from local authorities. I saw the chief executive, Paul Thorogood, two weeks ago. He made the point that finding match funding is becoming, for reasons we would all understand, much more difficult. We will have to work with the Football Foundation to find ways around that.

The Football Foundation is a first-class organisation; it absolutely does what it says on the tin. Every time it builds a new 3G sports facility, the thing is booked out within a month and people cannot get a space. That shows the demand for such facilities. Encouragingly, the latest generation of those pitches is much more multi-sport-use-friendly. As soon as I empty my piggy bank out and can find some more money in it, I will do my utmost to ensure that the Football Foundation gets some more money because it is a good organisation that does a good job.

[Clive Efford]

I agree with the Minister’s comments about the Football Foundation, which is an excellent organisation. It has been able to get more bang for its buck by attracting match funding. Is he suggesting that he will make money available to replace that match funding and that it will not require match funding in the future, because to go down that route means that we will get less for the money?

[Hugh Robertson]

That is absolutely right. Of course it is important that any part of an area applying for funding should show enthusiasm and commitment by raising a bit of money itself. I am not saying that we will remove that but, without going into the Football Foundation’s finances in any great detail this afternoon, there are two connected problems.

First, the Football Foundation is increasingly finding it difficult, through no fault of its own, to get exactly matched funding from local authorities. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell. Secondly, because it takes longer to gain that funding and the Football Foundation is partially Exchequer funded, it finds it difficult to shift the capital inside the financial year—1 April to 31 March. It does not want to get into a position whereby because it cannot shift the stuff out the door and get the match funding, it has to hand the money back. We are talking about quite a complicated accountancy issue. Suffice it to say, the Football Foundation is a first-class organisation and I am delighted that my hon. Friend is involved with it. We will do what we can to help it as soon as things ease.

On the contribution of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Eltham, he is absolutely right to draw attention to the health benefits of sport, which many other hon. Members also mentioned. It is enormously encouraging that the Department of Health—I thank it for this—now deals with that directly in primary schools through the Change 4 Life sports clubs. It has committed to funding that for the foreseeable future.