Sport and the 2012 Olympics Legacy

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Let me make it clear at the outset that our reference in the motion is to sports participation. We bid for the Olympics because we understood all the wider aspects of the success of the Olympics.

We have had a wide-ranging debate with some very interesting speeches. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) on her maiden speech. She questioned whether there was a legacy from the Olympic games for Scotland. If she goes back and checks the figures, she will find that there was a considerable spin-off from the games. But the purpose of this debate is to find out how we can all benefit more widely from the legacy.

We also heard the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson). She spoke very fondly and passionately about her constituency. I am sure that she will be a fine champion of her local residents and constituents in the years to come.

There have been a number of well-informed speeches. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) spoke about the wider generational issues. I found nothing in her speech with which I disagreed. The Olympic games will continue to benefit people more widely on a whole range of issues that go beyond sport, which is why investing and bidding for these major sporting events is so essential for the country.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

While we are discussing participation, will my hon. Friend take the opportunity to praise those who enable others to participate in sport—those who drive the buses, cut the grass, make the food and drink, and carry the bags week after week, as they have done in rugby clubs up and down my constituency for many, many generations? Do they not also perform a vital role?

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Efford]

Absolutely, yes. A number of Members, especially the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), and my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and for Bassetlaw (John Mann), specifically referred to people at the grassroots of sport. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), because it is time that we empowered those people. They are the ones who do the heavy lifting. They make a real difference in our communities. They know where the resources should go to make the biggest difference, and it is time that we had a long-term strategy for sport that empowered those people at local level, allowed them to make decisions about how resources are used and where they are targeted, and gave them oversight of local development plans for sport. When we use the term “sport” we must remember that we are talking about not just sporting activities but physical activities of all kinds. That point was made very well in one of the contributions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) called for a comprehensive, long-term plan for sport. When we talk to people at the grassroots, the one thing they consistently say is that they want an end to the stop-start approach that they get from politicians. In saying that, they criticise us all, not just the current Government. We need what many speakers asked for: a long-term plan for sport, where all of us, in all parts of the House, agree on how we can take things forward and engage with people at the grassroots. It is an unfortunate fact that, in the past, the only consistency has been a consistent run of bad figures on participation since 2012-13.

Our motion focuses on participation. On the back of winning the Olympic bid, participation went up by 1.8 million people from 2005 to 2012, but since then participation figures have been going backwards. It is no good hon. Members saying, “Look at all the figures for transport, regeneration and jobs.” We accept all that—we are not criticising that side of it—but one of the targets for winning the Olympic games was to drive up participation. That worked from 2005 to 2012, on the back of winning the bid, but under this Government’s watch, since 2012, performance has not been good enough.

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman is saying some sensible things, but will he not, in all candour and intellectual honesty, admit that even since the 2012 games, there has been a continuous increase in sporting participation in London?

[Clive Efford]

I accept that there has been a boost in London, but we are looking at the overall figures. There are underlying issues, which were highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley). The figures for women’s participation are down, as are those for people with disabilities. There are some important issues that we need to address.

In a recent survey by the Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association, 70% of local authorities that responded said that they were looking to recover all or part of their costs through fees and charges. In the participation figures, the worst-affected sports tend to be those that rely heavily on local government facilities—sports such as gym exercise, dance, swimming, football and cricket. The impact is bound to be more severe on those who rely on those facilities—people from low- income households. Nearly half a million fewer people participate in sport now than in 2012. It is that form of social exclusion that we should be tackling.

I accept that the sports Minister was in earnest when she said that the figures are not good enough and that the Government have to accept part of the blame. Sport England has said that the figures are disastrous. We can bandy figures back and forth, but we have to accept that what people are looking for is consistency. All they have had consistently so far is bad figures, year after year since 2012. We need to work together on this. I wish the sports Minister all the best in convincing her right hon. and hon. Friends to give sport priority in the future, although I have to say that her predecessors failed woefully. I will be there supporting her all the way if she can convince them that we need a cross-Government, long-term plan for sport that we can all work towards.

We need to empower the people who do the heavy lifting: the coaches, PE teachers, school games organisers, volunteers, people who run the clubs and classes, academics, businesses, local authorities and county sports partnerships. Incidentally, if anyone recognises any of this, it is similar to the points Steve Hilton was making just recently, only I wrote it all down a year ago.

Sport governing bodies have a role to play. They have nothing to fear from being part of a strategy to increase overall participation, as they can then fish in a much bigger pool of talent for the next generation of elite athletes. We need a long-term plan, so that policy does not change every time we have a bad set of figures or the Minister changes. We need to empower the people at the grassroots, let them tailor what goes on in their area to meet local needs and oversee local sports plans, and trust them, because they can do it. Let us put the failures behind us. Let us do what people out there want us to do: trust them, and set out a long-term plan that we can all work towards, so that we get our nation healthy, happy and active.