School Sport

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I am pleased to speak under your chairmanship, Sir Alan.

As we all know, good-quality school sport is important: it can deliver improved education, health and social outcomes for the nation and individuals. School is the one place where everybody gets the opportunity to play sport and take part in physical activity, so it has an important role in the development of a lifelong sporting habit. The Education Committee wanted the inquiry because one of the aims of the London Olympics was to “inspire a generation”. The report was timed for the first anniversary of the London games. We also wanted to see whether the Government’s policy was achieving an increase in school sport; to scope the appropriateness of their plans for a school sport legacy from the games, and the likelihood of those plans being carried out; to assess the impact so far of London 2012 on the take-up of competitive sport in schools; and to assess what further measures should be taken to ensure a sustainable and effective legacy in school sport following London 2012.

The first change by the coalition Government was the announcement that the ring-fencing for school sport partnerships would end in March 2011, the rationale being that that would increase and encourage more competitive sport in schools. That brought quite a high level of disagreement from schools and, as a result, the Secretary of State announced an extension of the funding until August 2011. He also gave an extra £65 million to enable secondary PE teachers to spend a day a week assisting and supporting primary schools. In March 2013, the Government announced new ring-fenced funding of £150 million per annum for two years, for primary school sport. That, unusually, is funded from three Whitehall Departments—the Department for Education, the Department of Health and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Each primary school in England is getting approximately £9,250 per annum. That, as hon. Members will know, is called the primary sport premium. At the same time, as the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said, the Government announced a pilot in which 120 new primary teachers were trained this summer with a specialism in PE.

Those who championed the previous £2.5 billion programme of SSPs regarded them as part of the golden age of school sports and an excellent model for universal delivery—so much so that the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) told us that they were admired and copied internationally. Jonathan Edwards told us that the removal of SSPs left many people feeling incredulous. There was almost universal agreement from all our witnesses that, where SSPs worked well, they were an incredibly effective way to ensure that all young people had wider opportunities to take part in school sport, and to enable expertise to be developed in schools. Even Ofsted, we heard, reported that SSPs were maximising participation and increasing regular competition.

Having said all the above, virtually every witness said that the new policy was exactly right to aim pump-priming money for school sports at primary schools, and that it was right to ring-fence the primary sport premium, ensuring that the money was spent on sport.

The biggest problem for the primary sports premium, as with SSPs, is that the money is not long term, and there is not a long-term strategy. As was said by the Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Committee strongly felt that now is the time to say, “No more political football with school sport.” Neither the previous nor the current Government seem to have had a long-term policy or strategy for school sports. In fact, the Minister said that he could not commit to any longer-term funding and would be “batting very hard” for further funds. The Committee believes that the £300 million funding for the primary sports premium could be important, but the risks associated with its being wasted if it is not put to effective use, long term, could lead to danger of its becoming a short-lived gimmick.

I need to mention special needs and disability sport, because London 2012 had the most successful Paralympic games in history. Baroness Grey-Thompson told us that mainstream schools had traditionally made it hard for disabled people to find competition activities, compete on a level playing field, and be included. Often they were sent to the school library during PE classes. We also learned that special schools were often better at delivering sports for disabled pupils, which was often down to both facilities and teacher training in mainstream schools.

Witnesses praised the school games highly as a means through which disabled young people could access competitive sporting opportunities. Some 14,000 disabled children took part in the games in the first year, but there was criticism, too, with some referral units or special schools unable to access funding to support the games beyond local level. It was nigh on impossible for pupils with particularly challenging behaviour to attend.

We took evidence on various subjects, ranging from whether the standard of two hours of PE per student per week in schools being scrapped was a good thing, to whether physical fitness should be a part of the new education, health and care plans. What were our conclusions and recommendations? Some have been mentioned, but there were 24 in all—some recommendations and some statements—and I shall mention just two, which are crucial to ensuring that we meet the ambitions of the London Olympics, crucial to the legacy of those games, and important for the health and well-being of our nation.

I shall talk about recommendations 4 and 10. On recommendation 4, school sport is too important for it to rely on occasional efforts at pump-priming. The Government must commit to a long-term vision for school sport, accompanied by long-term funding. We recommend that the Government set out a plan for the sustained support and development of their school sports policy, including measures to ensure a cross-departmental vision and effective working across all relevant Departments.

On recommendation 10, we said:

“We are concerned that the timeframe of the primary sport premium is not sufficient to allow a long-term provision to be built. It risks replicating previous short-term fixes rather than creating a long term solution. On its own,”

as we have heard,

“the primary sport premium is inadequate. If the Government is to secure a legacy from London 2012 and demonstrate its commitment to school sport, the primary sport premium must be embedded within a long-term strategy, with sustained funding.”

Of all our recommendations, those are the two key ones that need urgent attention, and that we need to embed for the long term; that would be an investment in the long-term well-being of our nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Efford]

The Government have said that the scheme will be externally evaluated, and I would like to hear how that will be done, and what will be looked at.

This point goes back to the intervention from the Chair of the Education Committee. Following the Secretary of State’s announcement, and the decision to take money away from school sport partnerships on a whim, there was a hue and cry from people involved in sport and school sport in particular. If you check Hansard, Sir Alan, you will find that I was one of those angry people. I am sure that a sense of how shocked and angry I was at the sudden announcement just leaps out of the page. The Secretary of State was forced to come back to Parliament to make another announcement, in which he reinstated £65 million—£32.5 million a year for two years—for PE teacher release, whereby teachers would be released for a day a week to co-ordinate sports in their area. Through a series of freedom of information requests, I found out that that funding was resulting in 60% less time being spent organising school sport than was spent by school sport co-ordinators under school sport partnerships. Despite attempts to back-fill the hole, the damage had been done. There was a significant reduction in the amount of time being spent organising sport outside the classroom.

In addition—it really is a sorry pattern—the Government have watered down protections for school playing fields in the national planning framework. Schools are no longer required to provide a specified amount of playing field space; they merely have to provide suitable outdoor space. It also beggars belief that free schools can open up with absolutely no sport provision whatever. That cannot be right and is not consistent with the actions of a Government who value school sport and consider it deserving of higher priority in the curriculum. In August 2012, the Government abolished the two-hour target; without any means of monitoring what is going on, it is difficult to judge what the implications have been.

The announcement of the £150 million scheme was welcome, but as I pointed out to the Chair of the Education Committee, it came after the dismantling of the structures put in place for school sport. The emphasis on primary schools has been welcomed, and I echo that to some degree, and will return to the subject. The funding is ring-fenced, which is another U-turn, because we have been told that ring-fencing was out of favour under this Government, and that schools should use money as they wish. How will the Government monitor the scheme? We welcome the specialist PE training of 120 primary teachers, but it is a drop in the ocean across 17,000 primary schools. There are also questions about Ofsted’s capability. Can we be sure that Ofsted personnel are properly trained and equipped to evaluate what is going on? The issue is not just the two hours, but what happens during those two hours. We want to ensure that school sport is evaluated in the right way.

When the Government announced the school games, which I welcome, it was an excuse to cover up the loss of school sport partnerships. That was an attack on people who value increasing participation. In a blog on the “ConservativeHome” website in 2011, the then Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey, said that the Government were

“banishing once and for all the left-wing orthodoxy that promotes ‘prizes for all’ and derides competition”.

That is a classic example of accusing one’s opponent of being in favour of something and then abolishing it. The previous Government introduced school games and certainly were not at all opposed to competitive sport. In fact, we said that where people were motivated, and wanted to excel and to participate in competitive sport, they should be able to do so. School sport partnerships were successful at increasing participation in competitive sport.

[Craig Whittaker]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but only to a point. It was clear from evidence heard by the Education Committee that where school sport partnerships worked well, they worked very well, but they did not work well in many areas. Another piece of evidence made it clear that, given the £2.5 billion cost, they were perhaps not the most effective way of spending the money.

[Clive Efford]

Rolling up all the money to £2.5 billion makes the programme sound very expensive. It was actually £162 million a year, and this Government have put £150 million into the primary school sports premium. I do accept, however, that school sport partnerships did not work so well in some areas, but that does not justify getting rid of the whole scheme. They were a good foundation on which we should have been building.

I must start to draw my comments to a close. In the Government’s response to the Education Committee’s point about competitive sport, I notice that they mention dance as an activity that they want to be encouraged in schools. I assume that that means that there is a difference of opinion with the Prime Minister, who was being critical when he said that the

“two hours that is laid down is often met through sort of Indian dancing classes.”

I assume that that policy is no longer being followed.

I will conclude, because I want to give the Minister a fair go at coming back at me. I think that I have been going for nearly 20 minutes, Sir Alan—the speech timer seems to have stopped.

What do we want in the future? What are we looking for? I welcome the point about core physical literacy and the investment in primary schools. Investment in specialist teaching in primary schools is not to replace PE, but in addition to it. We must not have teachers feeling that they have somehow abdicated responsibility for teaching PE because that money is going into our primary schools. It is important for PE to be part of the curriculum, and I support the Select Committee recommendation that teacher training be altered to cover that. We also want co-ordinators for PE in every primary school, as we have for maths and literacy, so that it has similar status, and so that someone takes responsibility for ensuring not only that a decent amount of PE is taught—we would restore the two-hour minimum requirement—but that it is taught at a decent standard.

On physical literacy, we need to get it right from day one, which means starting when children are at pre-school. We need to talk to carers, parents and the health service—health visitors and such people—to ensure that everyone understands that developing core physical literacy from day one is important. From an early age, if children feel inadequate, they may start to use avoidance tactics, so that they do not get into a situation in which they feel challenged, and we see that behaviour in relation to physical activity. It is therefore important that we encourage everyone to instil the idea of physical activity in the right way, and that we develop physical literacy and core physical strength in children from the earliest age.

I support the primary premium money, so that children, in particular at key stage 2, get the broadest experience of as vast a range of sports as we can achieve at that stage of their education. When they go to secondary school, they can then make informed choices about the sports and physical activities that they might want to get involved in. I agree with points made earlier: this is not only about competition. It has to be about getting people active and instilling that habit in them for a lifetime.

We need long-term planning. I have been all over the country, talking to people involved at all levels of sport, including PE teachers and co-ordinators, and they want long-term planning from Government. They also want politicians to co-operate with one another. I would welcome the opportunity to sit down and talk across Government about a long-term plan for sport and recreational activity in our schools and communities, so that we can give people the consistency and therefore the confidence to plan ahead for the sorts of sports that they are delivering in their communities. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.