Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Derek Twigg and Hugh Robertson

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

One of the interesting things that came out of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport’s report on football governance, in which my hon. Friend played a key part, was that almost nobody responsible for football at any level tried to defend the football creditors rule. I know that he has a private Member’s Bill to abolish it. I believe that HMRC is contemplating an appeal against the decision, and clearly we want to wait and see how that plays out, but I believe it is a rule that has had its day.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

One problem is that once young people reach the age of 16 and leave school, they tend to drop out of sport in great numbers. Many people aged 16-plus go on to college and university. What discussions has the Minister had with his colleagues in the Department for Education about how we can address the problem and encourage more and more young people to continue with some sort of sporting activity?

[Hugh Robertson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Indeed, if we look back over the past 20 years or so, we see that the one thing that nobody has really managed to address has been post-school dropout. We are trying a new approach via the new youth sport strategy, which will be the key component of the next round of whole-sport plans. I very much hope that by linking schools much better to community clubs and putting people into colleges of higher education, which have not been well covered, we will tackle the problem in the next cycle.