School Sport

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. I am delighted to have the opportunity to discuss an important issue that I feel passionately about.

It has been more than a year since the Government first announced their intention to dismantle the sports infrastructure put in place by the previous Labour Government to deliver our commitment to increase participation in sport and physical activity. It had a clear structure—the Youth Sport Trust was set up to deal with school and youth sport; Sport England was set up to deal with community sport through national governing bodies; and UK Sport was set up to deal with the elite level—and it was renowned around the world. It has also been more than a year since the Government announced that they were ending funding for school sports partnerships and scrapping ring-fenced funding for specialist sports colleges. Next Tuesday will be the first anniversary of the partial U-turn on school sport, when the Government were forced to introduce a hastily cobbled together package of funding.

Why did I call this debate? Twelve months on, the threat to the future of school sport has not dissipated. In fact, the cuts announced last year will devastate the national sport structure that was the envy of the world, and new threats have emerged within the past 12 months that have the potential to create a perfect storm for school sports.

The army of volunteers within our schools and sports clubs are getting on with making the best of a bad deal. We take that army for granted, but on their shoulders rests much of our country’s sporting life. Those volunteers might not be the type to march on Whitehall, but they are still angry, confused and frustrated by the Government’s seeming indifference to their work. Their voice deserves to be heard.

If we do not hold the Government to account at every step, we risk losing the massive strides forward that we have made over the past decade. There has been a fog of misleading statistics, reviews and cross-departmental hand-wringing. If we do not question and challenge the Government every step of the way, we will wake up one day to find that we have abandoned a generation of young people to substandard sport and physical education.

Why does it matter if our kids do not play sport or do PE at school? Children who play sports do not only benefit physically, because research shows that involvement in sport helps general educational attainment. Sport helps young people to develop self-discipline and to learn how to get along with others. Involvement in sport can help tackle antisocial behaviour and youth crime and overcome psychological problems and loneliness. It can also help to tackle problems of bullying in school and help youngsters with disabilities enjoy sport with other children. Furthermore, children get those benefits whether or not they excel at sport. They do not need to be part of the sporting elite, because merely participating makes children healthier, happier and better pupils. The present Government’s policies threaten young people’s chances to take advantage in school of the enormous benefits offered by participation in sport and PE.

We cannot have a debate about any aspect of sport, particularly sport and young people, without mentioning the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. In Singapore six years ago, when London was awarded the games, we made a solemn commitment to the international community and to the people of this country that we would use the games to inspire a generation of young people through sport. It was a crucial element of London’s bid and set us apart from our main rivals, Paris and Madrid. How can we be serious about that commitment if we dismantle the structures that will help us deliver it and send a message to our young people and our army of sporting volunteers that we do not value sport and are downgrading our commitment to sport in schools?

London 2012 has given us an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leave a lasting sporting legacy, not of stadiums and facilities, important though they are, but of a new generation of young people for whom sport and physical activity are an integral part of their lives. The Government should not have decided to drop the commitment to involving 2 million more people in sport and physical activity. However, it is not too late. The situation is not irretrievable, but the threats to school sport are so great and serious that Ministers must ask themselves how they intend to meet the commitments to ensure an Olympic legacy if they maintain their current course.

I was proud to serve as Sports Minister from 2007 to 2010. It was one of those jobs in government to covet. I was proud of what we achieved in those three years, but I was even prouder that we made sport a cross-departmental policy priority during our 13 years in government, and made massive progress in putting sport at the heart of Government thinking, especially through our investment in school sport and PE.

Let me remind Members of what we inherited when we were first elected in 1997. It is no exaggeration to say that school sport was in a dire situation. PE and competitive sport were often seen as optional extras, and many schools had substandard sports facilities, if any. What sport took place in schools relied almost exclusively on the good will of dedicated teachers, parents and volunteers. Only one in four schoolchildren took part in two hours of quality PE per week. Playing fields were too often seen by local authorities as development opportunities. An astonishing statistic and a damning indictment of the previous Tory Government’s policy on education and sport is that between 1979 and 1997, 10,000 playing fields were sold for development. That is more than 10 every week for 18 years, which is shocking.

The new Labour Government acted quickly to rectify the situation. The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 introduced the toughest ever protection for school playing fields. Further legislation in 2004 made the sale of playing fields an option of last resort, and local authorities were compelled to use the receipts from any sales to improve existing sports facilities. In contrast to the 10,000 playing fields lost between 1979 and 1997, just 192 were lost between 1997 and 2008, and in the majority of those cases, although the playing field was sold, the site benefited from increased sports provision.

Our physical education and sports strategy, which was supported by £1.5 billion in funding between 2003 and 2008 and by a further £755 million from 2008, enabled us to put in place a network of 450 school sport partnerships. Partnerships were centred on specialist sports colleges, which were linked to local secondary and primary schools and sports clubs. By 2010, thanks to the work of the SSPs, 90% of pupils in partnership schools were receiving two or more hours of high quality school sport.

We hear much from coalition Ministers about competitive sport and how Labour supposedly did not prioritise it. I am sure that we will hear the Minister repeat misleading statistics on competitive sport and participation—I hope we do not, but I think that we might. The lead academic evaluator on SSPs criticised the Prime Minister for a

“selective use of statistics that ignore the tremendous improvement over the past decade”.

Competitive sport was increasing under Labour. The number of children taking part in competitive sport, not just between schools but in schools, increased from 58% in 2006-07 to 78% in 2009-10.

Labour did not emphasise sports participation and physical activity because we were a Government of sports fanatics, although there are a few of us about. Sport was a cornerstone in tackling numerous key policy issues, such as obesity and related health issues, antisocial behaviour, educational attainment and citizenship. It was a genuinely cross-departmental priority. Interestingly, there was general cross-party consensus that Labour got it broadly right on school sport, and certainly cross-party support for school sport partnerships. There was no indication that Opposition parties had an alternative agenda.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for focusing on a very important issue for local schools. Although sport and education are a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, the same principles apply. Does he feel that school sports should be twinned with the issue of diet control, obesity and eating habits? Does he feel that the issue is not just about getting fit, but about weight control, too?

[Mr Sutcliffe]

Very much so. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. He will know about the statistics on obesity in young people and about the health risks. He is right that sport is an integral part of life skills. Not everybody can be a champion, and not everybody can be elite, but we can be the best that we can be. I do not look like a healthy specimen, but my own involvement in sport through the parliamentary football team, school sport, the friends that we make through sport and the life skills that it gives us, all show that sport is an integral part of what we should be trying to achieve.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Of course, we all agree about the benefit of sport, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is about a bit more than that? It is also about getting kids out of classrooms—not necessarily on to a sports field—and into different areas of the great outdoors, which relates to the benefits that he has mentioned. That has been held up as a result of extreme regulation and red tape. Does he accept that the Government have made some progress in stripping away that red tape to get children from the classroom to the outdoors?

[Mr Sutcliffe]

I am grateful for that intervention. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s premise in terms of getting youngsters outside. School sport was fairly stereotypical in that girls played netball and hockey, boys played football, rugby and cricket, and basically that was it. The previous Government were proud—the Government’s misleading statistics come into play—of being able to widen the range of sports on offer. Mountaineering, canoeing, sailing, cycling and so on get people out into different environments. People who are not good at ball skills can get into cycling and other sports. We worked with those sports’ governing bodies to develop this framework. I am sad that that seems to be being reversed. I do not think that that is irreversible, and it can be put right.

There was a cross-party consensus to see that delivered and developed. It was only after the election in 2010 that that consensus seemed to disappear. Labour’s record was rubbished by Ministers as a justification for implementing a scorched earth policy promoted by the Secretary of State for Education, who is known to be hostile to the very concept of organised sport. The school sports partnership network, the cornerstone of school sports policy, was decimated to the astonishment of experts around the world all to save £162 million. The vast majority of that money had been spent on pupils in schools. It was seen as a world-class model and the shock throughout the sporting world was genuine. The director of community sport at the Australian Sports Commission said:

“I am absolutely devastated to hear of the cuts to the School Sport Partnership models. I am astounded that such an amazing and world-leading initiative has been lost to the communities they serviced.”

Labour’s then shadow spokesman for education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), begged the Secretary of State not to dismantle the SSP network. He even offered Labour support for a reduction in funding to SSPs, as long as the infrastructure was kept in place. I am afraid that his pleas fell on deaf ears.

Within weeks, the Government were forced into a partial U-turn because of an unprecedented backlash against their proposals—a backlash lead not just by politicians, but by Olympians, sports bodies, sports journalists and the grass-roots volunteer army. What we got was a cobbled together set of announcements that still leave the future of school sport in jeopardy. SSPs and school sports organisers have been told not to expect funding beyond August 2013. Those cuts will effectively mean an end to the infrastructure that supports the school sport network at the very time that we should be seeking to increase activity in the run-up to next year’s Olympic games and Paralympic games. What makes matters worse is that the Secretary of State has removed the need for schools to collect data on pupils’ progress. That will make it almost impossible effectively to monitor future participation rates and the effect of those cuts.

The much heralded school games, the new flagship Government policy, in actual fact already existed in the guise of the UK school games, which were supported by Sainsbury’s. The funding for the school games represents a massive 60% annual cut for school sport, which is well above the average for departmental cuts imposed as part of the austerity measures. Are we really saying that an annual competition, which is most likely to be of real value only for children at the elite end of their sport, is a replacement for a whole school sport network that improves the life chances of all children? This cobbled together funding has left school sport in disarray and left school organisers, clubs and volunteers with no idea about what will happen after 2013.

There is nothing wrong with competitive sport in schools. I speak as someone who spent a large part of my childhood, and indeed early adulthood, playing competitive sport. I completely understand the benefits of competitive sport, but competitive sport alone does not constitute a holistic Government policy towards PE in our education system. I will tell the Chamber why that is, and it goes to the heart of the problem. There is a fundamental lack of understanding about sport at the most senior levels of Government policy making. The Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport simply do not comprehend that successful participation in competitive sport can be achieved only by first mastering the basics of sport and PE. As the Youth Sport Trust has said, high quality physical education is essential for developing the necessary skills and confidence to participate effectively in competitive sport. Simply throwing all pupils into competitive sport, without first building what the Youth Sport Trust refers to as “physical literacy”, is both unfair and unrealistic, particularly in larger schools. Current Government policy, with its fixation on competitive sport at the expense of all else, is building our sporting future on sand.

What of that future? Talk to people involved in grass-roots sport—in schools, clubs, community sports networks and the national governing bodies—and they will tell you that there is deep concern and confusion. I thank the national governing bodies that have been in contact with me—rugby league, rugby union, tennis and other sports—to talk about how their sports are helping the wider environment. Our sporting volunteer army and our dedicated PE and sports staff in schools are an innovative lot. They will be looking at ways of maintaining the networks that we created over the past decade to ensure that the enormous progress that we made is not lost. In many places, they will succeed. If they do, it will be because of the enormous dedication and passion of those involved. If they succeed, it will be despite Government policy, not because of it. However, I fear that in some schools and communities, school sport will cease to be a priority. As if they did not have enough to contend with, there are threats on the near horizon that could create a perfect storm for school and youth sport.

In January 2011, the Government announced a comprehensive review of the national curriculum. The review is likely to see a slimmed down curriculum for sport in schools. Although PE is likely to be retained as a compulsory national curriculum subject, there is no guarantee that the two-hour offer, never mind the five-hour offer, will be retained. A recent review of global policy in schools showed that all the countries it looked at provided PE time targets, following this country’s lead. How sad and ironic will it be if, after leading the world on increasing children’s participation in school sport, we abandon one of the key mechanisms by which that was achieved?

The national curriculum review will not be completed until September 2012. That creates more uncertainty for all those involved in school sport. Steve Grainger, the then chief executive of the Youth Sport Trust, in response to the review, said:

“The quality and quantity of PE and school sport that is now being offered in schools has improved vastly in recent years. Ensuring it remains a vital part of the national curriculum will allow young people to continue to enjoy the many benefits that sport and physical education can bring.”

I appreciate that the review is ongoing, but will the Minister outline current coalition thinking about exactly what a “slimmed down” sports and PE curriculum would look like? What assurances can the Minister give that the slimming down of the sports and PE curriculum will not lead to the Government abandoning the two-hour commitment?

The coalition Government’s national planning policy framework will undo the protections for playing fields that the previous Labour Government put into place in 1998 and 2004. The Football Association stated, in its written evidence to the NPPF, that the proposals put

“playing fields and facilities at great risk”.

Are we going to see a return to the ’80s and ’90s, where playing fields were seen merely as development opportunities to be sold to the highest bidder? Will the Minister give a categorical assurance that measures contained in the NPPF and the Localism Act 2011 will not relax the restrictions on decommissioning school playing fields introduced by the previous Labour Government? Will he give an absolute assurance that the sale of school playing fields will be allowed only as an option of last resort?

What of the Government’s free schools policy? How will the Government meet the sports and PE offer for pupils attending free schools? How can the Government remain committed to sport and PE, if they are willing to allow free schools to open in buildings where there is no space for outdoor recreation? Will the Minister give a categorical assurance that free schools will not be exempt from providing sport and PE as part of their curriculum?

As hon. Members can gather, it is a source of great personal sadness to me to see much of the work on school sport that we did in government undone in such a brutal and senseless fashion. That has been sanctioned by people at the top of Government, who have little or no understanding of the power of sport to change lives. What has happened particularly saddens me because, during my time as Minister for Sport, there was a general cross-party consensus about sport and school sport in particular. I worked closely with the then shadow Ministers—the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) and the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson), who was my successor as Minister for Sport—to ensure that sport was not used as a political football, if hon. Members will pardon the pun. Despite their public pronouncements, I cannot imagine that either of those hon. Members is personally happy with the Government’s direction on school sport.

Next year, London will host the largest sporting event ever held in Britain. That should be a catalyst for embedding participation, commitment and aspiration into a generation of young people. However, we risk losing that opportunity because we are sending out a mixed message to young people. We tell them, “Get involved and participate,” but we are taking funding away from them and from the networks that facilitate their participation. The year before we host the Olympic and Paralympic games, we have ended the ring-fencing of sports funding for specialist sports colleges. Yet, last week, I was amazed to hear that an extra £40 million could be found for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic games, which is one quarter of the budget for school sports partnerships. What message does the Minister think that that sends out to the hundreds of SSP staff losing their jobs, to the volunteers who give their time and money, and to the pupils hoping to emulate their Olympic heroes?

As I have said, playing sport was a major part of my childhood and early adulthood, and I made many friends through sport. With the decade of sport that we have in this country—the Olympic and Paralympic games next year, the rugby league world cup in 2013, the Commonwealth games in Glasgow in 2014 and the world athletic championships in 2017—we have a wonderful opportunity. These should be inspirational times for our young people, but they will not be if we cannot develop school sport in the way that we did.

I hope that it is not too late and that Ministers will listen. I do not expect the Minister to give in completely to me this morning, but I certainly hope that he will acknowledge some of the points I have raised, that he will have discussions with his colleague, the Minister for Sport, that he will look at what is happening and that he will listen to those parents, teachers and people involved in school sports partnerships who were getting to the primary schools that, in many cases, did not have the facilities for sport. I also hope that he will listen to the young sports leaders whom I met as Minister for Sport who were going into primary schools and helping PE teachers. There is a great opportunity here. I hope that it is not lost, that the Minister listens and that we can have a sensible debate on the way forward.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess, and to follow the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe), who is an exceptionally well respected former Minister for Sport. I certainly agree with the spirit of many of the things raised in his speech, although I will perhaps tweak one or two points in my contribution.

I speak very passionately on this subject because I benefited from sport. I went to a very challenging school. We were bottom of the league tables and, as I mentioned in last week’s debate in this Chamber on sport and tackling youth crime, two of my friends spent time at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Sport kept me active and by the end of the day, I was too tired to cause any trouble—although some people might say that as I am now a Member of Parliament, I took an even worse path.

I was a councillor for 10 years prior to becoming an MP, during which time I spent four years as the lead member for leisure. I therefore have a lot of first-hand experience of dealing with these sorts of issues in the community. As we know, sport can play a very positive role. It helps to promote a healthy and active lifestyle, which is important in tackling the increasing concern about obesity. Sport channels young people’s energy, boosts self-esteem and provides enjoyment, friendship and personal fulfilment. It can have significant benefits for focusing good behaviour and as I said, that was something I saw at first hand when I was growing up.

[Mr Sutcliffe]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a strong supporter of school sport both from his past record as a councillor and since he has been a Member of Parliament. He made a point about prisons. I was the Minister responsible for prisons. What is the busiest place in a prison in terms of people getting involved in sport and physical activity? The gym. Such things made me think as I do about what sport can do for people.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I absolutely agree, and I will come to that point in a bit more detail later.

I will touch on three points: first, the school sports partnerships; secondly, what is physically going on in schools as we speak; and, thirdly, wider community access to schools. I shall then put my personal requests to the Minister.

On school sports partnerships, I raised a number of concerns in debate that led to the Government changing their position. I support the principle of the school sports partnership, but a premise that attracted a lot of criticism of the scheme is that it did not necessarily drive up levels of competitive sport. That was a flawed assessment because, generally, if someone is very good at sport, it is probably because their parents are that way inclined and encouraged sport from an early age by providing access to sports clubs.

School sports partnerships were good for people who were not naturally inclined to sport or gifted at it, because they offered a wider breadth of sporting opportunities. For example, I remember that we played football pretty much every week at my school, which suited me because I liked football. However, some people were not necessarily enthused by the opportunities that football presented. The main driver behind the school sports partnership was that it brought in other sporting opportunities and showed people that there was something out there for everyone. There were encouraging signs that it was making a difference to the majority of children who are not necessarily naturally gifted at sport.

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[Justin Tomlinson]

I absolutely do, and I will come to that point shortly.

There are some advantages to the changes that have been introduced, but we need to work out a way to ensure that schools continue to see sport as a priority. There was another reason why we had to look again at how the school sports partnerships worked. In my constituency, it was a very good partnership, but we heard in the debates on the subject that in other constituencies people who work in schools were saying, “They aren’t delivering very much. I am very passionate about sport as a head teacher. I would like to employ my own choice of sports coach directly.” To a certain extent, therefore, some schools now have better provision, because they have gone directly to the person they think can provide sporting provision in the areas where they had gaps.

It is also fair to say that the school sports partnerships that are still in existence, including my own in Swindon, have had to step up their performance, because that cheque is no longer guaranteed. They have to go to schools and make a pitch about how they will deliver additional benefits to them. There is still a role to play, however, in helping those SSPs to be in a position to deliver improvements, because, by and large, they are sports enthusiasts and are particularly good at organising sports events. They are not necessarily geared up to be a semi-business—a not-for-profit business—so there should be a role to provide additional help in that way.

In response to the intervention, I would like to see SSPs identify additional partnership opportunities, not just through the private sector, but through working with local authorities, the local NHS and sports forums and local sports clubs. To give a good example, if a school offered only football every week and wanted the SSP to bring in street dance, it should bring in not a one-off coach, but representations from street dance clubs, so that children who enjoy a taster session in school then have the opportunity to join a club and take up the activity on a regular basis. Local authorities can play an important role in that regard. The equivalents of the lead members for leisure and the key officers should sit down with the SSP organisations and say, “You can bring the following people to the table and we’ll help co-ordinate that,” so when the SSP then pitches to individual schools, it will be able say that it will not only provide two hours of street dance, but will bring in supporting clubs and give advice on nutrition and on how to do a variety of other beneficial tasks above and beyond the obvious reasons for it to go into the school. That is about asking what more we can do to make SSPs seem much more attractive to schools and to keep sport as a priority.

On what is happening in schools at the moment, I would like to see changes in relation to two particular challenges. The first is the cost of insurance, which is an issue that I have raised in a number of debates. The majority of teachers are relatively young, and young people are very expensive to insure. We need to be able to bus pupils around in order to promote school games and take them to learn outside the traditional school environment. Many teachers are young and new recruits are getting younger, so the cost for schools—it is a burden—is incredibly expensive. I keep urging the Government to consider a national deal; schools throughout the country purchase things, so surely, as a collective with huge economies of scale, we should be able to get a better deal from the insurance industry. I encourage that.

I have been told by an inspirational local physical education teacher, Julie Lewis, about a second element in relation to insurance. In order to drive a minibus, the driver needs a certain D-class element on their licence. Julie already had that—she is of a similar age to me—so it was a relatively simple process. She just had to go to the local authority and carry out a simple test. She passed and was then able to drive the minibus. The younger teachers now have to do three days of training, which costs about £2,000, so that is another burden that the school has to weigh up: when budgets are tight, is it worth releasing teachers for three days? All too many schools like the idea of doing it, but they cannot afford it, either because of the cash or because they do not have the time to release teachers. We need to look at that.

PE teachers also face a dichotomy in relation to their priorities. Julie told me that she is extremely keen to provide after-school clubs. The children love them and embrace them, and really want to take them up. If she could offer as many sessions as she would like, they would all be full. However, she has to plan them at the same time as she should be planning her lessons, and planning her lessons to make sure that they are delivered in the correct manner is what is judged by Ofsted to determine whether she is a good PE teacher and whether the school is a good school. There is a clash; one area is being judged and rewarded, but it is as if she has to magic up a way of providing the after-school classes that might be of most benefit to the children.

I have talked to other teachers. A friend of mine worked in a challenging school in Oxford. During his first year as a qualified teacher, he was full of enthusiasm and provided a huge range of after-school sports clubs. They helped with behaviour and with tackling crime in the local area, because the children were not hanging around street corners straight after school. They were doing something constructive and positive. My friend then had the opportunity to do one-on-one tuition, for which he was paid. He could not be in two places at once. His heart said that he wanted to do his bit for the children he was there to inspire and for whom he played a positive role, but his brain said that he wanted to go on holiday and that he needed to buy a new laptop. In the end, the financial reward prevailed.

[Mr Sutcliffe]

Is there not an opportunity for national governing bodies to get coaches to help teachers do such things? One of the things that we looked at was the possibility of coaches from a wide range of different sports running after-school clubs, paid for by national governing bodies.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I absolutely agree and I will build on that point shortly.

Schools have some opportunities at present. The school Olympics principle, for example, is fuelled by next year’s Olympics, which will give us a wonderful opportunity to drive up participation, particularly because they will advertise on the television a huge variety of new sports for people to try. When I was growing up, we very much followed the television. We played football predominantly, but out came the cricket bats when the cricket was on and out came the bikes during the Tour de France, and when Wimbledon was on, the tennis rackets would come out for the three days that the British participants lasted.

I have a slight plea on this issue. It is not just about getting people to be healthy and active, although that has to be the priority. There is a chronic shortage in this country of coaches and—this is often overlooked—of volunteers. When I talk to sports clubs, they tell me that they can normally find somebody to organise things, but that they cannot find a club secretary or treasurer, or someone to sort out all the insurance.

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[Tim Loughton]

I had better move on or I will not answer any of the hon. Gentleman’s points, but I think that there is a real poverty of ambition.

Let me return to the issue of disabled sport and the charge about the elite nature of the school games. The opportunity to take part in competitive sport is not elite; it is at four levels. It is within schools, where we want every pupil to be able to take part; it is between schools; it is at county level; and it is at national level, with the showcase of the first national championships taking place next May in the Olympic stadium, before it is even used for the Olympics. Within that, I want to see opportunities for disabled pupils. I think that the former Minister for Sport, the hon. Member for Bradford South, would probably admit that we have done very badly on encouraging disability sports in schools. If someone happens to have a disability, PE time is when they go to the library or do something else like that, which is entirely unacceptable. We are far more ambitious than that. Part of the programme for the school games is about encouraging able-bodied pupils to help to set up tournaments and to engage with children who have disabilities, so that they feel every bit as involved at every stage. There needs to be recognition of the various challenges that they will have, but those are surmountable.

[Mr Sutcliffe]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; I know that he has only a small amount of time left. I welcome what he is saying about disability sport. He is right about that, and I welcome his personal commitment to it, but the transport costs for disability sport outweigh the costs for able-bodied people. Has he considered those transport costs and what he needs to do to help people to get around to the different venues?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. That is why, again within the school games, we have made specific money available for promoting disability sport, resourcing the national governing bodies of sports to develop a clear competitive pathway for young disabled people, ensuring the availability of follow-on activity linked to level 3 festivals and resourcing a network of schools to develop and deliver school-centred continuing professional development for teachers as well, and to take into account all those practical difficulties.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), in a well informed contribution, raised a number of important and practical points about embedding sport as a way of turning round poor behaviour. We all agree with that. I do not think that there is any disagreement between us about the many-faceted contribution that sport can make. I set up in my constituency a midnight football tournament. On a Saturday evening, between 10 pm and 12 midnight, when there is not usually sporting activity, we took over a local leisure centre. I worked with the police on this. We had mostly young boys, aged 13 to 17, who otherwise would have been on the streets, getting up to no good. Instead, they were playing football against one another and against the police as well. It was a whole new dynamic. There are so many creative ways in which we can use sport to help with the problems of poor behaviour.

My hon. Friend made good, practical points about insurance and minibuses. I will certainly take those away and consider them further. I am glad that he mentioned the Troops to Teachers scheme. Those teachers will provide a different perspective. We hope that for kids who are more difficult to engage in some of the academic subjects, they will provide the role model and authority figure that is so often lacking.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) mentioned CRB checks. Again, that is something that is standing in the way of ordinary decent people who want to come forward, volunteer and give their time. There is an issue about multiple CRB checks, which the Protection of Freedoms Bill will deal with. We want a common-sense level of health and safety. Things have been regulated out of sight, and we have to get back to where we should be.

We heard the comments of the hon. Member for Eltham. Again, we had the whole business about selling off school playing fields. Let us just remind ourselves that the present Government do not and the previous Governments did not sell off playing fields, because local authorities sell off playing fields. I seem to remember that in the 1990s, when these charges were flying around most of all, Conservatives ran just one council. Rather a lot of those councils were run by the Labour party, which was responsible for overseeing selling off playing fields, so people need to take their share of the responsibility.

On the question of what the Localism Act 2011 will change, there are no intentions to change the level of protection for school playing fields. That may be provided in different ways, but certainly there is no intention to reduce the level of protection as a result of the localism legislation and the planning changes.

An awful lot of red herrings have been thrown about, but the Government are absolutely committed to promoting competitive school sport and embedding it within schools, rather than just assuming that because there is additional money or there are additional co-ordinators, it will automatically happen. Clearly, according to the statistics that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North cited herself, it has not been embedded. That is a problem that we now have to pick up. We hope that the school games will be a flagship way of ensuring that more people want to become involved in sport not just at school but outside the school gates, and that they will want to carry it on into adulthood as well. That is the most important thing that we need to achieve, for all the reasons that we have already mentioned.

The new Government’s approach to school sports has three important characteristics: decentralising power, incentivising—