Sport (Priorities)

Hugh Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)]

I am announcing today the coalition Government’s three immediate priorities for sport. These are, in order: first, strongly to support England’s bid to host the FIFA 2018 World cup; secondly, to deliver the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games on time and on budget; and thirdly, on the back of a successful games, to secure a mass participation legacy for sport.

This Government see that legacy for sport comprising five key policy components:

1. In financial terms, we will restore sport’s share of national lottery funding to 20%. A public consultation has already started and this Government hope to lay any resulting parliamentary legislation in the autumn.

2. We are committed to ensuring that sport has an efficient, modern delivery structure. So, while maintaining their current roles and responsibilities, we will therefore push ahead with plans to bring together UK Sport, Sport England and the Youth Sport Trust under one roof so that they can work better together for the long-term benefit of sport.

3. In the elite and high performance area, we want to use the bid for the FIFA 2018 World cup to enshrine, across primary legislation, what sporting governing bodies can expect from Government when bidding to their international federations for the right to host world-class events.

4. In school sport, we want to have a renewed drive on competition. We will therefore introduce a school sport Olympic-style competition that will build on the good work already done by the UK School Games, while providing a stimulus and focus for competitive sport among schools at local level.

5. On the community sport and mass-participation side, we can confirm that, using the extra money we expect to flow through to sport from the lottery reforms, Sport England will take the lead responsibility for delivering the participation legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. This gives Sport England two clear aims, delivering on their whole sport plans and driving a mass-participation sport legacy from the games and subsequent world-class events. Plans are being worked-up at the moment and we will make a further announcement in the autumn.

In addition, I am announcing today that I have asked the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR), the alliance of National Governing Bodies of Sport, to undertake a review on behalf of the Department. This will look at whether the amount of money that governing bodies agree to re-invest in their sport’s grassroots, including in school and club programmes for young people, under the CCPR voluntary code relating to the broadcasting of major sporting events, can be raised from the existing 5% minimum to 30% or one third.