Sport in Schools and Communities
Jeff Smith Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Happy new year to everybody. It is the first time I have spoken in the House this year. It is a pleasure to be here on behalf of the Opposition. I agreed with much of what the Minister said. Sport and physical activity are essential elements of a modern, healthy, successful society, and keeping active is vital for personal physical health and mental health and for the social development and wellbeing of young people. We know that physically active children are happier and have higher levels of academic achievement than their less physically active peers.
Sport and exercise bring people together and have the power to build healthier, happier and more connected communities. Sport is not just about the benefit to individuals; it can be harnessed to tackle many of the important challenges we face as a society, whether it be loneliness, health inequalities or high rates of mental ill health. Getting people fit saves the NHS money and reduces pressure on public services. Sport can extend and save people’s lives. It is not just about taking part in sport; it is about sharing the joy of it. Watching sporting events together brings the nation together.
Today’s debate comes as we look back on a fantastic year for British sport. As we have heard, whether it was Wimbledon, the Commonwealth games, the rugby league world cup or the football World cup, we came together in support of our national sports stars. The Lionesses’ stunning success at the women’s Euros was a special highlight. We have given them our admiration and they give us inspiration. Our top athletes can be fantastic role models for our young people and ambassadors for their sports. With the right Government intervention and support, major events can help us build a lasting legacy and get more people involved in sport.
Today’s debate also comes two days after the Public Accounts Committee published its report, “Grassroots participation in sport and physical activity”. It found that the Government
“lacks a compelling vision for integrating physical activity into everyday life”.
The report confirms what the National Audit Office report told us last year. We were promised a golden age of British sport after the 2012 London Olympics, but the Government have squandered that legacy. Adult participation in sport fell in the first three years following the 2012 games. Ministers abandoned plans to track the legacy of the 2012 games in 2016, so we cannot make any judgments about any legacy delivered from the £8.8 billion that was spent on the games.
Labour urged the Government not to repeat the same mistakes with the Birmingham Commonwealth games, but again, according to the Public Accounts Committee, the Government
“has no mechanisms in place to monitor the long-term participation legacy from the Commonwealth Games.”
We cannot afford to keep making the same mistakes, so we look forward with eagerness to the publication of the Government’s new sports strategy, but I have to ask where it is. We were told last summer that it would be published in the summer, alongside all the other Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport papers that were promised and delayed last summer, including the media Bill, the gambling White Paper and the White Paper on football governance. If we want to protect the clubs that sustain our communities, we need to get on with the recommendations of the fan-led review of football.
Kim Leadbeater
The shadow Minister is making some excellent points. He is right that time is pressing. We need action now. We will all have fantastic community sports clubs in our constituencies that are struggling because of the cost of living and energy bills. Grassroots sports clubs are at the heart of our communities. Does he agree that the Government must commit to provide them with the funding and support that they desperately need at this time?
Jeff Smith
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend anticipates my remarks. We need to support those grassroots sports clubs through the cost of living crisis and get on with ensuring that the bigger professional football clubs have a framework that protects them and the communities that they support and thrive in.
Jonathan Gullis
Carol Shanahan, the co-owner of Port Vale football club, regularly raises with me how the funding model in a football pyramid works. If we moved to a model where 70% of the combined Premier League and English Football League TV rights went to the Premier League and 30% went to the rest, that would have a massively positive impact and enable grassroots clubs to see longer term investment. Does the shadow Minister agree that the Government should urge the EFL and the Premier League to do that?
Jeff Smith
I certainly agree that we need a better way of distributing finance down the pyramid. In her report, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) left it for the FA and the EFL to come up with a formula. That is the right thing to do at the moment, but they are taking their time. They need to come up with a formula that does what the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) says and get money down the pyramid.
We are told that the sport strategy is delayed because of ministerial changes. I very much like the Minister; I hope he maintains his job despite the current ministerial merry-go-round in the Tory party. But if that is the problem, given the chaos in Government, I wonder if we will see the sport strategy before the next election. Once again, Tory party chaos gets in the way of Government action.
We need action. Currently, over a quarter of adults are classed as inactive, along with almost a third of children and young people. There are stark divides in the level of physical activity between different demographics and communities. The covid pandemic has not helped. There are now 1.3 million more inactive adults than before the pandemic. Worryingly, the people who are less active are those living in deprived areas, women, young people, over-75s, disabled people, those with long-term health conditions, and people from black, Asian, and other minority ethnic backgrounds. In many of those groups, activity levels have fallen more sharply since the pandemic. Those disparities start early. Some 35% of children in the least affluent families do fewer than 30 minutes of activity a day, compared with 22% of children from the most affluent families.
How do we tackle this issue? We need schools and community sports clubs to be able to step up and narrow the gaps, but in the last 10 years, state secondary schools in England have lost over 36,000 hours of PE from the curriculum. The national curriculum states that every young person is entitled to experience high-quality PE, but over the last decade school accountability has been increasingly focused on core academic subjects. PE is often neglected in favour of other subjects.
As we have heard, funding for PE and school sport is too often made available only on a short-term basis, with decisions coming at the last minute, leaving schools unable to plan for the long term. We are losing PE teachers: there are 2,700 fewer in England now than in 2011. By ending tax breaks for private schools, the next Labour Government will recruit thousands of new teachers, create a new entitlement to ongoing teacher training and reform the narrow progress measures that deprioritise physical education in the curriculum.
Children and young people’s physical activity rates have now recovered to where they were before the pandemic, but that was not a great place. Fewer than half of children meet the chief medical officer’s guidelines to take part in an average of 60 minutes or more of sport and physical activity a day. There is a physical activity gender gap: girls start being less active than boys from the age of five.
Labour believes that the Lionesses’ victory last year should represent a turning point for women in sport, inspiring more girls to play football in particular and sport in general. According to Sport England, less than two thirds of all schools currently offer equal access to girls’ football in PE lessons. Labour will introduce an equal access guarantee for school sport, instead of the current situation where girls can be taught “comparable” sporting activities, which reinforces traditional barriers and stereotypes for girls and women. We have to let children and young people explore a range of sports from a young age.
Kim Leadbeater
It is excellent to hear Labour’s plans, but I go back to the point that we need action now. The Prime Minister said last year said that he
“would love to see all schools provide two hours of PE a week”,
that he would “tighten accountability” around the primary school PE and sport premium, and that he would ensure Ofsted looked at sport. Ultimately, unless we have healthy children, it does not matter how good they are at maths, science or anything else. That is why we have to value PE on the curriculum more than we do. Will my hon. Friend join me in calling for the Minister to ensure that the Government view PE on the curriculum as a priority?
Jeff Smith
Absolutely. My hon. Friend is an expert on these issues, and I agree with every word she said.
I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hard-working volunteers and community organisations that kept sporting activities happening as best they could through the pandemic and who do a fantastic job week in, week out, keeping our local sports clubs going. I also pay tribute to local authorities, which provide much of our sporting infrastructure. Without local authority sports facilities, many people would struggle to access sport, but local government has been the hardest hit part of the public sector over the last 10 years, and it shows. I remember the pain of having to close local leisure centres because of Government cuts in 2011. A high proportion of our local sport and leisure facilities are at the end of or beyond their operational life and in desperate need of renovation. Councils do not have the resources for this, and we need to give councils the ability to keep sport alive in our towns and cities.
Grassroots sport in our communities is now under more threat from the cost of living crisis. Soaring energy bills are hitting gyms, leisure centres and especially swimming pools. Operators are facing bills that are up to 200% higher this year compared with the last normal operating year, 2019, and costs are set to increase by another 240%. Even before the energy crisis took hold, Swim England warned in 2021 that nearly 2,000 pools could be lost by the end of the decade. One in four councils has potential plans to close leisure facilities, and over 40% need to make cuts to physical activity services. The District Councils’ Network says that seven in 10 councils are considering scaling back their leisure services in response to these financial pressures.
Munira Wilson
I completely agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about the strain on council finances. Councils often run swimming pools, but Hampton pool in my constituency—recently voted one of the country’s top seven heated lidos—is totally community run, by a charitable trust. It is not run by the local authority, so it does not have that level of security, and given that it has been left out of the energy bills discount scheme update that was announced yesterday, it is under a lot of financial pressure. I welcome the fact that the Minister will hold a roundtable, but it is important to recognise that not all swimming pools are run by local authorities.
Jeff Smith
The hon. Lady makes a really important point. The announcement of the new energy bills discount scheme yesterday came as a massive disappointment to the sector. There is no mention of sport and leisure facilities, no acknowledgment in the scheme that certain services such as swimming pools are particularly energy-intensive—they are not on the list of energy-intensive sectors—and no offer of bespoke support. To quote Huw Edwards, the chief executive of ukactive, the new scheme
“will fail to give thousands of pools, leisure centres, and gyms the support they need to avoid further service restrictions, closures, and job losses.”
Ukactive says that 40% of council areas are at risk of losing their leisure centres or seeing a reduced service before the end of March this year, so the support that has been offered past that point will come too late for many.
I have to ask the Minister, what are the Government going to do to save these vital community assets? I look forward to the roundtable and hearing what he develops from that, but are they content to see pools and leisure centres close up and down the country? How does he plan to boost physical activity rates and sporting participation when the Government’s lack of support will lead to closures and price rises? It is not just councils that are feeling the pinch. Over a quarter of adults across the UK think they will need to cut back on their own sport and physical activity because of rising costs, so will the sports strategy, whenever we see it, contain plans to save our leisure facilities?
A decade on from the 2012 Olympics, despite the success of our brilliant athletes and the best efforts of our community volunteers, physical activity is flatlining, school sport is declining and facilities are under threat. The Government have failed to make the best of sport as a vital element to prevent ill health and boost the economy. Those failures will cost us all more in the long run, piling pressure on public services. The Government should use this debate as an opportunity to set out what they will do differently to promote PE in schools, address the inequalities in opportunity and participation, ensure we have the pools, gyms and leisure centres we need and to build a proper legacy for the money we have spent and the brilliance of the sporting heroes who inspire us. It is time for the Government to raise their game.
Cryptoasset Promotions in Sport
Jeff Smith Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
It is great to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) not only on securing the debate, but on what I thought was an excellent speech that really set out the issues. I completely agreed with most of his speech, including, sadly, his criticism of the club for which I have been a lifelong season ticket holder, Man City. We have not covered ourselves in glory on this issue.
Some 2.3 million people in the UK apparently own cryptocurrency or cryptoassets, so it is no surprise that lots of sports teams have seen the financial opportunities and signed up for lucrative deals with the sector. In the USA, crypto sponsorships have been established across Formula 1, the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Major League Baseball, with major venue sponsorships as well. In the UK, most premier league clubs have some sponsorship links with cryptocurrency businesses and some clubs have launched their own non-fungible tokens. As we have heard, the Premier League has just signed a multimillion dollar deal with a blockchain company, Sorare, to deliver its own NFT collection. Alongside several major European teams, six premier league clubs have partnered with the company Socios, which markets itself as a fan engagement platform and also has links with rugby union. By purchasing fan tokens based on blockchain, fans are told they will have more of a say and can vote on club decision making, mostly on issues around the match day experience and so on.
There is a key question here for the clubs, not the businesses. The businesses are just in it for the money, but the clubs should be in it for more than that. In the wake of the fan-led review, if clubs really want to engage with fans and give them a say on these issues, they should do so. Why can they not do that without requiring their fans to sign up to spend money on cryptoassets? In this day and age, it is not hard for clubs to carry out that kind of engagement. Is it, as many of us suspect, just another way to exploit the loyalty and wallets of football fans?
Labour believes that fans should as a right have a say in the direction and decision making of their club, and that they should not have to invest in a cryptoasset to earn that right. I was reassured many times by the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), that the Government are on board with all the recommendations in the fan-led review. When they come forward with the White Paper and the proposals, I trust that we will see some opportunities to clamp down on this kind of business and really promote genuine fan engagement by the clubs.
In December 2021, analysis commissioned by the BBC estimated that more £262 million had been spent on fan tokens through Socios. Some producers of football NFTs and fan tokens state that these cryptoassets were never intended as investments, which is fair enough. However, that is certainly not always made clear by all producers. It is clear that some people have felt encouraged to purchase these tokens as investments. If so, they are taking a risk. We have already heard about John Terry’s Ape Kids Football Club NFT collection, which was promoted by a number of high-profile football stars, and how the NFTs crashed in value and lost about 99% of their initial price. Several footballing figures have advertised NFT schemes on social media and then had to retract or delete their posts when the schemes nosedived and fans lost money.
As fan tokens are usually linked to volatile cryptocurrencies, which they provide an incentive to invest in, and are influenced by supply and demand, the value of those NFTs has fluctuated wildly. In November 2021, the crypto market was at its peak, with a valuation of almost $3 trillion; by June 2022, it had lost more than two thirds of its value. As we have heard, fan tokens pushed by premier league teams have often tanked in value. I do not think we have heard about this in previous contributions: the Advertising Standards Authority recently upheld a ruling against Arsenal for its promotion of Socios fan tokens in an advert. It found that the club
“trivialised investment in crypto assets and took advantage of consumers’ inexperience or credulity.”
We need some action and we need regulation. Labour is not advocating a ban on the ownership of cryptocurrencies. We recognise the opportunities they can create for our economy when done right. Proper regulation of cryptoasset promotions marketed to sports fans is clearly needed, as the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme set out.
I have some questions for the Minister. First, as I have asked many times of his predecessor, can he tell us when or if—I hope it is when—he will bring forward proposals for the independent regulator? Does he foresee an independent regulator of English football having any role to play in the regulation of cryptoassets in football? It might be that the FCA is the appropriate regulatory body. The FCA has indicated that it is working with the Government to target financial promotions and advertising in crypto as a priority. Can the Minister set out a timeline of when those reforms will happen and what the legislative vehicle for doing so will be?
I will conclude with an aside. In the week of COP27, we should probably note that cryptoassets are really bad for the environment. They require huge amounts of power and powerful computer calculations to verify the transactions. They are very carbon-intensive. Will the Government be clear with supporter bodies about at least the environmental impact of crypto technologies? I do not want to let COP27 week go by without mentioning the detrimental effect of crypto.
The clear message from across this Chamber today has been that this is a really worrying development for football fans. It is not something we need necessarily, unless the clubs and businesses are out to make money and at the expense of football fans. Regulation is clearly needed. That is the message from Members today. I hope the Minister will take that on board.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jeff Smith Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Jayawardena
We decide on future deals based on the potential benefit to our economy, economic trends and whether we can negotiate a quality agreement supporting the British people and the British national interest. Closer engagement is how we increase our influence around the world and support higher standards, including with countries that might have rights that differ from ours. The United Kingdom will not compromise on our high labour standards, and we will continue to work hard to maintain those standards through our free trade agreement programme.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Jeff Smith
In February, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs issued its biggest ever fine of £2.7 million for breach of the arms exports controls. HMRC has refused to publish any details so we do not know who was fined, the name of the company, the military goods exported or where they ended up. How does the Minister expect us to have any faith or confidence in our arms export controls when they are so shrouded in secrecy?
Mr Jayawardena
The hon. Gentleman refers to HMRC which does not fall under my Department, but I will ensure that the relevant Minister provides him with an answer.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jeff Smith Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
The Government are committed to meeting their ambitious environmental objectives. We are exploring environmental provisions in the design of our free trade agreements to ensure we continue to uphold the UK’s very high environmental standards. The precise details of each individual UK free trade agreement are a matter for the formal negotiations.
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Lady for that question, which I think was very reasonably put, but actually we are doing a huge amount right the way across the board. We guaranteed in our manifesto no compromise on environmental standards in our future free trade agreements. The UK global tariff, which we published earlier this year, goes significantly further than the EU’s common external tariff in making sure that environmental goods are low-tariff or tariff-free. There are 104 tariff lines, including steam turbines, vacuum flasks and thermostats. We are also providing export finance in areas of renewable energy, such as solar energy and wind farms in Taiwan.
Jeff Smith
The former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said that the major role he played in his country’s trade negotiations was ensuring
“that we weren’t sidetracked by peripheral issues such as… environmental standards”.
Does his potential appointment as a policy adviser to the Board of Trade mean that that is the Government’s new approach? How can the Government reassure us that they do not now regard the environment as a peripheral issue?
Greg Hands
The Government’s approach on the environment, and on the environment and trade, is unchanged. No appointments have been confirmed. Personally, I welcome the fact that a former Prime Minister of Australia is willing to help this country out. I think we should welcome his interest and welcome the endeavours he has the potential to make for this country on behalf of us all.
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Accession)
Jeff Smith Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is right that the advanced digital and data chapter in CPTPP will provide huge confidence for those seeking to buy products in that region from British businesses. It is extraordinary that the Labour party does not think that is of any value. It does not think that the EU, which is prepared to sign these digital and data chapters, has agreements any different from the type of agreement we are seeking to accede to, missing out a huge part of the UK economy.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said earlier, the original consultation on membership of this partnership took place over a three-month period in autumn 2018, when most of industry and this country was preoccupied with the Brexit negotiations. Would it not be sensible now to have a second consultation so that stakeholders can have a proper chance to assess and comment on the implications for them?
Elizabeth Truss
We have conducted a consultation already. We gave businesses a chance to respond. But rest assured we will engage with businesses throughout this process through our system of expert trade advisory groups, which consult specific industries on the aspect of agreements they relate to. We are negotiating these deals precisely to benefit British businesses—to get the tariffs removed on cars, whisky and so on. We will consult businesses throughout this process to make sure every sector and area of the UK benefits.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jeff Smith Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Fox
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government are committed to seeking continuity in our current trade and investment relationships, including those covered by EU trade preferences. Scotch whisky is a very important part of our exports and we want to maintain the vital bilateral dispute mechanisms, all of which are part of Scotch whisky’s contribution to our economy.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Jeff Smith Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Mark Garnier
Like everybody else, I am delighted that exports from Scotland have done particularly well, but I stress that trying to promote exports is part of an ongoing process through the whole UK, not just one region. I celebrate the fact that Scotland has a number of tremendous exports, particularly Scottish whisky. Nearly £4 billion-worth of whisky is exported from Scotland, and the rest of the world sees a great deal of value in the brand.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mark Garnier)
International Trade Ministers and officials regularly meet British businesses to discuss trade policy matters. These discussions have included our position in the WTO, work under way to avoid the loss of trade preferences that UK firms currently access via EU trade arrangements, and future trade negotiation priorities. The Department for Exiting the EU is also engaged fully with British businesses.
Jeff Smith
As an EU member state, we are party to free trade agreements with countries such as Mexico, South Korea and South Africa. Is it the responsibility of his Department or the Department for Exiting the European Union to negotiate the grandfathering or replacement of those agreements?
Mark Garnier
I can absolutely confirm that DIT leads in every sense on the trade negotiations with the rest of the world. The Department for Exiting the European Union is restricted to the European Union.