School Sports Funding

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House congratulates the Youth Sport Trust on achieving major advances in youth sport over the past decade; believes that a good school sports policy must always be a combination of competition with coaching and opportunities for all to participate; notes that the number of young people doing two hours of sport a week has risen from 25 per cent. in 2002 to at least 90 per cent. last year, with over 1.6 million more young people involved in competitive sport between schools than in 2006; believes that removing funding for the Youth Sport Trust, cutting the specialist school status and dismantling School Sport Partnerships will undermine the Olympic legacy and the fight against obesity in young people; and therefore calls on the Government to reverse this decision, and to work with the Youth Sport Trust to find a solution that does not deprive children of the many health, wellbeing and educational advantages they gain from school sport.

We stand on the brink of arguably the biggest moment for sport in our country’s history. This is a one-off chance to lift the place of sport in our society and inspire a new generation. Today is a good moment to remind ourselves why we won the right to host London 2012. With cross-party support, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) set challenging but achievable targets that included, by 2012, getting 2 million more people physically active, 1 million more playing sport regularly and 60% of young people doing at least five hours of sport a week. This is no time to lower those ambitions.

Huge progress has been made in the last decade and now we must build on it. I was struck by this quote from the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, made just one week after our success in Singapore. He said:

“I congratulate the Minister and his Department on the progress that has been made on school sport. Specialist sports colleges are proving to be a success—there is no doubt about that—and school sports partnerships likewise. The Youth Sport Trust, which I visited just before the election, is a fantastic organisation.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2005; Vol. 436, c. 335WH.]

He is right: it is a fantastic organisation. We championed it in government, just as John Major championed it before us. We also built on his plans for elite sport. There has been a developing consensus on sports policy since John Major signalled a change in the early 1990s.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Should we not remind the House that the Government’s proposals are nothing new for them? In the 1980s, they did the same thing—they massacred sport, had schools sell off their playing fields, and cut support for youth activities. The economic crisis is not the reason for their activities now: they are back to their old bad habits.

[Andy Burnham]

I had the great misfortune to be in a Merseyside comprehensive under Maggie, and I remember after-school competitive sport vanishing with the teachers’ dispute in the 1980s. Ever since, I have worked in politics to put school sport back on its feet. It is the right of every child to have good sport while at school, and it cannot be left to random chance and the occasional good will of teachers.