School Sport

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[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.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong, but I think I just heard him say that school sports partnerships did not drive up participation in competitive sport. Can he tell me the figures he bases that statement on?

[Justin Tomlinson]

The point behind my remark was that when the Government were making their judgment about whether the school sports partnerships were delivering value for money, they looked only crudely at the number of children taking part in competitive sport, which was two in five children. That figure did not change. However, what did change significantly was the number of children who were not doing any sport at all who then took up sport. They might not have been playing in regular leagues outside school, but they were at least being active—whether that was just for the two hours a week or whether it led to other opportunities.

For example, when I was touring my constituency, we saw encouraging signs; people were doing things such as cheerleading and street dancing, which were incredibly popular but because they were not strictly sports in the traditional competitive sense, they were not included in those crude statistics on competitive sport. However, those people were being active. When I was the lead member for leisure, I did not care what people were doing, as long as they were doing something that increased their heart rate. I also say that with my hat on as vice-chair of the all-party group on heart disease. We are keen to encourage such activities.

The change in position allowed nine months for the school sports partnerships to, in effect, go to schools and secure funding. I do not recognise the point about cuts to the funding; it is just that the funding is no longer ring-fenced. The challenge that remains for school sports partnerships is that not every school necessarily identifies sport as a priority. The Swindon school sports partnership has managed to ensure that around 20 schools have signed up to carry on in pretty much the same format as before. However, a number of schools have decided that there are other priorities for that money and, by removing ring-fencing from the funding, they are free to make that choice. I think that such a choice is wrong for those schools and when I meet those who work in them, I regularly push the benefits of providing sport. We must deal with that challenge. It comes down to individual heads; it is fair to say that if a head has a personal interest in sport, it is certainly pushed to the forefront.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman consider that there is a role for private investment and partnership with schools as a way of getting more money for the programme? Is that something he has considered and, if so, how does he think it will work?

[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.

[Simon Hart]

As a former parent governor of my local school, Tavernspite, and a keen volunteer cricket coach at it, one of the obstacles that I came up against was the Criminal Records Bureau checks. There was one CRB check to be a parent governor and another to be a cricket coach. For all but the very determined, it was difficult to volunteer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is a valid point and I know that the Minister is championing the cause to change that situation. I would like to hear more about it.

To return to the issue of coaches as volunteers, when school games are being organised, the best athletes are selected to represent the school. Incidentally, my school always came last in everything; we were so short of people that I ended up having to do four events in one day and got progressively worse. The key is that we should also identify those who have not been selected to participate and ask one of them to act as the coach on the day, another to organise the promotional posters, and another to be the treasurer and organise payment for the minibus. There are all sorts of other roles, so later, as they grow up, those people could fill the massive gaps in community sport. That is something that we should champion.

I welcome the decision to fast-track troops into teaching. When I talk to school head teachers, particularly in primary schools, they tell me that one of their biggest challenges is that not enough teachers are enthusiastic or confident enough to be able to carry out a wide breadth of PE. It is often the case that the last person to leave the staff room suddenly finds themselves delivering the lesson. One would hope that troops would be sports-minded—they are certainly well attuned to physical activity—which could help to fill a major skills gap.

On the issue of sport helping behaviour, I have visited schools with challenging behaviour problems and, time and again, have seen them use sport as a reward incentive to maintain behaviour in the school. It is amazing that when a child misbehaves and is told that they cannot go to the after-school football or street dance session, that is not only the first time that they misbehave, but the last time, because such sessions are the hook for a lot of children.

Turning to the community, I hear the points about the loss of playing fields and I fully support the call to protect them. There is, however, a further challenge. The vast majority of schools that were built post-1997, which is true of pretty much all, bar one or two, of the schools where I was a ward councillor in a high-density, new-build housing estate, were private finance initiative schools, so they had wonderful playing fields, but after 4 o’clock, a huge amount of money had to be paid to use them. Even enthusiastic PE teachers could not use them, because they were not the school’s property after 4 o’clock, and the local community would have to raise money. They looked wonderful and the turf was great, but they could only be seen through the fence. That is something that we need to look at in future school building. Sports facilities need to be accessible both to the school itself—it is a crime that an enthusiastic PE teacher who wishes to provide after-school sports opportunities cannot do so because it is not the school’s facility—and to the community through sports clubs.

Opening up those facilities should be an absolute priority not only for sports clubs but for youth clubs. I have spoken in other debates about how in the old days, sports clubs dealt with competitive sport and youth clubs were at the other end of the spectrum, but they should be one and the same. Street dance is the classic example; it is not technically an ultra-competitive sport but is something in which young people wish to engage. We can use sport as the hook in the school facilities, and youth workers can come along to where children are being active and can provide the advocacy that youth clubs are normally good at.

I get frustrated when local authorities make mistakes with opportunities. As I mentioned in last week’s debate, Stratton parish council identified £4,000 to provide extra activities for young people. Rather than consulting those young people and asking them what they want to do, the council will spend the £4,000 on providing mobile graffiti walls—nothing more than a training ground for more graffiti artists to wreak havoc in local communities. What the council should have done, to build on an earlier intervention, was to say, “Right, we’re going to open up our schools or community centres on Friday and Saturday evenings and pay for coaches”—it could be a football coach or a street dance coach—“who can then come into our community, and we will only charge the children 50p.” Something—a nominal fee—needs to be charged so that the children take ownership, but without pricing them out, and they can come along and participate for a couple of hours. We would then see children being active and positively engaged in something constructive, and we can build on that. Remarkably, when I go to schools and ask, “What do you want?”, they say they want organised sports provision and opportunities, not silly bits of plywood that they can spray some paint on. That frustrates me. Local authorities and Government are always hard-pressed for money so whenever we have an opportunity to spend relatively limited amounts of money, let us ensure that it is on engagement. Everything should be judged on the maximum number of people participating in whatever it is that gets them active. As I have said on a number of occasions, I do not care which sport it is, as long as something is going on.

Another opportunity that we need to look at is when schools close, as populations shift. In my town, schools are closing in the older housing estates and opening in the new estates, as young families shift across the town, and we need to insure against the loss of not only the playing fields but the buildings. We had a fantastic success story in Swindon involving a successful gymnastics club, with 450 people a week participating. The club was so successful that its landlord served it an eviction notice because the neighbours were annoyed at all the parents turning up after school and taking all the car parking spaces. They got together and said, “Either it moves or we all move”, so the landlord said to the club, “You are very good at paying your rent but I’m afraid you are off.”

To find a new gymnastics facility in any town is a challenge, because high walls and lots of parking are needed. Through the Swindon sports forum we identified a £4 million sports hall that was only a couple of years old and about to be bulldozed; a school was being knocked down because a brand-new £25 million school was being built a few miles down the road, so the sports hall would have been lost. To cut a long story short, we managed to arrange for the gymnastics club to take on that sports hall, paying a commercial rent for the facility, and the old school was bulldozed around it. The club took on the sports hall, which was bigger than needed, so the facility also has the Kirsty Farrow dance academy and the Leadership martial arts club. Now, instead of 450 children a week being active, we have 2,000, with parents dropping children off, one for Esprit gymnastics, one for martial arts and one for the dance academy. We were so close to bulldozing that facility, and 1,550 children —on top of the initial 450—would have missed out. Instead, some joined-up thinking was driven through our sports forum, in which 60 different sports clubs sit together with the council officers. We married together the collective thinking—“This is our challenge, we need a facility”—and the opportunity, not only to the benefit of the gymnastics club but of the other clubs that have piggybacked on it. We should do that wherever buildings or facilities might be lost.

I conclude with my pleas. Collectively, we need to sort out the challenges of insurance, whether the basic cost of insuring people or the cost of being able to drive a minibus, as well as the time. We need to support school sports partnerships to remain a priority for schools, if they are good enough to justify that, and, if so, to give them help and support with business plans and building up their partnerships so that they can offer not only two hours of street dance but additional benefits. We must never forget the need for volunteers and coaches, as well as for getting people to be active in one form or another. We need to make facilities accessible, affordable and open and, wherever possible, not to lose them as populations change.