Olympic Games and Paralympic Games 2012

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this debate. I take this opportunity to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, from these Benches—or rather from this tier of these Benches, as I am sure my colleagues in the coalition will also take the chance to welcome her. I still keep thinking of her as Tanni Grey-Thompson rather than as a Baroness.

I got accused of being an expert on sport when I spoke in the debate on the Queen’s Speech. I told the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that I would eventually forgive him for that slight. There is expertise in this debate, and the noble Baroness encapsulates it better than just about anyone else here. I hope that we will see her speak here not only on this subject but also on disability matters. Once again, I speak with a degree of self-interest because I was disability spokesman for my party for 14 years, and I currently speak on sport. I suggest that the noble Baroness and I will be bumping into each other a fair bit in this Chamber, and I welcome her to it.

The main thrust of this debate about the Olympics is that we are getting ready and have got over the hard yards. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Coe, used that expression when congratulating the entire Olympic movement on being fairly boring as far as the press are concerned because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said, there were dozens of very grumpy journalists who had articles about how the Games would be delivered late and over budget. They have dumped them. We have got to encourage everybody to make sure that they have to think of something new to say. We are on the edge of being able to go for it.

No matter how great the venues are, if they are the only thing that is left, they will not touch more than a very small percentage of the population. Enthusiasm for sport in general and for participation and volunteering can be generated by these Games, which have the opportunity to go beyond a small section of the sporting public and touch those beyond that group in a way that nothing else can. We must encourage that.

When he opened this debate, my noble friend spoke about school sport. I will upbraid him slightly for that because schools cannot deliver this by themselves. People who have been involved in this for many years have always recognised that they are merely a part of it. It is the link between school-age sport and clubs that will lead to growth. I have given my noble friend a little notice that I hope that when he answers, he will let us know the intermeshing of clubs that will allow competitive sport to go on—I do not know why I am using the phrase “competitive sport”; I think non-competitive sport is simply exercise—and be a part of people’s lives. The drop-off ages are 16, 18 and 21, and it does not take a genius to work out why—that is when people stop going to institutions where sport is compulsory or easy. It does not matter about making it easy or compulsory in those places if you do not have somewhere to go. If the Government do not do this, in effect they will be systematically wasting quite a lot of money. They have got to build up the link.

Also, to be honest—and this is true of all Governments; there is nothing I am saying here that I did not say a few months ago, so I might be forgiven if I get mostly the same answer again because it is a work in progress—we must make sure that sport is taken seriously by the rest of Government, not just by the DCMS, although now that it has the Olympics it should be more coherent. However, unless the Department of Health and the Department of Education are prepared to ensure that sport really fits in, and unless local government decides that it is really going to integrate sport and allow it to have a place, it does not work. You have got to make sure that it all meshes together. In the time I have been here, this has become better understood across government; it is not a party political issue. Sport and government have got to come together.

There has got to be more drive towards this, but it is always a case of “Oh, that’s not really my responsibility”, so it does not happen. I have heard that for most of the 13 years I have been here. The whole of government as well as Ministers at the top have to make sure this happens. I have also spoken more times than I care to mention about having to punch through the Chinese walls in Whitehall to get anything done. We have to make sure that there is a central drive. If the Olympic Games achieve their potential, they will provide a wonderful way of kicking some holes in those walls and making sure that people understand what they are doing.

I will not ask my noble friend a specific question about the importance of integrating sports medicine more closely in the medical structure. All these things must take place to make up the whole, but we must remember the central theme. We have an opportunity of doing ourselves a considerable favour in the long term and of throwing the biggest party on earth. If we mess this up, we will deserve everything we get.