Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

As I said earlier, we hope to set up a second round of pilots for broadband roll-out, for which we have set aside £50 million, but obviously that process is being run by Broadband Delivery UK, and it would be wrong for Ministers to favour one area above another.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

We would obviously like to associate ourselves with the Minister’s congratulations earlier to the England cricket team. However, he also claimed that funding for grass-roots sport will be higher at the end of the Parliament than it was at the beginning. How can that be the case, when local teams and clubs up and down the country are on the front line of cuts and facing higher fees and charges to hire pitches, sports halls and pools, and when local sports co-ordinators and county sports partnerships are sacking staff, all as a result of the cuts to local government spending imposed by his Government? What assessment has he made of the impact that local government finance will have on grass-roots sport, and what discussions has he had with his colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government?

[The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)]

I gave the answer I did because, according to the figures and projections for Exchequer and lottery funding to Sport England, the latter received £249 million this year and will receive £284 million by the end of the Parliament. That is a 14% increase by anybody’s maths. On local authorities, we are looking at the matter closely, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in trying to convince and reassure local authorities that they should not be closing sport and leisure facilities. There is no reason for them to do that—it is a choice they have to make—and I would encourage all of them to continue to build on the considerable investment that the Government are making in sport, both through UK Sport, Sport England and the London—