Youth Sport Trust Report

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point. We have to make sure that sports bodies represent the whole range of our communities and are not focused on elite sports or one particular community. I was contacted last week by a project that wanted to help more Afro-Caribbean people to swim— I think it is called Black People Can Swim. It is a fantastic project. I have asked my department to look at how we can have discussions with them to help make sure that we encourage more people from different communities to get involved in physical activity and sport.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the authors of the report, the Youth Sport Trust, and its chief executive, Alison Oliver. They certainly know what they are talking about. Since there is to be a new regime at the National Lottery, would this be a proper moment to suggest that the focus of grants should be on young people in general and youth sport and activities—as the Minister rightly said—in particular?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government are refreshing the sport strategy at the moment. Noble Lords who took part in debates on the Health and Care Bill will remember that we talked about the cross-government approach to sport and physical activity. We are looking at a number of initiatives for improving it. We welcome reports such as this, as they highlight the areas that we need to focus our efforts on as we work out what has worked in the past and what we need to improve. We hope to fill those gaps where they exist.