Life Chances Strategy

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate. There could barely be a more significant subject for us to consider in your Lordships’ House. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Farmer on securing this debate. As we heard in his marvellous introduction, his commitment in this area is truly copper-bottomed. In the time allowed, I intend to restrict myself to comment on sport and character education, and the positive impact that they can have on life chances.

I was fortunate enough to be taught to swim at the age of two by my mum—at least when I came above the water and started to swim, that is what she claimed she was doing for me. The power of sport to transform lives is seen in every element, from the first time someone has the opportunity to dive into a swimming pool, step on to a running track or merely run around the school playground.

To give some hard statistics, according to a recent survey previously inactive young people, once involved in physical activity and sport, increased their numeracy by 29%. There were similar improvements in behaviour, clearly demonstrating that sport is not just about the physical benefits: it goes across to psychological, social and, yes, economic benefits. None of this is mutually exclusive.

For example, the Hackney Boxing Academy runs a support scheme where one of the qualified trainers takes six young people, and works with them and mentors them, helping them to have confidence in their schoolwork and to focus on their sport—the benefits could hardly be overstated. A graduate of the scheme, Dylan, said in 2012, “I’m a completely different person”. How can we say any more than that about the transformational power of sport to enable people’s life chances?

Again on boxing, when I was on the board of UK Sport, we understood that special facilities were needed for our boxers if we were to enable them to escape what life had predetermined for them. We did not just get boxers to competitions, to the national team and to internationals; we got boxers from some of the most challenging backgrounds in this country to go to the Olympic Games and bring back gold for Great Britain—transformational.

I commend my honourable friend the Sports Minister for the sports strategy which was recently published. This demonstrates how sport has to go across Whitehall, to all relevant departments. As I have said, it is about psychological, social and economic benefits. If we could truly get the inactive active, there is a £53.3 billion prize to be had for this nation. To expand on that, in light of the incredibly worrying mental health stats, what are the Government doing to address that most significant of issues? I highlight the work of great organisations, not least YoungMinds, in that area.

In a sense, all education needs to be character education, because it is character which will pull people through. As in sport, it is about getting that sense of self-belief, self-discipline and self-worth—to consider that anything could be your destiny. Yes, we need literacy and numeracy, and yes we need digital literacy, but we need character education throughout every element and all around the curriculum, including in sport, art and music—stuff that touches our hearts and souls as well as our minds.

I end where I began. Few subjects could be more significant and more profound, and have more of an impact on the individual and, through that, on our society and, yes, on our economy—again, these things are not mutually exclusive. I conclude with the words of perhaps one of our greatest Britons:

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings”.

Through government policy, through leadership and through the work of hundreds of thousands of people up and down this country working in sport—through all of that and more—let underlings be gone. Let us unleash the potential and address that most significant of issues: talent is everywhere, while opportunity is not.