Children: Sport

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for bringing forward this important topic.

I wish to refer to a report produced by the Science and Technology Select Committee, of which I am the chairman, entitled Sports and Exercise Science and Medicine: Building on the Olympic Legacy to Improve the Nation's Health. Shortly after the coalition was formed, the DCMS document Plans for the Legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games said that the Games would,

“increase grass roots participation, particularly by young people”.

DCMS’s own figures show that participation in sport by children has declined since the Olympics, with three-quarters of all children under the age of 10 saying that the Games had not inspired them to take up sport.

In the inquiry to which I referred, we anticipated that there would not be a successful legacy of the kind claimed by Ministers. Why did we reach this conclusion? Starting at the top, the then Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, told us that DCMS was not interested in promoting physical activity through sport. He said that,

“it is not a drive on the nation’s health”.

Our report concluded:

“We find it remarkable that DCMS is not concerned with the health benefits of sport … We recommend that the Government take a strong, joined-up approach to promoting the health benefits of exercise and physical activity”.

Other noble Lords have also referred to the need for a joined-up approach.

In their response, the Government rejected our assertion and listed several initiatives, including the £150 million School Games programme, Change4Life, school sports clubs and the youth sports strategy, which have also been referred to by other noble Lords. All of that is overseen by the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Public Health. What mechanisms are in place to assess the impact of these programmes; and what is the Minister’s assessment of their success to date in engaging young children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, in sport?

The Select Committee was also struck by the lack of awareness of health professionals of physical activity guidelines. One survey, recently carried out at the time of our report in 2012, of 48 London GP practices found that not one practice was aware of the latest government physical activity guidelines. In their response, the Government agreed that healthcare professionals should be aware of the benefits of physical activity and said that they were committed to dissemination of the UK Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines. Has the Minister any evidence that awareness among health professionals of the benefits of physical activity is increasing?

In our inquiry, we discovered that although the link between physical activity and health is well established, rather little is known about why exercise has such a wide range of health benefits. Improving this knowledge would help us to improve the health of the nation.

There is no doubt that encouraging young children to take up sport and exercise will enrich their lives and improve their health. Our inquiry showed that there are real gaps in the Government’s plans to realise these benefits.