Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Committee

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, 10 years ago in your Lordships’ House, the day after London was shortlisted by the International Olympic Committee as one of the bidding cities for the 2012 Olympic Games, I tabled a Motion for debate to call attention to the progress of the London 2012 Olympic bid. Our prospects were not good. The IOC may have shortlisted us, but we lay eighth out of nine cities, behind Madrid and Paris and even Leipzig, Moscow and Havana. The demonstration of all-party support that day was as important to the success of the bid as I believe it is important to the success of the sporting legacy. This House has continued to play a significant role and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harris, the Select Committee and the clerks on their work. The report holds out real hope that an urban regeneration programme can deliver an outstanding and lasting legacy for east London. If it does, it will be due in no small part to the foresight and skills of the Olympic Delivery Authority chairman, Sir John Armitt, the chief executive, David Higgins, and the senior management team, including outstanding contributions from Dennis Hone and Alison Nimmo.

Olympic glory represents the pinnacle of sporting achievement. Its attainment requires a partnership between the highly talented athletes who compete and a national sporting infrastructure that allows them to rise to the top because of it rather than in spite of it. As chairman of the British Olympic Association which was tasked with selecting, leading and managing Team GB for the Games in Beijing and London, it is my firm belief that Olympic success requires a dynamic, vibrant, positive and inclusive approach that reaches up from the grass roots of primary schools and after-school clubs to the very pinnacle of elite performance.

As the report concluded, the true sports legacy of London 2012 will come through the protection of playing fields and facilities, quality PE teachers, first-rate coaches, enthused volunteers and the transformation of sport in our schools. London 2012 was the opportunity to provide the inspiration to generate a step change in the provision of school sport. However, as we discovered during the work of the Select Committee, very sadly, it has barely touched the sides and has left a generation uncertain and at the centre of an increasingly sterile debate over the success or otherwise of school sports partnerships. If every school had a trained PE teacher, a programme of building relationships with professional and voluntary clubs, a strong competition framework, and a supportive head backed by parents and local clubs, there is no reason why school sport should not succeed in this country, as it does in all leading sports nations.

We need to meet the goal set out by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, following his attendance at the closing ceremony in Beijing, to extend the time pupils participate in sport from two to five hours a week, if necessary by a longer school day, and set a date by which we intend to deliver this objective. Such a policy would pay for itself many times over in educational and health benefits for young people, particularly by addressing the challenge of obesity and inactivity. Physical education should be an entitlement for all children and young people, and the keystone of a sustainable sports legacy. Our attitude to sport and its role in our lives is formed in childhood and in school sport. We need to deliver physical literacy and to recognise the social policy benefits of sport in our communities. Sport is the great social worker.

According to afPE, at least 40% of all newly qualified primary school teachers receive six hours or less preparation to teach physical education out of the totality of their training. That requires a response which goes far beyond the nominal pilot projects which have been commissioned by government and were mentioned to us in evidence. A nationwide approach to finding a solution is essential, and the Department of Health should be central to this campaign, not on the fringes.

Although we heard that many of the activities organised around the School Games have been fun, the four pathway levels are not functioning as effectively as we would like. It is a little-appreciated fact that no school competes at national level; young people represent the region in which they live. Thus it is impossible to capitalise on the loyalty between pupils and their schools which inspires success. These are not the School Games—they are the School-Age Games. With the level of funding involved, the governing bodies of sport, which in many cases have run inter-school competitions at local, regional and national level for more than a century, could transform the landscape for far more children, in far more sports, to a much higher level of attainment than has been achieved.

The Government have argued that there has been an increase in participation. In winding up, I would be grateful if my noble friend could confirm once and for all the position regarding participation levels in sport. My noble friend Lord Coe, in his evidence, talked of 1.5 million more people playing sport—but since 2005, he added. That 1.5 million comes against a background of a 4 million increase in population, the majority of whom are economically active or students. As such, the figure represents a decrease in participation among the overall population, and yet an increase was fundamental to the sports legacy that was set at the time we bid for the Games.

According to the breakdown by sport, there are six major professional sports in the UK, and the London Olympic Games regrettably had negligible impact on their activities. In order of economic impact they were: football, horseracing, tennis, cricket, rugby union and rugby league. In terms of participation, tennis moves above horseracing, but the list remains otherwise unchanged. Golf is the only other professional sport that has mass participation in the UK, and there is no evidence that this was impacted by London 2012.

Let us focus on the 26 summer Olympic sports and what they gained in the London 2012 process, bearing in mind that professional sports occupy more than 95% of the media coverage during an Olympic quadrennium. Of the sports I have mentioned, only football and tennis were Olympic sports in London, and participation in tennis, as the noble Baroness mentioned, has actually dropped since the Games, despite Team GB winning a gold and silver medal in the event. The two sports showing an upturn are swimming and cycling. Cycling has done so for a complex set of reasons, both Olympic and non-Olympic, including Team Sky and the remarkable success in the Tour de France, while swimming has recently been penalised heavily at the elite level by UK Sport.

As Hugh Robertson, Minister for the Olympics and one of the best Sports Ministers this county has seen, stated:

“We have held an Olympics which surpassed expectations; it has produced an amazing stimulus, and a new generation of sporting heroes. However anybody who remotely pretends it will be easy to increase general participation in sport is kidding themselves”.

It may not be easy. It will require a comprehensive overhaul of sports policy and a move to empower the governing bodies of sports, but it is essential that we reverse the current trend and not lose the requirement for an Olympic sports legacy by kicking it into the long grass and placing it in an arbitrary 20-year plan.

The National Lottery, introduced by Sir John Major in 1995, revolutionised funding, as my noble friend mentioned. At the top of the pyramid, the Select Committee reviewed the so-called “No Compromise” philosophy of the Government-appointed UK Sport—which is, incidentally, still without athlete representation on its board. Even UK Sport has never dared to echo the Government’s response to our report:

“UK Sport’s ‘No Compromise’ philosophy has taken the GB Olympic team from 36th in the medal table in Atlanta 1996 to 3rd in London in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games”.

It is not the “No Compromise” approach that wins medals, but outstandingly talented able-bodied and disabled athletes, superb coaches from around the world, world-beating support systems and world-leading performance directors—all supported and led by the governing bodies and not run by UK Sport. The money from lottery players, channelled through UK Sport, is of course absolutely invaluable as a platform, but money does not guarantee a suite of medals. If it did, the results in swimming would have been very different. We have to empower the governing bodies to deliver the performance pathways at all levels: child, junior, senior and Olympic. It is performance pathways, not funding based on previously won medals—after which, incidentally, many of the athletes then retire—which should drive funding.

So far, the pursuit of the “No Compromise” approach has seen the demise of any chance of a sports legacy for synchronised swimming, handball, water polo, weightlifting and the full basketball programme—all of which have had their funding completely withdrawn by UK Sport. Volleyball is also down, by 90%. Are your Lordships and David Walsh the only independent campaigning voices for Olympic sport left? It is surely wrong as well for UK Sport to take the position that, as it stated in its evidence:

“We have no plans to review this approach as we have no wish to give other nations a competitive advantage over Team GB”.

John Coates, vice-president of the IOC and mastermind of Australia’s Olympic success over the years, demonstrated in his evidence that he fully understands every aspect of the “No Compromise” approach.

Furthermore, it is very unwise for anyone in government, of whichever political party, UK Sport and the ultra-secret work of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Olympic and Paralympic Legacy to talk of exceeding the 29 gold medals won in London when we go to Rio —even when you include the new sports of rugby sevens and golf—before you know who you have selected and who you are competing against and, on top of that, not to take into account the home advantage we had, with Team GB supported by a nation of patriotic sports fans galvanised across the United Kingdom. Aspirations are fine, but medal projections are for the bookies, not for serious politicians and sports administrators. Sir Clive Woodward’s evidence about the cuts to Olympic sports and the impact on the future performance of Team GB was impressive in this context.

At stake in this report is the provision of a genuine, far-reaching and enriching sports legacy for this country: one which fundamentally transforms the expectations, aspirations and very lifestyles of future generations of children and adults alike. This was an outstanding report, the best on the subject from inside or outside Parliament. It allows us to have a defining moment in time, when we can revolutionise our sporting life—if we have the collective vision, courage and determination to do so.

Sadly, after a brilliant Games and with such potential for the regeneration of the urban legacy, precious little progress has been made on the sports front over the past two years. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, this is deeply disappointing. We need determined leadership, strong independent voices, and members of the Cabinet sub-committee out on the road, not closeted in secrecy. We need commitment and attention to detail, not the generalities of long-term aspirations for the next 10 or 20 years of sport. We need action now, not in the distant future. We owe it to the British Olympians who made the Games great. Above all, we owe it to the athletes of tomorrow and the young people of today.