Children: Competitive Sport

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, on securing this debate and warmly welcome the maiden speech by my noble friend Lord Allen of Kensington and his welcome attention to volunteers in the world of sport, without whom, of course, much of what we enjoy in sport today in the UK would not be there. As my noble friend Lord Hoyle said, he clearly has a lot to offer the House and we look forward to hearing from him in future.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, despite the title, most noble Lords who have spoken in this rather excellent debate have challenged the binary assumption of the title and drawn attention to the need to think much more widely about the question of how we locate competitive sport within sport in the context of other issues, such as the problems with obesity in the population; issues about body image, which affect boys and girls; the role of physical literacy, which is important across many ways in which we engage with the world; and the role of elite sports men and women in our society, possibly in combination with the way in which the media relate to them.

As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, the situation that we face at the moment is pretty dire because we have not achieved the aspirations that we all had when we engaged with the Olympics. Indeed, the situation has got worse since the end of the previous Government. In 2009-10, more than 90% of pupils were taking part in two hours of PE and school sport a week, up from an estimated 25% in 2002. In competitive sport, 78% of pupils—77% of girls and 79% of boys—took part in intraschool competitive activities. In 2009-10, 49% of pupils took part in interschool competitive sport; again, up significantly. That was a reasonable starting point and it was largely down to the success of school sport partnerships, which have not been mentioned much today but were a notable feature of the past decade or so, which increased participation for both men and women and did not pose the question of whether it was competitive or encouraging participation—it was both.

Recent research has shown a 60% decline in the number of schools involved in organising school sport partnerships, and that is to be regretted. We now read in the papers that more than half of children fail to get at least two hours of physical education every week. The Education Select Committee published a report in July that criticised the Government’s approach to school sport, saying:

“There is clear evidence that the ending of the school sport partnerships funding has had a negative impact, including on the opportunities for young people to access competitive sporting opportunities in school”.

I would like the Minister to reflect on what we were told in 2011 by the then Secretary of State, Mr Jeremy Hunt, who said that he was,

“banishing once and for all the left-wing orthodoxy that promotes ‘prizes for all’ and derides competition”,

and that he could sum up the Government’s sports policy in three words: more competitive sport. Is that really the answer? Does it not need, as we have heard, a more nuanced response, from local authorities, schools, health and education, all working together? I would be grateful if the Minister could answer that question.