Special Olympics

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I am pleased to be speaking under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) on securing this important debate. I acknowledge, too, the presence and contribution of the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jon Ashworth), who also takes an interest in the subject.

It goes without saying that I am delighted to begin by congratulating all the participants in the 2011 Special Olympics world summer games, which finished on Monday in Athens. As my hon. Friend pointed out, there was an outstanding performance by the Great Britain Special Olympics team, who won 187 medals—72 gold, 63 silver and 52 bronze; it is worth repeating that. It was not in my notes to congratulate Coca-Cola, but I will follow the lead of my hon. Friend and pay tribute to it for sponsoring the Special Olympics and helping to make them such an outstanding success.

We are rightly proud of the team’s fantastic achievement in Athens, and it is clear that every competitor did their best. I will not comment on my hon. Friend’s athletic prowess, but I can guarantee that if I were to compete in a cycle race, I would not finish fourth; I would probably finish last. Some Special Olympians had the chance to visit the Prime Minister at No. 10 before leaving for the games, and I am sure that there was an equally warm welcome for all the competitors, and the people who have supported them in Greece, when they arrived back at Heathrow yesterday.

It is worth spending half an hour of parliamentary time acknowledging the success and work of the competitors. By calling this debate, my hon. Friend will have further boosted the pride of the competitors and their parents, families and friends, and for that alone he must be congratulated. He has been a supporter of the Special Olympics movement for many years, going back to the time when he was an MEP. He knows better than most about the many years of work that have gone into the success of team GB in this year’s Special Olympics.

Special Olympics Great Britain was formed to offer a lifetime of learning through sport. Even though we should celebrate its most recent achievements, it is also right that we recognise the many benefits that the Special Olympics bring to individuals of all ages and ability levels every day, from those with low motor abilities to the most highly skilled athletes. By bringing together coaches and volunteers to provide sports training and competition for children and adults with learning disabilities, regardless of their ability, Special Olympics GB not only reaches out to those who participate, but brings their families, friends and volunteers closer to sport, too.

With such excellent credentials, I can understand why my hon. Friend asks what the Government are doing to support Special Olympics GB, and to help make its good work go further. My Department and this Government support its work and will continue to do so. I will certainly use my good offices to ensure that he gets the meetings that he needs to increase awareness of Special Olympics GB in government, and to get any support that he feels is necessary for this important part of British sport.

As my hon. Friend knows, Sport England’s aim is to grow and sustain participation in grass-roots sport. Central to its work is the £480 million it invests directly through the 46 national governing bodies of sport. Disability provision is woven into the work of the national governing bodies, so part of that investment will contribute to increasing disability participation in sport. The approach is entirely inclusive and looks to offer opportunities for everyone to participate in sport, regardless of their gender, disability or ethnic background. Sports are tailored to meet the specific needs of those groups of people, so they are not separated out from other participants, and that helps to increase accessibility.

To help build capacity and expertise in disability sport, Sport England and the national governing bodies work with the English Federation of Disability Sport. As the umbrella organisation for disability sport, it has responsibility for the promotion and development of sporting opportunities for the 11 million disabled people in England, by providing expertise and advice and by bringing together eight national disability sport organisations recognised by Sport England, one of which is Special Olympics GB.

I was delighted to hear today’s announcement by Sport England—perhaps it was not unrelated to this debate—that it will, for the first time, directly fund disability sports organisations to advise, support and guide other sports bodies as they create opportunities for participation by disabled people.

To complement that core investment, Places People Play is Sport England’s mass participation legacy initiative that will bring the magic of the London games into the heart of local communities, and that includes a specific focus on disability. Furthermore, the school games will offer meaningful competitive sporting opportunities to young people with both physical and learning disabilities at every level.

A lot of work is going on in many places to help get people with disabilities, including learning disabilities, into grass-roots sport. A lot is also going on at the top-end of sport, too. When we won the right to host the Olympic and Paralympic games in London in 2012, UK Sport became clearly focused on achieving performance and medal success. That investment strategy was limited to the Olympic and Paralympic summer sports. However, the International Paralympic Committee General Assembly agreed in November 2009 to include, once again, learning disabled participants in IPC competitions, including the 2012 Paralympics. Four sports were targeted for inclusion in London 2012: athletics, rowing, swimming and table tennis.

This decision is most welcome, and we look forward to seeing our best intellectually disabled athletes competing once again at the very highest level. However, much work remains to be done by the sports themselves before the participation of learning disabled athletes can be guaranteed in London 2012. Indeed, the international governing body for rowing has decided not to take up the opportunity at this time.

UK Sport has set aside funding for learning disabled athletes in athletics, swimming and table tennis, now that that category of athlete has been readmitted to the Paralympics. The funds will be allocated to the sports, following confirmation and the outcome of the classification standards and qualification process by the international federation.

Since that decision, the International Paralympic Committee world swimming championships have taken place in Holland, and they included six events for athletes with an intellectual disability. The Great Britain team included four intellectually disabled athletes, who won four medals including two golds. I can also confirm that a number of intellectually disabled swimmers are already in receipt of public funding through UK Sport’s world class programme to assist them in their preparations for London 2012. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that those are very positive developments.

We fought very hard to get a good settlement for sport in the comprehensive spending review. We did well, and in a highly challenging economic climate, we have been able to go a long way to protect the central funding streams that we believe add genuine value to the sports sector and the people that it serves. However, there will be financial constraints on our ambitions, and we will have to consider creative solutions to difficult problems. For example, our changes to national lottery funding have helped to release more funds for sport of every kind.

It is also important to recognise that there are a number of competing priorities for sport funding. The latest figures on participation show that far too many of us do no sport at all and those of us who do participate do not do enough sport. That is a fundamental problem, and we need to solve it. Of course, we need to take a proportionate approach, but we also need to prioritise, so Special Olympics GB must be considered alongside priorities for disability sport and sport more widely.

That is not to say that there are not opportunities that we should consider. As I indicated earlier and as my hon. Friend called for, my Department can consider having closer collaboration with the Department of Health and the Department for Education. We also need to look closely at the evidence. Sport England’s active people survey measures participation in sport, but a breakdown of disability by type was only included in the survey from October last year. We should be able to examine the evidence more fully by December this year.

When my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and the Olympics met Karen Wallin, the chief executive of Special Olympics GB, earlier this year they had a very positive discussion. In particular, they covered the lessons that had been learned from the Special Olympics GB national summer games that, as we have heard, were held in Leicester in 2009. My hon. Friend hopes to attend the launch of the report about those games, and I know that he will give the same message that I give here: there is more to do and we will keep working with Special Olympics GB to try to do it. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry will also follow developments closely.

In the meantime, once again, I pay tribute to the fantastic performance of the competitors and volunteers in Athens, and I congratulate Special Olympics GB on its excellent work.

Question put and agreed to.