Water Safety

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes. Those are all valuable life skills. If I had to choose an overriding priority, I would choose water safety education and survival skills.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for what she said earlier about the work of the Royal Life Saving Society UK and its visit to the House. Does she agree that, ahead of the summer months, Members in all parts of the House have a unique opportunity to promote the drowning prevention message to young people in particular? Is that not something that we can all do together now, in the short term?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes, I do agree. I should like to think that, following the debate, an all-party parliamentary group could be set up. Perhaps it could be led by the hon. Gentleman, who showed such great leadership in organising today’s event in which the RLSS highlighted the importance of life-saving. I can think of no better gentleman to chair such a group. I should be more than happy to be a qualifying member, as, I am sure, would other Members who are present this evening.

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the RLSS argues that water safety education should be extended, in an age-appropriate way, to key stages 3 and 4. It believes that such education should be directed at the age group that is most likely to take risks around water and get into difficulty as a result, and that parents should be notified about their children’s progress. In the context of the tightening of budgets, it also recommends that schools should consider focusing on pupils who cannot swim. I am sure that many young people would be disappointed if they were told that they could not take part because they had already got their badges, but there is some sense in doing that, as long as the competent swimmers receive good-quality provision in some other sporting activity at the same time. The RLSS also calls for Ministers to give schools a clear understanding of what is expected from them in this regard, and then to ensure that progress is inspected and reported on so that schools are accountable to parents for that progress.

The Minister may be aware of a survey by the Amateur Swimming Association which found that nearly 20% of schools, and 25% of academies, do not know their swimming attainment rates, or do not offer swimming at all. It also found that 51% of primary school children are unable to swim the minimum of 25 metres by the time they leave primary school. This concern about the decreasing priority given to swimming is echoed by Councillor Fiona Miller, who represents the Washington East ward in my constituency, where this tragedy occurred, and who is also a swimming teacher. She also reminded me that many schools used to get resources on water safety and many other things from the Youth Sport Trust, but increasing numbers of those schools are reviewing their membership of this body in light of fragmented and squeezed budgets. These figures and concerns are extremely worrying, so I hope the Minister is able to provide some figures of his own, particularly on the provision of swimming in primary academies, which are not bound by the curriculum at all.

The RLSS also calls on the Government to provide support for an annual public awareness campaign highlighting drowning risk, which would be useful for adults and children alike, as well as to ensure that there are sufficient safe places that children and young people can go—and can afford to go—to swim during the summer holidays, or indeed at evenings and weekends. I hesitate to make this point because I do not suggest for a moment that there is any causal link between the Government’s actions and any drownings, but Labour’s free swimming initiative provided such a valuable opportunity for so many young people to swim safely and to learn to swim at any time, but especially over the school holidays, and it is a great shame that it was scrapped.

There has certainly also been an increasing threat to public swimming baths as councils struggle to balance their budgets in extremely challenging times. In my constituency, campaigners found out just this week that they had been successful in lobbying to save Castle View enterprise academy’s pool, which is widely used by the whole community, including local primary schools, from having to close its doors. As savings become ever harder to make for local authorities, the future of other pools across the country will increasingly come into question, and many of them will not get the reprieve that this particular one has had, and some may have to put up prices.

I know that there was a degree of indecision at official level as to which Department was to answer this debate. The prevention of drowning accidents, and therefore of the loss of lives and serious injury, is a cross-cutting issue, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport all have a stake in this, as do their local and national partners and agencies, but, as we know, there is always a risk with cross-cutting issues that they will fall between the cracks in both Whitehall and at a local level, rather than the overlap helping to bridge those gaps. Just as in so many other areas, one of the best preventive tools that Government have at their disposal is our education system, and therefore although I admire—and, indeed, like—the Minister who is here tonight, I am disappointed that an Education Minister is not here to respond. Just as with healthy eating and lifestyles and sex and relationships education, this is an area in which we can, through education, give children and young people the skills and knowledge they will need at the very point in their lives when they will need it, as well as for when they grow up, and not just in order to pass exams or help them get into Oxbridge, but to help them lead safe and healthy and, therefore, long and happy lives.

I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on what his Department and others across Government are doing to this end, and I ask whether they will look at the very modest and sensible recommendations from the RLSS, and what further ideas and policies the Government may be convinced to explore in the near future to help to prevent another tragedy like the one that shook Sunderland last year, and which has left such a devastating gap in the lives of Tonibeth’s and Chloe’s family and friends.

As I mentioned earlier in my speech, drowning prevention week is next week. It is a great initiative usually aimed at primary schools, but this year it is being expanded to secondary schools as well. As far as that campaign will reach, however, it will not reach all schools and it will not reach all children. It would be a major, and very timely, boost for this campaign if the Minister was able to say tonight that the Government will take some of the RLSS calls for action on board, or perhaps come forward with some other proposals, so I look forward to hearing his response.