Water Safety Education

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

Let me pay tribute to the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for leading this important debate and for doing such a good job in setting out all the different issues at stake. Although he covered a huge amount of ground in his opening statement, we also heard some excellent speeches from across the House, with everyone adding important points.

We have had excellent speeches from the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), and the hon. Members for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan), for Bolton West (Phil Brickell), and for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin). Various points will stay with me. My hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) raised the hugely important issue of safety on ice and the terrible, terrible case involving his young constituents.

The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) caught my attention with her description of the Barbados of south London, which I very much enjoyed. I also strongly agreed with her tribute to water safety groups. My hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) talked about the terrible case of Emily Lewis and the issue of safety on boats, which is a crucial part of this debate. The hon. Member for West Ham and Beckton (James Asser) raised the issue of those old Central Office of Information films that have stayed with all of us, particularly the chilling “The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water”, which we all seem to have seen. The hon. Member for Bangor Aberconwy (Claire Hughes) then brought us bang up to date by talking about what social media could do in this space. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) made the crucial point about the importance of not drinking and swimming, and the critical dangers there.

The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) reminded us of the benefits of being able to swim outside, yet there are certain places in which it is just not safe to swim. A number of other Members made the point that, in a more transient society, not everyone knows where those places are any more. The hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) made a powerful speech, talking not just about Sam and his father, but about his private Member’s Bill, the Water Safety Bill.

We also had a really interesting contribution from the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell), who has a beautiful constituency, which I associate with seaside holidays as a child—and as an adult. A surprising fact in her speech was that this subject is not on the curriculum in Scotland, which seems like an obvious first step. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) talked about the awful case of the missing child in his constituency. We of course hope for the best for that family.

I will turn in a moment to talk about some of the things that the previous Government did. I do so not to say that everything is wonderful, because of course it is not, but because I thought that it might be a way of prompting further reflections on what more we could do to go further. As has already been mentioned, it was the previous Government who updated the national curriculum in 2013 to add swimming and water safety education. It is surprising that it was so late. That was where we got this rule that pupils should be taught to swim at least 25 metres.

A few people have talked about facilities. The previous Government announced the first £10 million and then £57 million to open up access to pools in schools, as it is obviously very sad to see good facilities not being used after school hours. We enabled 220 schools to open up their pools more than they had been doing, and we want to do more of that.

We worked together with some brilliant organisations in the National Water Safety Forum, including the RNLI, Swim England, the Royal Life Saving Society and many more. We have heard from a number of Members about important local and individual campaigns that can be so powerful, and I pay tribute to all the people involved in those.

I was involved in using the sugar tax to create and then expand the PE and sport premium, which has provided more funding for PE lessons in schools. In 2017, we doubled the funding that primary schools received to improve the quality of their PE and sport provision, including water education—it went up from £160 million to £320 million. However, there is still much more to be done, because about a third of adults—about 14 million people—still cannot swim. I must pay tribute to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) for leading by example and learning to swim as an adult—good on her for doing that.

All of us are affected by these hugely important issues. Members might think that since my constituency is as far away from the sea as it could be, the main risk is normally people with metal detectors fishing in the canal and constantly fishing out hand grenades, but water safety is relevant everywhere. Just at Christmas a one-year-old girl was rescued from the River Welland.

This has been an important debate. We welcome the Government’s decision to look carefully at what can be done to build on the existing statutory guidance and update it. We have heard excellent contributions from Members on both sides of the House, and I look forward to the Minister’s comments.