Olympics and Paralympics (Funding)

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. She is well known for having a way with words, and today is no exception.

The Olympic torch relay represents peace, unity and friendship, as the flame is passed from one torch bearer to another. The torch relay in 2012 will give everyone in the UK the chance to be part of this historic occasion. The torch will go to almost every corner of the UK. LOCOG has achieved its ambition of taking the flame to within an hour’s journey of 95% of the population. We should applaud and congratulate it in achieving that endeavour.

The torch and the relay are not innovations. They were important elements of the cultural festivals surrounding the Olympic games of ancient Greece and they are just as important to us in 2012. The torch relay will spread the excitement of the games across the UK and mark the final countdown to the games.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Lord Bates, who has just completed his Olympic walk from Greece to London to raise awareness for the Olympic pledge of peace that will hopefully reign when the Olympics take place?

[Amber Rudd]

I am delighted to join those congratulations. It is always encouraging and exciting when there are new initiatives to draw attention to the Olympics.

Traditionally during the games, a sacred flame burned continually on the altar of the goddess Hera. In addition, heralds were summoned to travel throughout Greece to announce the games, declaring a sacred truce for their duration. Our heralds in 2012 will be 8,000 inspirational people, who have been nominated by their local communities to have their moment to shine. I am sure that many Members have been involved in nominating torch bearers. The focus will be on the nation’s youth, with a large percentage of the torch bearers being 18 years old or under. Even today, a precise ritual for the lighting of the flame is followed at every games. It is lit from the sun’s rays at the temple of Hera in Olypmia in a traditional ceremony among the ruins of the home of the ancient games.

On looking back at the torch relays over the years, one appreciates how important the Olympic torch has been. In the modern games, the Olympic flame represents the positive values that man has always associated with fire. The purity of the flame is guaranteed by the way that it is lit using the sun’s rays. When the UK hosted the games in 1948, the torch delivered a welcome message of peace in a Europe sorely afflicted by the aftermath of the war.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate. Members will have to forgive me if, rather than delivering a wide-ranging speech, I concentrate on the specific issue of the Paralympics. They have featured here and there in the debate so far, but not as much I should have liked. It is a bit difficult to separate them from the Olympics, because only one Olympic venue, Eton Manor, has been booked separately—for the wheelchair tennis event—at a cost of £2 million. However, I think it crucial, when we talk about the Olympic legacy, for us to consider the benefits of the Paralympics as well.

I remember Euro 96. I will not try to sing the theme tune, but it contained the words “Football’s coming home”. Indeed it was, and in 2012 the Paralympics are coming home. It was in 1948 that the noted neurologist Dr Ludwig Guttmann first used his expertise in spinal cord rehabilitation for wounded servicemen. He organised a competition between different hospitals and sports clubs at the same time as the London Olympics, and the Paralympics emerged from that. When I was doing my research for the debate, I was surprised to learn that as recently as 1984 the Paralympics were taking place, half in New York and half in London, while the Olympics were taking place in Los Angeles. We have come a long, long way very quickly, and 2012 in London will of course be of a vastly different order of magnitude from what happened in 1948.

Early in the debate we heard a few intimations of concern about the possibility that not everyone in the country was fully imbued with the Olympic spirit. It was thought, for instance, that the games might be considered rather costly. I ask all who have doubts to try to fix their minds on the fact that for a few weeks this summer the entire nation will be transfixed, and not just by the spectacle of sporting prowess. Plenty of us are intimately acquainted with the rules applying to various minority sports, but many more people will be interested in the human dimension represented by people such as Tom Daley and Baroness Grey-Thompson, who face challenges all of which will be relevant and interesting to those who are watching their televisions during this sporting festival.

The last Paralympics event, in Beijing, was an unparalleled success for the United Kingdom. I do not think we celebrate often enough the fact that we came second in the medals table, and out-performed the UK main Olympics team. There were some inspirational individual performances. Young Ellie Simmonds was only 13 when she won a gold medal, and in Blackpool we were able to celebrate the achievement of our multi-medal-winning wheelchair athlete Shelly Woods. We all praise the cycling team in Beijing, but the Paralympic cycling team won 17 out of 31 gold medals, believe it or not. That almost puts the main Olympic team to shame, although they did just as well. We should regard the Paralympics as a fantastic opportunity to put out some positive news stories about the abilities, skills and triumphs of disabled people more generally. At a time when some in the third sector seem to be busy trying to narrow our horizons, I believe that this year’s Paralympics will offer us a chance to give people a vision of the future.

Numerous Members have said today, “I am not an athlete,” or, “I have no athletic prowess at all.” It may surprise Members to learn that I have a track record in disability sport. I have competed at national junior level in dressage with the Riding for the Disabled Association. Indeed, at the age of about 12 I was entered in two classes in the national dressage championships at Stoneleigh. I was thrilled to be able to perform. I came last and next to last, which I thought was a wonderful achievement, so when I hear athletes saying, “It’s an honour just to be here,” and, “I feel I’ve achieved something,” I sympathise with them. More importantly perhaps, that experience taught me the lesson of the school of hard knocks; it taught me that success is not guaranteed and that failure is something we all have to deal with in life. It also gave me confidence. I had to go along there every week, often so unwillingly that my mother would have to drag me into the car saying, “You will go, whether you like it or not.” I was not always keen to go; I was a teenager and, like many other teenagers, I was grumpy. Yet I went along and it gave me confidence.

It also showed me how much commitment so many families put into enabling their children to benefit from sport. At Lymm riding centre we had young people with Down’s syndrome and many with muscular dystrophy. I saw the immense amount of care and effort that families put into such children, and it was awe-inspiring.

Now, as MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, I see similar things on the ground in my constituency. Christine Anderson from Thornton-Cleveleys has, just in the past year, set up a wheelchair sports club called the Cheetahs. Out of nothing, she has managed to generate passionate enthusiasm among a core group of parents. They have dragged in Paralympians and sponsorship from here, there and everywhere, and they have even got me playing wheelchair basketball. I had no idea it was such a violent and frightening experience. My hands were bleeding by the end; it was not pleasant. I have also seen how sport can inspire people who might otherwise be at the margins of society. As my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) said, they may not feel as if they could play a role in society, but through participating in sports they can start to do so.

There are other organisations like the Cheetahs in my constituency, and they do fantastic work. Just down the road from where I live is Moor Park swimming pool, where Blackpool Polar Bears engage in all sorts of aquatic sports. My local Sainsbury’s has been supporting it as its charity of choice for the past year. Many other such organisations are based at Blackpool leisure centre in Stanley park.

Young people with disabilities across Blackpool and the wider Fylde coast area will be inspired by what they see on their television screens day after day this year. In the coming months they will be able to see people with disabilities performing at the highest levels and achieving in ways that are, perhaps, more meaningful than winning “The X Factor”, which represents the avenue of choice for so many youngsters these days: they think they can win fame and fortune.

In common with my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), I did some research ahead of this debate. I read the report of the Minister’s evidence session, for instance. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) suggested that when the Minister next talks to the BBC he should raise the idea of getting details of local provision to flash up whenever viewers press their red button. The Minister might have had that conversation with the BBC by now, and I also urge him to raise the idea with Channel 4, so we can ensure that viewers of the Paralympics have as much access to that information as Olympics viewers.

I commend Parasport. Its website enables people to discover the sports to which they might be best suited. In the international Paralympic classification, I qualify as CP8, which is “impaired, yet fully standing”—and given that I currently have a cracked rib and find sitting down uncomfortable, it is especially true today that I am “impaired, yet fully standing”. Through the Parasport website I discovered that as someone classified as CP8 I might be particularly suited to Nordic skiing, so the Whips Office may want to prepare for some requests to miss votes in the coming weeks. I have no idea how I might do at Nordic skiing, but I can try.

Legacy has been discussed a lot, but I sometimes get concerned that we focus too much on physical infrastructure and on who will take control of facilities after the games and what will happen to the buildings, because I believe that the legacy in cultural attitudes to sport and to disabled people more widely is more important. Recently there have been some negative images of disabled people, and it is said that there has been an increase in disability hate crime. I therefore hope that in the coming months we will see more positive images of disabled people—of them achieving things and having powerful life stories to tell—and that that will help to reverse that trend.

I am chair of the all-party group on young disabled people. We have been looking at the suitability of venues such as leisure centres, in the hope that we can enable more disabled young people to get involved in sport. We found that, for instance, many community swimming pools do not have the necessary hoists or ramps to allow children who use wheelchairs to get into the pool and get swimming. Young disabled people are sometimes unable to access hydrotherapy sessions, too. I therefore welcome the “places people play” fund. It has made a great difference in many constituencies. I cannot yet find an example in my constituency—the nearest is half a mile outside it—but I shall keep trying.

I also welcome the youth and community sport strategy, which was launched in January. I hope that some of the £1 billion will trickle down to local and constituency level, and in particular to the disability sports clubs that are being set up and the many special schools that are trying to develop a sporting aspect to their provision. I welcome the recommendation that schools should be able both to use their facilities throughout the year and to link with community sports clubs. Special schools must also be included in that.

I also want to pay tribute to an event that is not taking place in London: the Special Olympics. They are for people with an intellectual disability, whereas the Paralympics are aimed more at those with physical disabilities. In London there will be some participants with an intellectual disability, but nowhere near as many as I would like. Those who know their Olympic history will be aware that there was an unfortunate experience in 2000. One team was found not to be as intellectually disabled as it claimed to be, and that has queered the pitch somewhat. I am glad that those with intellectual disabilities have been brought back into the Olympic tent. I also commend the Special Olympics for trying to secure health care for those with an intellectual disability. The Special Olympics does not just organise a sporting event; it also campaigns on public health messages.

There is a website that encapsulates all the points I have been trying to make. It is called www.encourage omar.co.uk. Young Omar Haddad is from Widnes in Cheshire. He is a Special Olympics gymnast who won five gold and three bronze medals in Athens last year. His website is a participatory website. In order to watch Omar’s routine, people have to show encouragement to him. There is a volume slider that must be manipulated, and if he is not given enough encouragement he goes back into the changing room; the film rewinds. If he is given enough encouragement, however, he concludes his routine and gives everyone a big smile. When I got to the end of that three-and-a-half-minute video, I began to understand the power of the Paralympics and to realise that we all must give encouragement to these disabled athletes, and that what they are doing matters to us. Their endeavours are not a sideshow that we can ignore or dismiss because they are shown on Channel 4. Instead, they are an integral part of our Olympic experience this year. If we can all give as much encouragement to Omar as we give to all the other people who are participating, I truly believe that in 2012 we will see a much brighter dawn for disability sports in this country.