Water Safety

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

It is an unexpected pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, but a pleasure none the less. I pay tribute to the Chair of the Petitions Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). The beauty of the Petition Committee is that it often brings to the House stories and issues that are sadly hidden under the headlines of the day. Yesterday, she chaired an evidence session with people who have been directly affected by this issue, and I think she did a fantastic job of conveying not only the breadth and depth of the policy challenges that we face, but the emotion and passion that the parents and families of affected people expressed to her yesterday. We all benefited from that.

Beneath the headlines are deeply personal issues that often result in loss, grief and tragedy. The debate covers one of those issues. The challenges that people face do not always fall into a neat policy box or splash on the front pages, but they matter. On issues such as the ones we are discussing, there are even questions of life and death. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Petitions Committee for giving voice to challenges on water safety.

I express my sincere condolences to Dylan Ramsay’s family, who set up the petition. Their courage has taken tragedy and channelled it into a positive campaign for change so that no others suffer as they have suffered. As the author of the petition writes:

“It will soon be the 10-year anniversary of Dylan’s death. I never want you to feel the pain I do.”

I am sure that all parties in the House would agree that no parent should have to experience that pain at all, yet all too often, they do.

According to the National Education Union, approximately half the people who drown each year are under the age of 15. Whether that is down to youth, inexperience or something else entirely, it means that mums, dads, brothers and sisters are grieving when they should be watching their family member grow and thrive. Those statistics speak for themselves, and they demand action.

There are two aspects to this challenge. First, how adequate is our school curriculum? Dylan’s family argue that the curriculum must properly prepare our children for the dangers of open water, and the Labour party agrees. If we do not teach kids how to keep themselves safe in water, from cold-water shock to rip currents, how can we expose them to so much risk when they explore the water alone? We expect drivers to learn theory to keep themselves and others safe on the roads. Given the clear risk posed by open waters, it is unclear why swimming should be any different.

I represent a constituency in the city of Brighton and Hove. It is a waterfront constituency like the Minister’s, which is, in fact, the constituency I grew up in and know well. I spent a lot of time in the water there as a child and young person. I experienced tragedy earlier this year when Gareth Jones, a volunteer for my local party and somebody I called a friend, lost his life to the sea in January. At 69, he was an older person, but his family was robbed of a very loving family member. It is very interesting that his son Robbie, a young person, said recently to the press:

“I grew up in Brighton from the age of eight, and I’ve never been taught about the dangers of the sea and different tides.”

Those are the dangers to which his father was lost, and of which he, as a son and young person, is now all too aware.

In the city of Brighton and Hove, which enjoys all sorts of sea activity—sometimes, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) mentioned, people go in after a drink or two—we are very aware of these issues. However, young people in particular who are growing up locally should be far more aware not just of the benefits of exercise at sea but of the challenges that come with it.

The Government point out in response to today’s petition that water safety is a mandatory part of the curriculum for physical education at primary school. However, if the proportion of young people dying at sea is so high, the current requirements cannot be working well enough. Perhaps, as the NEU suggests, teachers are not being properly supported to deliver the teaching in such a specialised and life-critical discipline; perhaps provision of high-quality water safety lessons is variable across the country; or perhaps the existing requirements simply do not go far enough. In any of these scenarios, the Government must be more open to reform than they have been to date. They cannot pretend that the problem no longer exists simply because of a basic curriculum requirement.

The second dimension is the problem that relates to swimming ability. The all-party parliamentary group on swimming points out that, even before covid, almost one in four children could not swim the statutory 25 metres when they left primary school. This situation has only been exacerbated by the pandemic, as 1.88 million children have missed out on swimming participation throughout the 2020-21 academic year, with classrooms and swimming centres being shut to limit the spread of the virus. The implications are shocking. The APPG suggests that, without additional top-up lessons, up to 1.2 million children will leave primary school over the next five years entirely unable to swim.

If young people are not confident with the theory of water safety and over a million of them are not even able to swim, we are risking far more of the terrible incidents that we continue to see year upon year. I am sure that the ambition to tackle this problem is shared across the House, but I have to ask the Minister for more action. The Government’s educational catch-up proposals featured nothing on extracurricular activities or wellbeing. Labour is committed to this issue. Our own children’s recovery plan promised to invest in activities for sport, music, drama and book clubs, helping every child to recover on learning, social play and wellbeing. Our plan would ensure that schools have the time and resources to offer proper water safety lessons, pending a review of curriculum adequacy. What is more, it would give kids more time back in the pool, including after school. Labour wants our kids to learn and grow in the water under proper supervision, so that that figure of 1.2 million can be tackled properly.

The authors of this petition have identified a clear problem, and Members from across the House and the APPG on swimming have suggested solutions. Now it is time for the Government to listen and to act, because the safety of our kids at sea cannot wait any longer.