School Sport

Debate between Simon Hart and Gerry Sutcliffe

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Sutcliffe]

Very much so. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. He will know about the statistics on obesity in young people and about the health risks. He is right that sport is an integral part of life skills. Not everybody can be a champion, and not everybody can be elite, but we can be the best that we can be. I do not look like a healthy specimen, but my own involvement in sport through the parliamentary football team, school sport, the friends that we make through sport and the life skills that it gives us, all show that sport is an integral part of what we should be trying to achieve.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Of course, we all agree about the benefit of sport, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is about a bit more than that? It is also about getting kids out of classrooms—not necessarily on to a sports field—and into different areas of the great outdoors, which relates to the benefits that he has mentioned. That has been held up as a result of extreme regulation and red tape. Does he accept that the Government have made some progress in stripping away that red tape to get children from the classroom to the outdoors?

[Mr Sutcliffe]

I am grateful for that intervention. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s premise in terms of getting youngsters outside. School sport was fairly stereotypical in that girls played netball and hockey, boys played football, rugby and cricket, and basically that was it. The previous Government were proud—the Government’s misleading statistics come into play—of being able to widen the range of sports on offer. Mountaineering, canoeing, sailing, cycling and so on get people out into different environments. People who are not good at ball skills can get into cycling and other sports. We worked with those sports’ governing bodies to develop this framework. I am sad that that seems to be being reversed. I do not think that that is irreversible, and it can be put right.

There was a cross-party consensus to see that delivered and developed. It was only after the election in 2010 that that consensus seemed to disappear. Labour’s record was rubbished by Ministers as a justification for implementing a scorched earth policy promoted by the Secretary of State for Education, who is known to be hostile to the very concept of organised sport. The school sports partnership network, the cornerstone of school sports policy, was decimated to the astonishment of experts around the world all to save £162 million. The vast majority of that money had been spent on pupils in schools. It was seen as a world-class model and the shock throughout the sporting world was genuine. The director of community sport at the Australian Sports Commission said:

“I am absolutely devastated to hear of the cuts to the School Sport Partnership models. I am astounded that such an amazing and world-leading initiative has been lost to the communities they serviced.”

Labour’s then shadow spokesman for education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), begged the Secretary of State not to dismantle the SSP network. He even offered Labour support for a reduction in funding to SSPs, as long as the infrastructure was kept in place. I am afraid that his pleas fell on deaf ears.

Within weeks, the Government were forced into a partial U-turn because of an unprecedented backlash against their proposals—a backlash lead not just by politicians, but by Olympians, sports bodies, sports journalists and the grass-roots volunteer army. What we got was a cobbled together set of announcements that still leave the future of school sport in jeopardy. SSPs and school sports organisers have been told not to expect funding beyond August 2013. Those cuts will effectively mean an end to the infrastructure that supports the school sport network at the very time that we should be seeking to increase activity in the run-up to next year’s Olympic games and Paralympic games. What makes matters worse is that the Secretary of State has removed the need for schools to collect data on pupils’ progress. That will make it almost impossible effectively to monitor future participation rates and the effect of those cuts.

The much heralded school games, the new flagship Government policy, in actual fact already existed in the guise of the UK school games, which were supported by Sainsbury’s. The funding for the school games represents a massive 60% annual cut for school sport, which is well above the average for departmental cuts imposed as part of the austerity measures. Are we really saying that an annual competition, which is most likely to be of real value only for children at the elite end of their sport, is a replacement for a whole school sport network that improves the life chances of all children? This cobbled together funding has left school sport in disarray and left school organisers, clubs and volunteers with no idea about what will happen after 2013.

There is nothing wrong with competitive sport in schools. I speak as someone who spent a large part of my childhood, and indeed early adulthood, playing competitive sport. I completely understand the benefits of competitive sport, but competitive sport alone does not constitute a holistic Government policy towards PE in our education system. I will tell the Chamber why that is, and it goes to the heart of the problem. There is a fundamental lack of understanding about sport at the most senior levels of Government policy making. The Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport simply do not comprehend that successful participation in competitive sport can be achieved only by first mastering the basics of sport and PE. As the Youth Sport Trust has said, high quality physical education is essential for developing the necessary skills and confidence to participate effectively in competitive sport. Simply throwing all pupils into competitive sport, without first building what the Youth Sport Trust refers to as “physical literacy”, is both unfair and unrealistic, particularly in larger schools. Current Government policy, with its fixation on competitive sport at the expense of all else, is building our sporting future on sand.

What of that future? Talk to people involved in grass-roots sport—in schools, clubs, community sports networks and the national governing bodies—and they will tell you that there is deep concern and confusion. I thank the national governing bodies that have been in contact with me—rugby league, rugby union, tennis and other sports—to talk about how their sports are helping the wider environment. Our sporting volunteer army and our dedicated PE and sports staff in schools are an innovative lot. They will be looking at ways of maintaining the networks that we created over the past decade to ensure that the enormous progress that we made is not lost. In many places, they will succeed. If they do, it will be because of the enormous dedication and passion of those involved. If they succeed, it will be despite Government policy, not because of it. However, I fear that in some schools and communities, school sport will cease to be a priority. As if they did not have enough to contend with, there are threats on the near horizon that could create a perfect storm for school and youth sport.

In January 2011, the Government announced a comprehensive review of the national curriculum. The review is likely to see a slimmed down curriculum for sport in schools. Although PE is likely to be retained as a compulsory national curriculum subject, there is no guarantee that the two-hour offer, never mind the five-hour offer, will be retained. A recent review of global policy in schools showed that all the countries it looked at provided PE time targets, following this country’s lead. How sad and ironic will it be if, after leading the world on increasing children’s participation in school sport, we abandon one of the key mechanisms by which that was achieved?

The national curriculum review will not be completed until September 2012. That creates more uncertainty for all those involved in school sport. Steve Grainger, the then chief executive of the Youth Sport Trust, in response to the review, said:

“The quality and quantity of PE and school sport that is now being offered in schools has improved vastly in recent years. Ensuring it remains a vital part of the national curriculum will allow young people to continue to enjoy the many benefits that sport and physical education can bring.”

I appreciate that the review is ongoing, but will the Minister outline current coalition thinking about exactly what a “slimmed down” sports and PE curriculum would look like? What assurances can the Minister give that the slimming down of the sports and PE curriculum will not lead to the Government abandoning the two-hour commitment?

The coalition Government’s national planning policy framework will undo the protections for playing fields that the previous Labour Government put into place in 1998 and 2004. The Football Association stated, in its written evidence to the NPPF, that the proposals put

“playing fields and facilities at great risk”.

Are we going to see a return to the ’80s and ’90s, where playing fields were seen merely as development opportunities to be sold to the highest bidder? Will the Minister give a categorical assurance that measures contained in the NPPF and the Localism Act 2011 will not relax the restrictions on decommissioning school playing fields introduced by the previous Labour Government? Will he give an absolute assurance that the sale of school playing fields will be allowed only as an option of last resort?

What of the Government’s free schools policy? How will the Government meet the sports and PE offer for pupils attending free schools? How can the Government remain committed to sport and PE, if they are willing to allow free schools to open in buildings where there is no space for outdoor recreation? Will the Minister give a categorical assurance that free schools will not be exempt from providing sport and PE as part of their curriculum?

As hon. Members can gather, it is a source of great personal sadness to me to see much of the work on school sport that we did in government undone in such a brutal and senseless fashion. That has been sanctioned by people at the top of Government, who have little or no understanding of the power of sport to change lives. What has happened particularly saddens me because, during my time as Minister for Sport, there was a general cross-party consensus about sport and school sport in particular. I worked closely with the then shadow Ministers—the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) and the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson), who was my successor as Minister for Sport—to ensure that sport was not used as a political football, if hon. Members will pardon the pun. Despite their public pronouncements, I cannot imagine that either of those hon. Members is personally happy with the Government’s direction on school sport.

Next year, London will host the largest sporting event ever held in Britain. That should be a catalyst for embedding participation, commitment and aspiration into a generation of young people. However, we risk losing that opportunity because we are sending out a mixed message to young people. We tell them, “Get involved and participate,” but we are taking funding away from them and from the networks that facilitate their participation. The year before we host the Olympic and Paralympic games, we have ended the ring-fencing of sports funding for specialist sports colleges. Yet, last week, I was amazed to hear that an extra £40 million could be found for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic games, which is one quarter of the budget for school sports partnerships. What message does the Minister think that that sends out to the hundreds of SSP staff losing their jobs, to the volunteers who give their time and money, and to the pupils hoping to emulate their Olympic heroes?

As I have said, playing sport was a major part of my childhood and early adulthood, and I made many friends through sport. With the decade of sport that we have in this country—the Olympic and Paralympic games next year, the rugby league world cup in 2013, the Commonwealth games in Glasgow in 2014 and the world athletic championships in 2017—we have a wonderful opportunity. These should be inspirational times for our young people, but they will not be if we cannot develop school sport in the way that we did.

I hope that it is not too late and that Ministers will listen. I do not expect the Minister to give in completely to me this morning, but I certainly hope that he will acknowledge some of the points I have raised, that he will have discussions with his colleague, the Minister for Sport, that he will look at what is happening and that he will listen to those parents, teachers and people involved in school sports partnerships who were getting to the primary schools that, in many cases, did not have the facilities for sport. I also hope that he will listen to the young sports leaders whom I met as Minister for Sport who were going into primary schools and helping PE teachers. There is a great opportunity here. I hope that it is not lost, that the Minister listens and that we can have a sensible debate on the way forward.