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Sport in the Community

rose to call attention to the role of sport in the community; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the importance of the Motion before us is such that I am convinced it will receive in the forthcoming contributions from noble Lords the recognition due to it. Sport has a unique propensity to appeal throughout the nation, binding people together in energy, passion and pride. In my speech I intend to touch briefly on the impact of sport in the community at various levels and in various walks of life. Before I do that, however, it would seem strange to talk about this subject without acknowledging again the great achievement of the noble Lord, Lord Coe, and his team in securing the Olympic and Paralympic Games for this country in 2012. Winning the 2012 Olympics is testimony to the fact that Britain is a great sporting nation with superb facilities at the elite end. But this success does not mean that we should celebrate only the efforts of our country’s most talented athletes. It means we also have a duty to ensure that their work and achievements are used to inspire others to get up and get involved. We must make sure that access to opportunities are available to all, to benefit those who are already inspired to participate, and to act as a means of encouraging those who have either lapsed or have never been inspired to participate in sport in the first place. The Olympic success for London highlights not only the huge passion and involvement Britain has in sport at the very highest level, but will naturally shine a light on the quality of our sporting efforts at lower levels, in local communities and in schools. As much as we might hope to show how well we can host the Olympics, the importance of sport in the community cannot be overemphasised and we need to ensure that the less glamorous, less televised, and the less high-profile sporting activities which go on all across the country are not overlooked. The 2012 Olympics will no doubt foster scrutiny of the British sports system as a whole, and we should view this as a chance to deliver outstanding success in all areas of sport and make sure we can be as proud of our school and community sport as we can of our champion athletes. Winning the Olympic bid for 2012 should not be a surprise to anyone because in its sports manifesto of 1997 the incoming Labour Government promised that:"““A Labour government would provide wholehearted support to efforts to bring major international events, such as the World Cup and the Olympic Games, to this country.””" We have fulfilled one of those aims and I am sure people will also be aware of the recent announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to begin a scoping project for a potential 2018 World Cup bid. As president of the Football Foundation, I am sure that that exercise will be nothing more than a formality. The foundation’s Football Stadia Improvement Fund has ensured that we have stadia of which we can be proud throughout the country—from the heights of the premiership through to the semi-professional leagues. Once we include the forthcoming Wembley stadium, it is no idle boast to suggest that we have the facilities to make the English World Cup bid in 2018 the very best there has ever been. I am sure that every Member of this House will back that bid to the hilt. In my time as president of the Football Foundation, I have been given first-hand experience of the important role that good-quality facilities can play in the community. Stadia from the heights of Manchester United’s Old Trafford or Newcastle United’s St James’s Park, down to the more modest realm of Bower Fold at my own Stalybridge Celtic ground, are natural hubs for the community. That may seem straightforward enough but, at a time when our lives are increasingly disparate, with the public often erring towards individual needs rather than those of the community, it is important that there is a place where people can come together. Too often in the past, football and other stadia have been the preserve of young white men. Although progress has not been quite as fast as we would have hoped, I am glad to say that that is changing. I commend the work of bodies such as the FA, the RFU, the ECB and others in their attempt to attract a wider and more representative community to engage with and enjoy their sports. We have made much progress in developing sports stadia but recent years have seen something of an epiphany when it comes to their use. Gone are the days when a facility would be flooded with enthusiasm and light for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon only to remain idle for the next six days. It is clear that communities gravitate towards these places—the homes of their heroes. I congratulate clubs up and down the country which have committed to opening their stadia for a variety of community activities throughout the week. As your Lordships well know, obesity is a growing problem in our communities. The public health White Paper 2004 states:"““Voluntary sector and community organisations are often much better than the statutory sector at engaging with groups of people who face most difficulties or who do not have access to the traditional sources of advice on health””." The Central Council for Physical Recreation recognises that its members have a key role to play in promoting public health and physical activity. The CCPR has more than 300 members, comprised of voluntary sports clubs, recreational organisations and the national governing bodies of sport, so they are well placed to make that kind of statement. They recognise the value of sport in engaging people in healthy pursuits and in both creating and maintaining happy, balanced communities. The problem is clear: many of our young people lack enthusiasm and motivation, and one obvious reason for that is that they are unhealthy. Access to sedentary pastimes, which sap a person’s energy and vitality, are quite easy to come by compared with access to active pastimes. It is no surprise that that is the case. Future generations deserve better access to good sporting facilities—not simply to propel them to Olympic glory but to offer them healthier starts to their lives. We need to keep on making efforts to ensure that that happens. Fortunately, much has been done, not just with regard to health but in terms of sport being a vehicle for social inclusion, filling people’s lives with a greater sense of purpose and fostering a sense of community. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, along with Kate Hoey MP, recently produced an independent review of sports policy in the UK, which took a constructive approach to the problems that I have described. It is heartening to see that they are aware of the good practice that currently exists and just as aware that much work still needs to be done. Their contribution to the debate on sport is welcomed. Time will not allow me to highlight many more examples of the value of sport in our communities, but I certainly want to draw your Lordships’ attention to a project that I have applauded on more than one occasion in this place—Positive Futures. The project draws on Football Foundation and Home Office funding to help to overcome youth offending in the most deprived communities in the country. Thanks to this programme, tens of thousands of young people are managing to turn their lives around by engaging in sport. Positive Futures has also been working closely with SkillsActive, the sector skills council for the active leisure and learning sector, to develop new national occupational standards focused on facilitating community-based sport. That will ensure that a high standard of training is delivered to the next generation of youth and sports development officers. Their skills are essential in ensuring that the value of sport is realised in every community. It is pleasing that the Home Office has recognised this good work; it announced only yesterday that it would continue to back Positive Futures. Perhaps other noble Lords will raise that point. Should noble Lords need to be convinced any further of the impact that sport has on local communities, perhaps one of the greatest examples can be found just five miles down the road. The Mile End stadium—a stadium constructed with a whole new range of floodlit pitches for the community to use—received £1 million from the Football Foundation. Another scheme in Millwall was led by the Corporation of London—an organisation that perhaps one would not immediately imagine to be closely tied to support and partnership. With the Football Foundation, it has developed a community scheme at Millwall football ground which is first class. The Corporation of London has shown the kind of proactive approach needed to encourage people to engage with sport and to ensure that opportunities are made available to all aspects of the diverse community that it represents. Sport is not just about having an impact in urban communities. The Labour Party has been accused many times of not attending to the needs of rural communities. But a number of my colleagues, including the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, have committed to delivering a sporting future for rural communities as well. As a member of the All-Party Group on Shooting and Conservation, I express my support for shooting sports. They offer a great sporting outlet which can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of age, sex or ability. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation has worked hard to include all types of people in the sport and to shed the exclusive image which the sport has had in the past. Many noble Lords who have shared my passion on this issue will be aware of the tendency of certain outdoor sports to be rather territorial. In the past, that has caused tension and, in some cases, has led to a failure of sports to come together successfully to meet the common goal of participation. One such example is the difficulties encountered by canoeists—or paddlers, as I am told they should be called—where millions of people are denied access to many of the waterways of England and Wales. Admittedly, anglers have a strong case for protecting their right to fish in peace. However, I hope that a sensible compromise can be found so that the millions of anglers and paddlers in this country can enjoy their sports in harmony. I am sure that the British Canoe Union would welcome meaningful talks with the angling and landowning fraternities. This is an exciting time for sport, not only with the hosting of both the Olympic and Paralympic Games but with the challenges which are to be met in sport at the grass-roots level, where record amounts of funding are going into schools and communities. Much more still has to be done to extract the full value that sport has to offer in every community, and I hope that, as a nation, we will respond to the challenges ahead. I beg to move for Papers.