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Sport in the Community

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Giddens. The noble Lord has a remarkable ability to be a master of all subjects in your Lordships’ House and speaks with such passion. I envy the fact that the noble Lord never uses notes; I shall be using my notes. I join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, for introducing us to this very important debate. Indeed, we were very lucky to come up with a draw in Faisalabad today. As every speaker has emphasised, the importance of sport in the community cannot be overstated. People might say that it is not as important as law and order, yet sport keeps many people off the streets and away from the temptations of crime. People will say that it is not as important as health, yet regular participation in sport keeps people healthy, out of hospital and in work. It is not as important as education, people will say, yet sport teaches self-discipline, teamwork, patience and a host of other qualities. It is not as important as the war on drugs, people will say, yet one of the best ways of keeping young people away from drugs is helping them and promoting them in sport. The importance of sport in community is clear, and it would be unfair to say that the Government have not recognised as much since 1997. Whether they have done enough is another matter. What has been lacking for so long, and what is still lacking, is a properly integrated approach. Within sports structures, it often seems as if—like a lowly Premiership team when the England manager is in the stands—everyone is trying to do his own thing when teamwork would probably yield greater results. I have to declare an interest as a supporter of Chelsea, which is fortunately not in the lower ranks of the Premiership. The timeless lesson of team sports—that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts—would be well learnt in the corridors of British sports politics. This point is well made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles, who I am delighted is speaking in today’s debate, even if he is not in his place at the moment, in his excellent Review of National Sport Effort & Resources, which was published in March this year. The third of his five key recommendations is,"““to improve the local delivery of sport and suggest the Government considers how it can support the co-ordination of public, private and voluntary sector investment—as well as LAs and regional bodies –in order to improve local sporting facilities””." I believe that this is the key. British sport should start playing as a team, with every stakeholder pulling in the same direction. The captain of that team, setting the strategy, has to be the Government. The lack of joined-up policy is nowhere more evident than in the delivery of community sport. Who delivers sport in the community? In part, it is private companies, which provide a variety of gyms and specialist sports centres. Yet their plans, particularly plans for large footprint, multi-sport sites, are often constrained by lengthy and costly planning applications to local authorities. In part, community sport is delivered by local authorities themselves. Yet the age of the facilities and the standard of management at public leisure centres vary considerably. Again, drawing reference to the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, the very best boroughs, such as Plymouth, generate a profit of 23p per visit from their sports centres. At the other end of the scale, the subsidy required for each leisure visit in the borough of Hackney is no less than £13. The national average is a subsidy of £1.34 per visit, which is equal to a total annual subsidy in England of half a billion pounds simply to keep the lights on at local authority sports facilities across the country. Who else delivers sport in the community? In part, it is the education sector. Yet community use of school and college facilities is being unnecessarily hampered by VAT liabilities. It is hard to accept that when sports facilities are provided by a city academy or a voluntary aided or foundation school, community use can jeopardise the possibility of zero rating. Such costs fall to the school. The risk of incurring such liabilities means that many schools are reluctant to promote community use to the extent that they otherwise would. Joined-up policy is required. The team captain—the Government—should act. These are specific issues with specific solutions that would significantly enhance the delivery of sport to communities up and down the country. I wholeheartedly support the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for the development and communication of,"““a single system for sport in the community””." It is surely the task of the Government to ensure that there is a common purpose and a shared set of performance targets from local level up through the system to government. In recent years, much has been said in your Lordships’ House and in the other place about the sale of playing fields. I welcome the fact that the rate of sales of playing fields has markedly decreased in recent years. Any sale of an asset, such as a playing field, which contributes so much to the community, seems a waste of resources, yet the Government deserve credit for progress made in this area. I am also pleased to note that in our schools, children are now being offered at least four hours of sport per week. Your Lordships will be aware that in this important aspect of education, we still lag behind many European countries, but at least we are starting to move up the table. Ever since my upbringing in Cape Town, South Africa, I have had a great passion for sport and, perhaps because of my youth in that sports-mad country, I have never been ashamed of the fact that I enjoy winning. The British sense of fair play is naturally admired around the world, but I have always been bemused by the sense that this country is somehow more comfortable with a gallant loser than with an outright winner. That is absolute nonsense. There is, of course, no shame in defeat. But victory brings huge dividends. They were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, in his powerful speech, and include increased participation and national morale. As a nation, we should sacrifice nothing in the pursuit of victory. This year has brought outstanding examples of what sport can achieve when we win. Ask anybody involved in English cricket about the effect of winning the Ashes this summer, and they will tell you about the soaring interest in the game in clubs and schools, and about the dividends of victory. Ask anybody involved in the British Olympic Association or in sport in the city of London about the effect of London’s successful bid to stage the summer Olympic Games in 2012, and they will tell you about the dreams launched in millions of young minds. In the Ashes and in the Olympic bid British people set out to be winners, not gallant losers, and sport in this country will reap the rewards for years to come. Sport brings this country together: the haves and the have-nots, the young and the old, and the north and south. Of course, our teams will not always win—I have mentioned our fortunate draw today in Pakistan—but my vision and hope is the day when our solid national structures, properly integrated within one national sports plan, will come to the fore and ensure the effective delivery of sport in the community. That, for me, is the win-win scenario.