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Sport in the Community

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Pendry for introducing the second debate that we have had on sport in a matter of months, thanks to his diligence and his good fortune with regard to ballots. We have very much enjoyed this debate today which has given a good airing to the issues of community sport. Last time when I spoke at this Dispatch Box I looked forward with some optimism towards a summer of success. This was in June, when we had not made a great deal of progress with regard to the Ashes, which is certainly a success. Nor had we succeeded in landing the Olympic bid—in fact the House was suffused with a certain gloomy reluctance to expect us to host it but a couple of weeks later we duly succeeded. If I am more optimistic than some contributors to this debate, I hope that the House will recognise that it is on the basis that the last time I spoke here, optimism proved to be fully justified. There are real issues that we need to confront and I am grateful to my noble friend for having introduced them. I share with him the sentiment that building upon success, the Government’s approach towards a feasibility study for that rather long-distance event, the World Cup soccer finals in 2018, ought to start now because it helps us to prepare the ground. As we know from the Olympic bid, you cannot start too early and you cannot over-prepare when bidding for success against other rival countries for such events. However we are looking at making some progress towards a bid which does not have to be tabled until 2011, so that is a somewhat more distant horizon. Although we are talking about community sport, national sport acts as a role model for so much stimulus for activity at a local level. It is the heroes—the Kelly Holmeses and the Andrew Flintoffs of this world—who inspire our young people. These people—who are sometimes castigated in the press if they fall short of impeccable behaviour—are nevertheless role models. As such they are important to young people and that is why we enjoin them to concentrate upon their sporting success and not let us down with rather less attractive behaviour, either in their sport at times or elsewhere. Role models are important to young people and our sporting heroes are bound to play an important part in that. That is why sport has such significance. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said. It was an important counteraction to those of us who enthuse about sport to remind us that there can be a downside; there is no aspect of human activity which does not have its downside as well as its heights. I took on board his comments. Certain aspects of sport may not be wholly beneficial to society. But even the noble Lord identified—perhaps grudgingly, whereas others did so more enthusiastically—the extent to which sport can play a part in bringing communities together. It can produce a sense of identity and can certainly open up opportunities for young people. My noble friend Lord Giddens was concerned to establish a relationship between sport and society. But one difficulty with regard to sport is that the relationship between education and skills is still poorly developed in this country. Over many generations we have over-emphasised academic success and have downplayed skills. That has been apparent in a whole range of areas of national life, and it also impacts on sport. After all, sport is the cultivation of skills, but our education system has not concentrated enough on developing it as an area of opportunity in which young people can excel. I shall respond to one or two individual points that were raised during the debate. I assure my noble friend Lord Pendry that access to water is more a responsibility of Defra than it is of my own department, but we have drawn Defra’s attention to the access of canoeists. Given the Olympic Games, that will be important as we hope to develop skills in that area to a higher level than we have done in the past, and we hope to be successful. We recognise that whereas in Scotland access to water is more regularly granted, there is a tension between the angling community and all other users of water, and we are keen to develop policy in this area. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, reminded us that there are sports other than competitive, organised and team sports. He made a very important contribution to the debate. We all recognise that walking accounts for the largest amount of exercise taken by people in this country, and the noble Lord also identified mountaineering, rock climbing and fell walking as other activities. I heard what the noble Lord said about risk. That was reinforced to a degree by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, who laid a rather heavy emphasis on political correctness. Perhaps I may make the obvious point. We all want young people to be faced with a challenge but we are all distraught when that challenge results in calamity. When mistakes are made in leadership so that children are exposed to being swept away in mountains because they have not been sufficiently supervised, or when people are taken out canoeing and disaster occurs because the leadership has not recognised the threats, or even, as the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, mentioned, when swimming coaches ill-treat their charges, of course there will be a community response and of course we will be concerned. That may be defined in disparaging terms as political correctness, but we expect our young people to participate in a sporting environment in which they are guaranteed to benefit from additional skills and exercise; we do not expect them to be placed in a position of vulnerability, which can ruin young lives. So a balance has to be struck. My noble friend Lord Grantchester raised the important issue of the relationship between professional and community sport. There is no doubt that, whatever government do, the hugely vast resources that obtain in certain areas of professional sport because of the attractiveness of that sport to television rights and resources do play a part in enhancing community facilities. My noble friend Lord Grantchester gave evidence about Everton Football Club’s community scheme. That was reinforced by my noble friend Lord Hoyle, who emphasised what a wonderful success Warrington represented in terms of its community scheme, and its triumph in the national appreciation of those efforts. I have no doubt that, just as the heroes are the people on the pitch, the facilities also have a glamour. I do not think that any young person who gets the chance, at however low a level, to play once—or appear in a starring capacity—at their local Premier League or rugby club stadium, does not get a thrill from that experience. Those experiences stimulate young people to participate, so our facilities are important. Of course, national facilities of those kinds quite rightly have to be supplemented, and are only a fraction of those which we need to provide at local community level. There is no doubt, however, that these national facilities represent the power of sport, which is a motivational pull bringing a large number of our people into sport. I was glad that my noble friend Lord Giddens asked me what we are doing about matching the United States in the increasingly active role played by women in sport. I am happy to tell him that he is right: the fastest growing sport for women in the United States is soccer. That is also true in the United Kingdom. The growth of women’s soccer is of very real significance to us, because it helps to put young men and women—boys and girls—on an equal footing in their enthusiasm for what is still the major national sport. We commend that. The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, raised the virtues of sport in a convincing way. I know from his sporting background that he is going to be one of the most enthusiastic contributors to any debate on sport. He did not let us down today. He raised one or two issues regarding city academies and their use. That is something which we need to address. City academies have significant facilities. The noble Lord is right that in one or two cases—not many—there are problems in making these facilities available to the wider community because of where VAT cuts in. The Government are actively seeking a way to resolve that. We would certainly not see city academies fulfilling the role which we expect them to play in the community if we did not get past barriers of that kind. My noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen spoke of cricket and its significance to women. We welcome the Chance to Shine scheme to which she referred, which seeks to improve competitive cricket in schools. It is already having a significant effect, and it needs to. If there has been one feature of this very significant sport over the past three decades or so, it has been the decline of school cricket. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, emphasised the question of the nature of facilities. The Government have put a stop to the sale of school playing fields. We are, however, committed to recognising that we can, at times, produce better facilities—of an indoor, covered type—than existing playing fields. We are eager to do that. In particular, we are exploring a number of options in which there could be a government contribution to the Cricket Foundation scheme, to which my noble friend Lady Massey referred. On the general issues that were raised with regard to community participation, the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said that the Government had an ambitious target of ensuring that young people have two hours of sport outside the curriculum or PE. That ambitious target is 75 per cent; it is 65 per cent at the present time. The noble Lord is right. It is a tough target. There is not much point in the Government setting targets unless they require activity and appraisal. I am confident about achieving that target in 2006. I do not underestimate the challenge that it represents, but I am sufficiently convinced of the momentum that we are building up on this issue. If we are to tackle the wider issues, to which noble Lords referred, that sport is important to the health of the nation, particularly in tackling obesity and ensuring exercise, we must build the recognition in schools that greater emphasis must be placed on exercise and the opportunities for sport than has obtained recently. The debate has covered a wide range of areas. I heard what my noble friend Lord Giddens said about the evaluation of the multifarious nature of these schemes. That is an important aspect, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Carter who delineated clearly the extent to which we recognise our obligation to know value for money and the effectiveness of programmes. Giving support to sport, as my noble friend Lord Carter identified, is no easy matter. Sport is more varied than almost any other recipient of government resource. We have to relate so much to the volunteer aspect in sport. Without voluntary contributions in sport we would be at a loss to provide anything like the facilities that we have at community level. We all know that the vast contribution to almost any sports club comes not from professional resources but from people who are prepared to give up their valuable time in what is often that stultifying role of bureaucracy—the usual despicable phrase that we use whenever there is something that we do not want to do. Administration and bureaucracy are important to every activity in sport. There is a vast difference between a rugby club with 12 or 15 sides to be organised and a small table tennis club with two or three sides and limited facilities because resources are so much more limited. I assure the House that table tennis clubs are as assertive in their demands to the body with which my noble friend Lord Carter is involved, as are rugby, cricket or soccer clubs. It is the variety of sport and the extent to which we have to work with the grain of local participation and commitment that makes funding difficult. I accept the charge identified by my noble friend Lord Giddens. Let us get better value for money and identify what works and what does not. Let us also not underestimate the challenge that that represents to us all, given the sheer variety of sport, and the fact that we have to relate crucially to a huge amount of volunteer participation. It is that voluntary participation that stands this country in very good stead. Of course we should be concerned about high achievement. That could not be otherwise at the moment, when anyone who follows sport has their eyes on next year’s World Cup, and our preparation for the Olympic Games in this country in a few years’ time. We cannot have such perspectives without being keen for high achievement. However, we also need to look at community sport, to encourage more of our young people to participate in sport, and to continue to sustain their interest past the crucial break. This is an educational, as much as a sporting, issue. Young people drop out of education at the age of 16 in far greater numbers than in any other advanced country. At the same time they turn their backs on institutionalised sport, sport having been provided for them only at school. That has to change; we must bridge these problems with greater success in the future. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Pendry for introducing a debate that has helped to clarify the issues and advance the cause.