---

Sport

My Lords, I am grateful for that last remark, but it is quite untrue. I hope to continue in the humble role that I occupy, but that is in the lap of the gods—or the nearest thing to them, which is, of course, the Prime Minister. Like everyone else who has participated in this debate, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Pendry not just on introducing the debate and producing an excellent speech, which covered the wide range of the Government’s achievements and aspirations with regard to sport over the past decade and where we go from here, but on his signal contribution to the policy of my party on the development of sport. I also congratulate him on his continuous efforts to ensure that we remain constructive on this very important topic. I came to this debate fairly well briefed but I have very little to say about curling and even less about greyhound racing; therefore, I am grateful that my noble friend Lord Bilston is not present. I am probably breaking House protocol by referring to his speech, but I think that we all enjoyed the sheer enthusiasm that he expressed for the sport. That is one great element about sport; it engages the community. As all sportsmen and those who love sport know, sport generates enormous enthusiasm. That is why we want to proselytise and to achieve greater participation in all sports. In many ways, the more active that is, the better. I was grateful that my noble friend Lord Pendry identified the health benefits of sport to the individual and wider society. Those were reinforced in other speeches. The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord McNally, referred to the growing problem of obesity. There is no doubt that exercise is the best way to tackle that problem. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, also referred to social inclusion. There is no doubt that young people who are well motivated, occupied with sport and integrated into sports clubs are far less likely to engage in arid pursuits of a criminal kind which cause difficulties for their communities. Therefore, sport can play a part in that. I shall come on to the subject of football in a moment because I cannot ignore what my noble friend Lord Faulkner, from his authoritative position, referred to as the sport of the nation—indeed, it is. I am surprised that no one referred to the manifestation of football clubs in the concept of Kickz, which seeks to relate football clubs more closely to their communities. In many cases, football clubs are located in the most deprived communities, and they play an important role in bringing youngsters into the world of sport because their heroes are close at hand. In the past, those heroes have been close at hand but socially distant from the communities. It is good that a large number of leading clubs now ensure that they relate to these communities. They send out their footballers, who speak with authority and have a command over youngsters’ attention. That is of great benefit, and we should salute football in those terms. I shall come later to the criticism made by my noble friend Lord Faulkner. I think that I heard grudgingly from the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, and slightly more generously from elsewhere in the House—the noble Lord, Lord Addington, was slightly more positive—that there has been some improvement with regard to school playing fields. Some improvement? The Labour Government have stopped the destruction of school playing fields through selling and closure, which was a marked feature of the 1980s and early 1990s. In fact, they are now bringing back school playing fields and are increasing the number available. Therefore, although the Opposition may have some general points to make about our sports policy, I am afraid that it is best if they keep off this area, where they were so conspicuously negligent in the past. We have made great progress on school sport. There is no doubt that it is not just a question of playing fields, although they play their part, but of increasing facilities more generally. The school sports strategy has already guaranteed youngsters in schools two hours a week of high-quality PE and sport. I was enjoined by several noble Lords to say whether we are building on that. Indeed, we are. We intend that young people will have four hours of sport and PE a week and are working towards that. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, said that there are some pressures with regard to PE teachers, and there are. If one is embarking on expansion and increasing opportunity, there will be a problem with the number of trained teachers available to make that possible. We are concerned about the position to which the noble Baroness referred, but they are the problems of ambition and growing success and not the problems of failure. Likewise, we have been concerned to forge the relationship with clubs which was enjoined by my noble friend Lord Pendry, who covered almost every aspect of important policy, and the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. There is enormous strength in the private clubs of this country and the opportunities for sport that they present, but they have not always been at their best in tapping into local talent. The young person has to volunteer and make the effort to go to the club rather than have the club approach the young person, but young people may feel that certain aspects of sports clubs and their organisation are difficult to breach. We have been concerned with the whole range of sports. There is no better example than the area to which my noble friend Lady Massey referred, a ““Chance to shine”” in cricket. It provides an opportunity in that very important sport, which was showing a real decline in schools, for clubs to get close to schools, to provide the necessary coaching and to establish the link that young people need if they go into club sport after they leave school. One of the great features that everyone in the House will recognise is that, even with the best schools programme in the world—we are far from the best at present, but we are improving our position so well that even the Australians are looking to us as an example of how to promote school sport—the problem is obvious: an awful lot of people drop out of sport when they leave school. That is why the clubs are so important, and the link between them and the schools in the community is important. We have put in resources. It will be recognised that we have given clubs advantages such as rate relief to encourage them to recognise the crucial role that they can play in these communities. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, was not the only one to voice the important point about the need for good coaching, which generally can only be provided by people who actively play or who have recently participated at club level. That is why clubs have to be so close to education institutions; the amount of professional help within the school is perforce bound to be limited. The access of young people to good coaching will depend crucially on links with the clubs. My noble friend Lord Watson sought to bring in the Scottish dimension to the debate. He will recognise that, on the advances we have made in the education system, I can talk only about England and Wales. I cannot talk about Scotland because of its devolved nature. My noble friend identified the challenges of sport in Scotland, which are issues that need to be tackled elsewhere in the United Kingdom with the same vigour. He is absolutely right that, although the rest of the country might have difficulty remembering all our achievements in curling, they certainly are aware that Scottish football is an important part of Scottish life, as it is for the communities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I want to emphasise the extent to which we have provided additional facilities. Local authorities invest around £1 billion in sports services, and they will get resources for that over the next three years. Our increased educational facilities in schools often means a significant enhancement in sports facilities. There is increasing pressure for educational facilities to be owned jointly with the community—not just the education authority as such, but for community use on a wider level. The Government’s enormous investment in education is producing an obvious spin-off in sports facilities. The noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, identified a sport that needs relatively little provision, except velodromes at the very highest level. As he rightly says, cycling is a very active community sport, with a high level of participation. It is our ambition to make cycling safer to encourage people to engage in it in their everyday pursuits. One of the advantages of cycling over many other sports is that supreme achievements can be achieved at a very high level. We have Olympic champions among men, and a female Tour de France winner. So we have exemplars of achievement, which encourage young people to follow. If school sport is one pillar, and community and club sport, with coaching within that framework, are the second pillar, the third pillar is elite sport. We are bound to talk about sport at the very highest level, because that is where achievement is communicated through the mass media, particularly television. When people talk about sport, they are much more likely to talk about national sporting achievements. We have the particular challenge and success of hosting the Olympic Games. We had the successful bid. Among the many tributes paid to the outgoing Prime Minister this week was the recognition that Tony Blair played a critical role at a critical point in the bid process in Singapore. Bringing the Olympic Games to London is a very great advantage to our community. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, emphasised that the Government should expect to be criticised about the Olympic Games. Performance is enhanced through constructive criticism; and we always get constructive criticism from the opposition Benches. I am grateful that the noble Lord emphasised that we should recognise that the Olympic Games belong to all of us; they require all-party and, in fact, no-party support. These Games can be the greatest ever, and that would be to the credit not just of London but of the whole United Kingdom. They will bring enormous benefits. Despite all the reservations expressed and the problems over the budget, the Olympic authorities, after their recent visit to London, consider our progress on the Games as further advanced than any that they had seen in preparation for previous Olympic Games. Although we all enjoy the stimulus that the critical press provides to all of us in our constructive efforts, let us not talk down too much the conscious efforts of London and of the nation as a whole to guarantee that the Games will be a great success, to the benefit of us all. They will provide an opportunity to set sport before the nation in a very glamorous and compelling way. The Olympic Games these days are so all-encompassing that it is difficult to think of a sport that does not rate as an Olympic event and for which medals are not contested. The coverage that is bound to follow the development of the Olympic Games, not only in the build-up but when they take place, will make a great impact on the nation. We need to be in a position to encourage all those, of whatever sporting ability, to respond to the stimulus of the Games and to see the advantages of participating in sport. For every Olympic winner, you need a large number of competitors who do not succeed. Sport has got to be for those who do not do particularly well; mass sport is exactly that. Of course there are heroes at the highest level, but mass sport is about the large numbers of people who participate at very mundane levels, coping with their own inadequacies but loving the game and deriving the benefits that sport provides: exercise, sociability and increased fitness. The noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Addington, often make the point that not only are the Olympic Games about the supremely fit but in the Paralympics they are about those carrying disadvantages. We should recognise the enormous achievements and the confidence that the Paralympics bring to a large number of our disabled fellow citizens, who can see what can be done to triumph over very real difficulties. We are putting £29 million into helping our Paralympic athletes train for the Games. We want them to do well, but we also look upon that as an example of inclusive society and the belief that even people with difficulties can achieve a high standard. From his informed perspective, my noble friend Lord Faulkner criticised certain aspects of the Football Association, how the Premier League is currently run and so on. They are well made criticisms. We all ought to be concerned about administration of our major sports. An awful lot of people give a great deal of voluntary time to the rather arid business of administration. Nevertheless, it is also important that they get it right. Maladministration of our sports is catastrophic for our community. We need public debate on the aspects of our national sports that are not well run. The departure of Richard Caborn, who was responsible for many of these achievements in recent years as Minister for Sport in another place, is lamented, on my part at least. His attempt to offer good offices to the football authorities on their present problems, which seems to have been rebuffed in some quarters, was made with the best intent. The football authorities need to realise that, when the Government offer to help in those terms, it is not to come down with a heavy hand but to show that wider society needs these problems tackled seriously. I give my noble friend that assurance on our part. This has been an interesting debate. I am sure that it has advanced the cause of sport and that no one has participated in this debate without that in mind. The expansion and development of sport can bring enormous benefits to wider society. We have one glorious opportunity before us in 2012. There is a lot of work to be done before then, but I hope that we go forward together and seek to raise the important dimension of encouraging that aspect of sport which brings wider benefits to society.