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Sport and Physical Education

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, on securing this debate and on emphasising the centrality of sport and physical activity in all aspects of life. I want to take one of those aspects—that is, the relationship between activity, sport and health—and stretch it a bit. Before doing so, I also pay tribute to the noble Lord for his analysis of the evidence involving health and the clear demonstration that there now is of the importance of physical activity and sport in many different aspects of health, mental as well as physical. I want to add a further point: internationally—the noble Lord raised the example of Finland—these issues will become ever more important. As developing countries become more affluent, you see the growth in lifestyle diseases and the problems of affluence, which include the sorts of problems that we are suffering from. The issues that we are raising in this debate are important on the international scene as well. I want to stretch the discussion a bit by talking more about not just physical health but mental health and well-being—the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, raised that—social health and spiritual health. We have known for a long time of the association between physical activity and all these other aspects of health. The Victorians knew about it but, for quite a long time, we seem to have lost it from public policy. Sport and physical activity was an add-on to education. I speak as one who was a member of the National Playing Fields Association and campaigned for the retention of school playing fields on the grounds that sport was not just an add-on but was quite often a subtraction, as has already been said. In reality, if noble Lords will excuse me extending the analogy, it needs to be much more of a multiplier and should benefit whatever else is going on in a school and a child’s development. For any new strategy, the key issue is whether it will be genuinely cross-governmental with commitments from all the relevant parts of government. I am sure that the words will be cross-governmental but the key is that this needs not just joined-up thinking but also joined-up implementation and it should be accompanied by an appropriate implementation plan. Let me take three examples, which I think will be tests of the new strategy. The first is for the Department of Health and people working in health. I pick the aspect raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pendry: mental health. We know that people suffering from mental illness are often very isolated from society and occupied within themselves. We also know that there is good evidence that physical activity is beneficial clinically. Will the strategy specifically address that sort of issue? Will it deal not just with the young and healthy but also with the older, the infirm and those who are mentally ill? Will we take the opportunity of the Olympics, as friends of mine in east London have said, to draw into sport people from all sectors of society who are not normally engaged in sport? The second question is more for the Department for Communities and Local Government. How will such a strategy tackle the issues of social inclusion and social coherence? I was struck by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, about issues to do with particular sectors of our society and people from black and minority ethnic communities. One again thinks of girls and women, as the noble Lord said. How will that be addressed, particularly in view of the fact that we know that some of those communities are especially vulnerable to some lifestyle diseases? The one statistic that I will add to those given by the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, is that people from south Asian backgrounds are, I believe, six times more likely to get diabetes type 2 than those from the majority community. It is important that the strategy reaches everywhere. I want to emphasise, however, how this will be linked into education. I recognise that a great deal is already going on, that the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is seeking the development of a new integrated curriculum and that Every Child Matters lays responsibilities on departments to bring all those activities together. But let me give one example that I came across recently, the kind of example that needs to be tackled if we are to have joined-up implementation. It reminds me of the interesting quote from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor—if I wrote it down properly—to the effect that inspiration cannot be taught, it can only be caught. David Hemery, the Olympic athlete, is leading a programme called Olympian for Life. The aim of this unique and special project is to inspire and empower young people and to help them become independent thinkers. That is the starting point; it is not immediately about sport and physical activity. He says: "““We kick off the time with a visit from an Olympian, a Paralympian or other special achiever and following their motivational story we let the children know that during the next term we will help them to identify their dreams and establish a success map to start their journey and look at what it would mean to Live Olympian””—" this is really important— "““being the best they could be in body, mind, emotion and spirit, plus a look at what Olympism and Olympic values mean””." David Hemery talks about four intelligences: physical intelligence, intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence, and the importance of all of them being linked. I would ask the Government whether they will be ambitious enough in their aims for the new strategy. Will they see the linkage that David Hemery examples in the four intelligences, with physical intelligence linked with the intellectual, emotional and spiritual intelligences and all the interactions that go with that? I am not here to speak for the project. It looks very good to me, but I do not know the details. However, it raises the big question of how ambitious we want to be and how fully integrated we think sport and physical activity need to be with every other aspect of development of the whole child. For me, it raises two questions. First, in practice, how does a good deal like that get backing? I know that not every idea is good, and that not every good idea is timely or can be followed through. I also know that the Government sometimes have their own plans. The key is what mechanisms there are to enable a practical project which seeks to implement the fine words of strategy. How do we ensure that implementation is followed through and that we understand not only joined-up thinking but also joined-up implementation and that the various departments involved will work together? Secondly, I shall not give any tales of sporting prowess, but I remember from my schooldays and from friends' schooldays that we probably divided into two sorts: those who liked all the sporting activities and those who rather loathed them. I know numbers in the second category, although I am sure that there are none in the Chamber, as they would not be taking part in this debate. I know life has moved on and that, with recent policy, there is much more emphasis on physical activity. I know that there are many interesting examples, such as schools in London, where the children have short breaks for physical activity interspersed with academic activity. It is recognised that that helps people to learn better. If that is really to be integrated in schools, implementation depends not only on a plan but on individuals. My question concerns what any strategy will do about motivating the teachers. This is actually about sport in education, not for PE teachers but for all teachers, and about understanding how that links in with all other aspects of life. What is being done about that? In such a strategy, who will ensure that teachers and not just their pupils are Olympians for life? I am delighted to take part in this debate. I very much support the emphasis on physical activity, physical education and sport. Coming from a health background, I know that health improves only where it is linked with education, activity, diet and all aspects of our lives. It is an all-round programme. I also know that research demonstrates that but that we need to undertake important research to show not just the links between physical activity and health, but also what we need to do to make those links work effectively. That is another very practical point about implementation. Slightly tongue in cheek, I also wonder whether the Government will learn from sport. One of the chairs in my previous life was a man called Sir Brian Smith who used to use a sporting analogy in talking about how management had changed. He recalled how when he was a young man playing games of rugby, hockey, and football people played in a fixed position either as a centre-forward, left-back or full-back and they stayed in that position, as though they were pieces in a table football team. Over the years, however, the game has developed and people started moving about and backing each other up. There are now different formations and people fill in and multitask; they flex according to how the game is going and they flex to each other. Noble Lords can see where my analogy is going. Can the Government move away from the basis of independent departments working within their fixed domains? Can those departments play the modern game?