---

Sport and Physical Education

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Pendry for this opportunity to discuss sport and to outline some of the Government’s achievements since June 2007, when he last raised a significant debate in this House on sport in the community. I pay tribute to his work over a substantial period in bringing sport to the attention of Parliament and government, reflecting the fact that there is no doubt that sport has a much higher profile than it had a decade or so ago in terms of the perspective of the nation and the desirability that government should address some of the deficiencies in our sporting provision, which this debate has helped to identify. My noble friend also called attention to the substantial progress that the Government have made in improving sporting opportunities for our people, particularly young people. I was very glad that my noble friend brought within this framework the role of sport in promoting other significant government objectives on the wider social agenda. The investment in sport and physical activity, which we will continue to produce, will help to combat rising levels of obesity, which we all recognise are of concern to the nation. There is no doubt that people who take exercise give themselves a decent chance of avoiding levels of obesity that are often the product of an exceedingly sedentary existence. Sport has a role in terms of promoting good health, additional to those relating to obesity. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for emphasising mental health issues. There is no doubt that people often need an opportunity to develop self-respect in their lives and sport can play its part in that. The noble Lord constructively identified ways in which we could look at these issues more carefully in relation to that dimension of ill health and he said that a part of the Olympic legacy should direct itself to future sport opportunities. Sport is a great means of bringing communities and people together and helping to improve educational attainment. It also helps to reduce anti-social behaviour and crime. We are all too well aware that young people in depressed circumstances often find that opportunities in sport can give their lives new hope and prospects; otherwise they would be led into a state of depression that is the breeding ground of people acting in antisocial ways. There is no doubt that sports clubs can be enormously important to local communities in those terms. That is why we are continuing to reform the sporting landscape. We are working closely with our key delivery partners, the Youth Sport Trust, Sport England and UK Sport, as well as many others. We want to ensure that people of all ages play sport. I take on board the point that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, was keen to emphasise about strategies for the re-entry of people into sport. There is no doubt that the dropout rate from sport when people leave school and educational establishments is very high and we have to work hard to achieve re-entry into sport. I am grateful to the noble Lord for identifying one scheme.