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School Sports Funding

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who made some very positive comments. I can fully understand why my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) invited him to join us in the Lobby tonight—he seemed to agree with our motion. It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe), the former sports Minister, who is highly regarded across the House for what he achieved in that post. Last week, it seemed clear that the Government believed that school sport partnerships did not work, despite the facts and the completely opposite view of many of those involved. They believed that partnerships did not deliver and fell short of expectations, and that the investment in them did not result in a commensurate outcome. However, the same message is not coming across today, especially in the comments of some Government Members. I sense a more open approach, so I will be interested to hear the Minister's winding-up speech. The Government's view was at odds with the opinions of individuals and organisations immersed in the world of sport, as we have heard already. Mr Chris Willets, the Tower Hamlets school sport partnership manager, has advised me on the impact of the partnership locally. In 2006, the average number of timetabled minutes for physical education was 99, but is now 127; the number of newly qualified teachers supported to deliver PE was nil, but is now 55; the number of teacher and sport training courses was nil, but is now 73; the number of pupils involved in inter-school sports competitions was 9,000, but is now 15,000; the number of primary inter-school competitions was one, but is now 37; the number of secondary inter-school competitions was three, but is now 25; the number of young people playing sport outside school was 4,000, but is now 11,000; the number of young people involved in representative sport was 31, but is now 237; the number of young people coaching, leading and volunteering was 1,700, but is now 5,100; and the number of professional coaches working in schools was nine, but is now 57. That trend applies to many other statistics that I will not quote. Those might only be statistics, but they are powerful numbers and they do not—nor can they—convey the huge benefit to young people that sport brings. They do not convey the pleasure, joy and character building that sport delivers, and they cannot explain what a school sport partnership means to young people in a borough such as Tower Hamlets. It helps not just with health, but academically, as I am told by the excellent head of Langdon Park community school, Mr Chris Dunne, whose school was designated a sports academy in 2008. The question being asked in my constituency is: how much longer is Tower Hamlets to bear the brunt of cuts dressed up and designated by the coalition merely as changes designed to make funds ““more targeted”” or ““more effective””? The abolition of the education maintenance allowance has been similarly dressed up, ultimately being dispatched by the Government to make way for ““more targeted support””.