| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
10.5 am
Mr. Richard Spring (West Suffolk): Over the next few weeks, the nation will follow a number of sporting events with considerable interest. Millions of our citizens will root for our football players in the world cup, our cricketers who are successfully playing South Africa, our rugby players in the southern hemisphere, our Wimbledon contestants and even, perhaps, the winning horse in the Derby tomorrow. This is an appropriate time to consider the state of sport and how best to support it.
I apologise to the House for having to leave early to attend a long-standing constituency engagement. I shall leave our case in the capable hands of my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins).
I must praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) who was the first Prime Minister clearly to highlight the importance of sport in our national life. That was also done by successive Secretaries of State for National Heritage, and I pay particular tribute to the immense contribution made towards raising the profile of sport by two former parliamentary colleagues--Iain Sproat and Sebastian Coe. I fully endorse the comments that the Secretary of State made about Denis Howell, who is sadly missed.
I am delighted that so many hon. Members are keen to participate in the debate. We look forward particularly to the contribution of that great parliamentary champion of sport, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde(Mr. Pendry).
The Minister for Sport knows my firm view that this is not an area for party political rancour. I thank him for always so courteously keeping me informed. However, aspects of Government policy give us genuine concern. Sport is an important part of the national life. There are those who view sport as a peripheral or frivolous activity: Winston Churchill apparently once said that whenever he felt like exercise, he laid down until the feeling went away. I suspect that that is not the view of hon. Members present today.
Sport enriches the lives of those who enjoy it, and it contributes to our health and well-being. It offers the opportunity to hone our competitive instincts, although, for many, it is simply fun and relaxing. It is also part of our heritage. Britain is the birthplace of many of the world's great sports, and we codified and helped to popularise them throughout the world. Sport is a binding force between regions and generations, and across borders. It is a focus for local and national pride. We cherish it for those reasons, but, above all, it means enjoyment for those who play and watch it. I endorse the sentiments expressed by the Secretary of State about extending the ability to play sport to groups in our society such as the disabled and others who have disadvantages.
I am in no doubt that hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that Government support for sport should begin with a clear emphasis on the importance of sport in schools. While sport can be played by people of all ages, it is by taking up sport when they are young that many people learn to love it, and then continue to play sport throughout their lives. Primary and secondary school sports education is only the first step in a lifetime's enjoyment of sport. I suggest to the Secretary of State that still more could be done to encourage sport in higher and further education. We need to look to colleges and universities to do more to promote sport among their students. As the previous Government identified, the best means of doing that is by encouraging links between schools, colleges and sports clubs.
We also want to support, foster and facilitate the talents of our best sportsmen and women. We want to take pride in seeing them beat the world's best. We do not want them to be driven abroad for lack of opportunities. We want a sporting culture that encourages the very best to reach their full potential and inspire others of less ability to do likewise. Those are the targets and priorities of the Opposition. I ask the Government to affirm today their commitment to those goals, and to respond to some of the specific questions about how they expect to achieve them.
Hon. Members will recall that a comprehensive framework for the achievement of the goals that I have outlined was established by the previous Government. By the time of the last general election, significant progress had already been made. The present Government said before the election in their policy document "Labour's Sporting Nation" that no White Paper had been published on sport since 1975, but a comprehensive plan was introduced in 1995 and was revisited a year later. The recommendations in the Conservative Government's consultation paper "Raising the Game" were broadly welcomed by the Labour party when it was published.
Our test of the Government's commitment to sport is simple. How far have they advanced the agenda set out in "Raising the Game"? Some of our initiatives have been taken forward, but I regret that some have not. We do not believe that the Government have materially advanced the agenda for sport in the past year. They have not sufficiently continued on the upward course that we set. Let us now examine their scorecard.
The previous Government placed great emphasis on the need for a prominent role for competitive sport in schools and on team sport. Conservative Members believe that it is not only participating that is important, but that young people learn critical lessons about winning and losing and how to react maturely. Sport thrives only if both parties play by the rules and accept the results with good grace. I cannot think of a better way of learning how to live alongside others and make a contribution as part of the team.
Essential to a thriving sporting culture in schools is the provision of adequate facilities, including playing fields. We, therefore support the cross-departmental involvement in preventing the indiscriminate sale of playing fields by local councils. That measure builds on the decision of the previous Government to make the Sports Council a statutory consultee in the sale of playing fields.
We can arrest the decline of school sport only if it has a secure position within the formal curriculum in every school. That is exactly what the previous Government set out to ensure--that physical education continued to be one of only five subjects that pupils were required to pursue from their entry into school at age five until the end of compulsory schooling at 16. PE in the national curriculum covers a range of activities that pupils pursue at different times, from athletics to outdoor and adventure activities and swimming. We revised the national curriculum with the specific intention of increasing the importance of competitive sport, including team games played in a form appropriate to each age group.
The Labour party election manifesto said:
The Government's message is not helpful. It undermines the long-term and strategic implementation of Government policy in support of sport. It is a necessary condition of the success of the Government's sports policy that it should be visible and applied to each young generation anew.
It is not enough simply to point to schools as the cornerstone of Government policy on sport. If young people are truly to learn sporting habits to last a lifetime, we need to look at the quality of sport in schools. That is why the previous Government introduced the sportsmark scheme--a recognition award to schools with effective policies for promoting sport. We also introduced the gold star mark for schools that had made outstanding achievements. After consultation, a set of criteria were introduced which were demanding but well within the reach of schools committed to high-quality sport. It is extraordinary that the Government have declined to implement our intention to extend the initiative from secondary to primary schools. The decision is at variance with the Government's rhetoric that
Also important to raising the quality of sport in schools is the attraction of private sector money to local sport in schools and other projects aimed at young people. In assessing the Government's backing for sport, we should look at what is being done to facilitate the flow of private sector sponsorship. We established the sportsmatch scheme, which pledged Government money to match donations of between £1,000 and £75,000 of private money. I applaud the Government's decision to reduce the lower matching limit from £1,000 to £500. Can the Secretary of State or the Minister for Sport announce today how much extra money has been set aside for the scheme to account for the expected increase in private sector support for sportsmatch?
Many sports now rely on sponsorship to stage events at the highest level and to bring into a sport money that can then trickle downwards. Sponsorship is valuable not only to the high-profile sports that attract large, live television audiences but to less popular sports that might not otherwise be able to stage competitive events. This is not an appropriate time to debate the effects of tobacco advertising on smoking, but the Government's decision to ban tobacco sponsorship of sport was taken without proper consultation with the sports involved or specific information about the cash impact. Formula 1 was exempted on dubious grounds.
The sports that will be hardest hit by the ban are not the most glamorous or high-profile. Popular sports such as angling, darts, greyhound racing, pool, billiards, snooker and showjumping will be hard hit. They had no exemption. Apparently, only very big fish can secure that. Those sports are not optimistic about finding alternative
sources of sponsorship. This is a crucial question for their survival. I hope that the Minister for Sport will be able to offer some clear assurances today. The governing bodies and those involved in such sports are genuinely extremely worried about the future viability of their sports and competition within them.
It would be difficult to overstate the impact of the national lottery on sport. It has been a catalyst for a renaissance in sporting activity at all levels throughout the country and has spectacularly increased investment in sport. The previous Government began shifting the emphasis of the distribution of lottery money from capital spending to supporting talented individuals. We welcome the Government's decision to continue that policy. However, the Secretary of State is keenly aware of our deep concern about the Government's decision to set up a sixth lottery good cause under his control, which will deprive the existing good causes of money that they were expecting. The Secretary of State is taking £250 million out of sport during the remaining four years of the current lottery licence. That £60 million a year is more than the £50 million that his Department spends on sport each year.
Like the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, we regret the Government's decision not to include sport centrally in the scope of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The previous Government planned to make lottery money available to fund the development of talented athletes and other sportsmen and women. In its pre-election document "Labour's Sporting Nation", Labour pledged to fund talented sportsmen and women from NESTA. It is a great disappointment that the Government have chosen not to honour that pledge.
Labour also pledged before the election to make sport a permanent lottery good cause.
"school sport must be the foundation."
Despite what the Secretary of State said, it is disappointing that the Government have decided to de-emphasise PE in primary schools, with all the attendant risks. Of course, we support the Government's desire to improve numeracy and literacy, but we believe that it was a mistake to remove the core curriculum status of PE. Its removal sends the wrong signal to teachers, parents and pupils alike. It invites people to conclude that sport is peripheral. The Secretary of State will be aware of the difficulties that so many primary schools already have in attracting PE teachers, of whom there is a considerable shortage.
"school sport must be the foundation."
It is of the utmost importance to promote sport at the earliest possible age in order to encourage a lifetime's habit of involvement in sport. The Government's decision not to extend sportsmark to primary schools will have precisely the reverse effect.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |