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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) on securing this important debate. The Government are committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, has access to and benefits from quality sport and physical activity opportunities. I have been clear in Parliament and beyond that I know just how important public leisure facilities are. They are great places for people of all ages to stay fit and healthy, offer vital social spaces and play an important role within communities.
I will respond to points raised during the debate and then elaborate further on some of them as I progress through my speech. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight East made a very clear case for the important role that quality and accessible community swimming facilities can play in his constituency and across the UK. He clearly illustrated his commitment through securing the debate and his speech. I was struck by one of the statistics he shared: 27% of the population have taken part in some form of swimming over the last 12 months. I very much heard his asks from Swim England, and I am pleased to echo the comments he quoted from one of my previous speeches about how I am committed to public leisure and greater integration between health and sport, which I will come on to speak about.
The hon. Gentleman asked about specific support for local authorities, which is an issue for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He asked about specific targets. We do not have plans to set targets, as it is for local areas to determine what they need, but we believe that robust plans should be in place. The shadow Minister and the hon. Gentleman also spoke about the swimming support fund. I am very aware of the benefit it had, but I cannot comment on that ahead of the spending review.
I was pleased to meet the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) a few weeks ago. He highlighted some of the creative opportunities available. I was pleased that my officials were able to visit his constituency, and they said that they had a productive visit. I look forward to continuing that dialogue with him. A number of Members from across the House spoke about the importance of safety, including the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome)—he paid tribute to Oscar, and I echo those comments—and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald). The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) made a really important point about the tragic increase in deaths.
Sir John Hayes
In order to help the Minister, because I know she does not have much time, would she agree to meet me offline to discuss that? It would be much easier if I could meet her with a community group from the Deepings, and we can take that forward.
Stephanie Peacock
I would be very happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman. I was going to say that I would write to him after the spending review, but he has very keenly got me to agree to a meeting. It would be an absolute pleasure, and we can continue the conversation.
Sport and physical activity, especially swimming, plays a vital role in tackling the health challenges facing our nation through helping to treat and manage a wide range of conditions. Swim England’s “Value of Swimming” report highlighted that 1.4 million adults felt that swimming significantly reduced their anxiety or depression. That report has been quoted more than once today. Swimming has saved the NHS and social care system more than £357 million annually. Physical activity interventions contribute an immense saving to our NHS by preventing 900,000 cases of diabetes and 93,000 cases of dementia every year. The Government are committed to focusing our health system on prevention, and sport and physical activity are central to that. The biggest health gain comes from supporting those who are inactive or less active to move more.
Across the country, there is a direct correlation between increased activity levels and the number of accessible facilities that are safe, inclusive and affordable on offer. We must therefore ensure that these spaces are both present and accessible as a key part of getting people active and thereby tackling health inequalities. Whether through team sports, gym classes or children’s swimming lessons, these spaces can create a sense of pride in place and improved community cohesion. In my constituency of Barnsley, we are lucky to have access to some brilliant swimming facilities. Everyone in the local area knows the Barnsley Metrodome—I always remember it as where the general election declaration is made—and we also have the Dearneside and Hoyland leisure centres. All are incredibly popular. Many local people enjoy our public pools, and swimming is a great way to look after our physical and mental health.
In my role as sports Minister, I joined Mental Health Swims last month for a cold water swim in the Hampstead ponds to mark Mental Health Awareness Week. A number of Members have talked about the benefit of cold water and outdoor swimming. Mental Health Swims is a peer group that hosts free and inclusive swim meets in more than 150 locations across the UK. I got to experience at first hand some of the benefits of outdoor swimming. I know people across the country enjoy the activity too; indeed, people in South Yorkshire often visit the Manvers lake just down the road from my constituency, which has some of the best facilities for open water swimming in the country. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) made some really important points on that topic.
I also saw the impact of swimming when I visited Active Essex. Local council leaders are working in partnership with Active Essex, local health services and leisure providers to knit together services. They are building strong links between health and leisure sectors, including co-locating services so that people have easy access to a wide range of physical activity opportunities. That means, for example, that people with long-term health conditions can have access to activities that not only improve their physical health but are fun and social and, in some cases, contribute to them getting back to work.
I will share with the House an example. I spoke to a woman who had had a terrible accident, and she was on medication. She did not work, but through the project, she had come off medication and was retraining and looking for work. It was incredibly inspiring to speak to her, and a really good example of what knitting together local government, health and sport can do. These visits have reinforced the positive impact that sport can have on mental health.
I acknowledge the importance of swimming lessons in my constituency, as a number of hon. Members have done for their constituencies. There are a number of open-water spaces in Barnsley that are not appropriate for swimming, but it is important to know how to swim in the event of an emergency in water. I am a former teacher, so I know how important it is to ensure swimming proficiency for schoolchildren. It is not just a great way to get active, but a fundamental life skill. Swimming and water safety are compulsory elements of the physical education national curriculum at key stages 1 and 2. Pupils should be taught to swim a minimum of 25 metres using a range of strokes and be able to perform safe self-rescue, but it is clear that we face significant challenges.
The numbers of children leaving school able to swim the required 25 metres unaided is falling. Last year’s data shows that only 70% of year 7 pupils aged 11 to 12 can swim confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres—a fall of seven percentage points compared with six years ago. That is clearly a very worrying trend, and it is clear that inequalities between those who do and do not have access to opportunities to swim are widening further. We are aware of that, and through the Government’s work to reform school sport, we are committed to supporting schools to provide opportunities for every pupil to learn to swim.
We are committed to protecting time for physical education in schools. The ongoing independent, expert-led review of the curriculum will ensure that all children can engage with a broad range of subjects, including PE and sport. Local government has an integral role to play. We encourage local leaders to prioritise access to sport and physical activity wherever possible and to support public and private sectors to work together to ensure that provision is accessible and reflects the needs of local communities.
Although local authorities are responsible for decisions regarding sport and leisure provision in their area, we recognise the challenges faced, especially by smaller councils. The Government are taking immediate action to begin addressing those challenges by ensuring that funding in the latest local government finance settlement goes to the places that need it most. Overall, the provisional settlement will ensure that local government will receive a real-terms increase in core spending of around 3.2%. I am committed to working to support our leisure sector up and down the country.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), asked whether I speak to those at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I very much do, and I am very keen to continue those conversations, because my Department is responsible for the overall approach to sport and leisure provision across the country. We work closely with Sport England, the Government’s arm’s length body for community sport, to invest more than £250 million of national lottery and Government money annually in some of the most deprived areas of the country to help them to increase levels of physical activity. That includes the vital £10.6 million from Sport England for grassroots swimming, empowering more people to learn to swim, enjoy water and compete safely. Sport England’s place-based investment approach, which is now expanding to a further 53 communities, places local voices at the heart of decision making and is testament to our evolving strategy, but we recognise that the journey does not end here.
We appreciate the huge contribution that publicly accessible sport and leisure facilities make to health and wellbeing. My Department will continue to look at ways to support such thinking, as we look ahead to future policy around community sport and leisure facilities and their contribution towards genuinely tackling inactivity and inequalities. I am hugely passionate about that agenda, and I know that being physically active and playing sport genuinely changes lives. Hon. Members have made really important contributions; we can see how much people care about this issue up and down the country from how well-attended the debate has been. I thank Members for taking part.