Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Baroness Grey-Thompson
“Mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse(1) The Children Act 2004 is amended as follows.(2) After section 16LB insert—“16LC Reporting of child sexual abuseSubject to the provisions of section 16LD(7), (8), and (10) and section 16LF, providers of any one or more of the activities set out in Schedule 1A, who know of, or have reasonable grounds for suspecting the commission of, sexual abuse of children in their care, must, as soon as is practicable after it comes to their knowledge or attention, report it to—(a) the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO),(b) Local Authority Children’s Services, or(c) such other single point of contact with the local authority as that authority may designate for that purpose. 16LD Process(1) If the report under section 16LC is made orally, the maker of the report must confirm the report in writing no later than seven days thereafter.(2) Section 16LC applies whether or not the activities are defined in any enactment as regulated activities involving children.(3) Section 16LC applies whether a commission of sexual abuse takes place, or is alleged or suspected to have taken place, in the setting of the activity or elsewhere.(4) For the purposes of section 16LC the operators of a setting in which the activity takes place and staff employed at any such setting in a managerial or general welfare role are deemed to stand in a position of trust and are deemed to have direct contact with children in their care whether or not such children are or have been attended by them.(5) For the purposes of section 16LC all other employed or contracted staff or voluntary staff and assistants are deemed to stand in a position of trust only if they have had direct contact with and have attended such children during their time in such a position.(6) For the purposes of section 16LC children are or are deemed to be in the care of the providers of the activities set out in Schedule 1A—(a) in the case of the operators of any setting in which the activity takes place and of staff employed by the operators at any such setting in a managerial or general welfare role, for the period of time during which the operators are bound contractually or otherwise to accommodate or to care for such children, whether such children are resident or in daily attendance wherever the activity is provided, and(b) in the case of all other employed or contracted staff or voluntary staff and assistants, for the period of time only in which they are personally attending such children in the capacity for which they were employed, or their services were contracted for.(7) The Secretary of State may, in exceptional cases, issue a suspension document to rescind or temporarily suspend the duty referred to in section 16LC in the case of any specified child or children if it appears to the Secretary of State that the child’s welfare, safety or protection would be prejudiced or compromised by the fulfilment of the duty.(8) Where it appears to the Secretary of State that the welfare, safety and protection of children is furthered, they may exempt—(a) any specified organisation that works with children generally, and its members, or(b) any specified medical officer,from compliance with the duty referred to in section 16LC provided that no allegation is made against that entity or person.(9) The Secretary of State may make regulations varying or adding to or deleting from the list of activities in Schedule 1A, whether or not such activities are defined in any enactment as regulated activities involving children.(10) A person who makes a report under section 16LC in good faith, or who does any other thing required by sections 16LC to 16LF, may not by so doing be held liable in any civil or criminal or administrative proceeding, and may not be held to have breached any code of professional etiquette or ethics, or to have departed from any acceptable form of professional conduct. (11) Reports under section 16LC and the identities of the persons making them must be received and held by their proper recipients in confidence.16LE Offences(1) Failure to fulfil the duty set out in section 16LC following the procedure described in section 16LD before the expiry of the period of seven days of the matter, allegation or suspicion first coming to the knowledge or attention of the provider or of any person whose services are used by the provider as defined in section 16LD is an offence.(2) A person who causes or threatens to cause any detriment to a mandated person, being a person placed under the duty to report pursuant to section 16LC above, or to another person, either wholly or partly related to the mandated person’s actual or intended provision of a report under section 16LC, is guilty of an offence.(3) Detriment includes any personal, social, economic, professional, or other detriment to the person.(4) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) is liable on summary conviction to a level 5 fine on the standard scale.(5) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (2) is liable on summary conviction to a level 4 fine on the standard scale.16LF DefencesIt is a defence—(a) for any person to show that the Secretary of State acting pursuant to section 16LD(7) has issued a suspension document;(b) for any person employed by or operating as an organisation that works with children or for any medical officer to show that the Secretary of State has by a suspension document, whether temporarily or permanently, exempted it and its members or any medical officer from compliance with the duty in section 16LC; (c) to show that a report of the commission of the known or suspected child abuse has been made by any other party to the body or person under section 16LC(a) to (c) before or during the seven days referred to in section 16LE(1).16LG DefinitionsIn sections 16LC to 16LF—“children” means persons under the age of 18 years;“operators of a setting” , in the case of schools, sixth form colleges, and colleges of further education in private ownership, includes the proprietors, members of governing bodies, and board members in the case of ownership by a limited liability company;“providers of activities” has the same meaning as in section 6 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006.”(3) After Schedule 1, insert—“Schedule 1AREGULATED AND OTHER ACTIVITIES1 Education including—(a) schools;(b) sixth form colleges;(c) colleges of further education;(d) pupil referral units;(e) residential special schools;(f) hospital education trusts;(g) settings of education other than at schools;(h) private tuition centres. 2 Healthcare including— (a) hospitals;(b) hospices;(c) GP surgeries;(d) walk-in clinics;(e) outpatient clinics.3 Others including—(a) child nurseries and kindergarten provision;(b) childminders and childcare providers registered on the early years register or the compulsory or voluntary part of the childcare register;(c) registered social care providers and managers for children;(d) children’s homes;(e) children’s hospices;(f) youth offender institutions;(g) the Probation Service;(h) private institutions contracted by public bodies to provide services to children;(i) organisations providing activities to children, such as sports clubs, music, dance or drama groups, youth clubs, and Ministry of Defence cadet forces including Sea Cadets, the Volunteer Cadet Corps, the Army Cadet Force, the Air Training Corps and the Combined Cadet Force, Fire Cadets;(j) organisations providing holidays for children or supervising children while on holiday;(k) churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other places of worship and religious organisations, and other organisations holding non-religious worldviews;(l) services offered to children by local authorities outwith their statutory duties;(m) services offered to children by the police outwith their statutory duties; (n) transport services including taxis and coaches commissioned by the providers of the regulated activities in this Schedule.””
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, Amendment 66 is in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan.
This is a probing amendment, the core aim of which is to further protect children. In January this year, this House debated my Private Member’s Bill on mandatory reporting of child sex abuse. It ties in very well with Amendment 107B, which is also in this group, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. We are all very keen, I think, to see the IICSA recommendations implemented in full. I will not prejudge what the Minister will say, but I expect to be told that there is another vehicle for this amendment; none the less, I think this is worthy of debate.
From Rotherham to Rochdale, there have been far too many children who have been abused and too few perpetrators brought to justice. We must continue to learn from our past mistakes. This amendment is a step towards ensuring that positive changes are being made. This amendment seeks to ensure that adults in positions of authority over children in regulated activities would have a legal requirement to report any suspicion of or knowledge of child sexual abuse. Regulated activities include those in education, healthcare, sports and others, which are fully listed in the proposed new schedule. I recognise that this is the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, but I am keen that protection goes much wider than just schools. I am very keen to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, might say on the duty of care.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response—it was perhaps not unexpected. I also thank all those who spoke in this debate. I am really pleased that there is consensus on mandatory reporting, but perhaps the wording requires a little more work. I understand why His Majesty’s Government think that another vehicle might be more appropriate—perhaps this is a useful rehearsal for that future debate. I do not think what the Government are currently proposing goes far enough, but the Minister is absolutely right that we need to use every opportunity we can to discuss the protection of children.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for the decades of work that she has done in this area. She has had a couple of attempts at a Private Member’s Bill and I am following her footsteps.
The noble Baroness raised the absolutely abhorrent case of Jimmy Savile, who was given complete, unfettered access to vulnerable people based on the fundraising that he did. As a child, I spent lots of time at Stoke Mandeville and at other sports events in places where he turned up. I remember one event when I was probably about 12 years old. He arrived to a great fanfare and lots of people said, “Jimmy’s here, Jimmy’s here; you have to go and see him”. I was not particularly keen to do that. There was one adult who said to me, very quietly, “No, you don’t need to go”. I asked why—“Everyone is saying we have to go and see Jimmy”—and she said, “No, no; you can just stay here. You don’t need to go”. I did not think anything of it or tell anyone. I was chatting with my friends, and I thought she probably thought that chatting with my friends was more important than going to see him.
That was one adult who had a suspicion and was uncomfortable about behaviour, but there was nothing I could raise and nobody I could complain to. I was just told, “You don’t need to go near him”. It reminds me of how easy it is for adults in positions of power or trust to groom and to coax and to then lead to abuse, and how adults have an amazing position, where they can get into really uncomfortable situations. But adults also have incredibly positive relationships with children. I note the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and recognise her extensive work in volunteering. I do not want this amendment in any way to stop people volunteering or to make them feel that they are not able to or that there is undue pressure on them, but I wonder whether there is a form of words, or whether the right training and regulations could be put around it, that would enable people to feel more comfort. Again, a lot of youth organisations and other organisations have very positive relationships with young people.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. We have worked together for a long time on duty of care. I have to say that the idea for an ombudsman that was in my 2017 government report on duty of care was actually borrowed from him and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, from the early 1990s. I think we both agree that sport, at its best, is absolutely amazing. It can give people a very positive life. I have benefited hugely from my time in sport, but whether it is teachers or coaches, those who want to access children live on their reputation. I have heard a number of times, “But they are a good coach”, or, “They are good at their job”, and they are able to slip through the net.
I also pay tribute to the survivors of football abuse, who I have met several times over the years. A number of them came into Parliament about 18 months ago to talk about their experience and how it was just ignored by so many people around them because there was no legislation in place. Again, they fell victim to, “But they are a good coach”. Abusers were able to tie into these young boys’ dreams of wanting to play professional football. That leads me to the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lady Finlay: we have to be better at defining what a healthy relationship is, and educate children at an appropriate age about that. In a sporting context, there is far more that we can do on the athlete pathway and as people graduate through to performance levels. My noble friends Lord Meston and Lord Bichard and my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss have extensive experience of these issues, very sadly, and we should listen to them.
Like my noble friend Lord Bichard, I argued against the watering down of DBS checks, because it would allow those who want access to children to be able to get it too easily. I am reassured by some of the statements made about sharing information between LADOs, but I do not think they go far enough.
I would support the amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Watson of Invergowrie, if they brought them back at another time. The IICSA report took seven years. I believe strongly that all its recommendations need to be implemented. It is not just about the intention of the recommendations; they should be implemented in full. With that in mind, I recognise that I probably need to do some more work on drafting and have further discussions on this amendment. At this time, I beg leave to withdraw.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my entry in the register of interests: I am president of the LGA, chair of Sport Wales, chair of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and a trustee of the Foundation of Light. I thank ALLFIE, the Alliance for Inclusive Education, for its briefing and for its commitment to improving education for disabled children.
The Bill before us presents a valuable opportunity to enhance the well-being of our children and ensure that no child falls through the gaps—sadly, too many do. However, there are many missed opportunities in the Bill and an ongoing failure to address deep-rooted barriers for disabled children. If the Government are serious about getting disabled people into work, education is a key part of that. In 2024, 55% of children cited school failings as a reason for starting home-schooling. It works for many but should not be a last resort due to incorrect provision or used in a way that further segregates disabled children.
The National Audit Office has revealed that funding for SEND support has risen by 58% over the past decade to £10.7 billion. It is not sustainable and needs urgent reform. In the same report, published in October 2024, the NAO called for education to become more inclusive.
Parents have to be experts in every part of their disabled child’s life. I was lucky. I was in mainstream junior school when I became paralysed and my parents used the work of Baroness Warnock and, citing my right to be educated in the best environment for me, threatened to sue the Secretary of State for Wales over my right to go to mainstream school. It was a long, protracted battle. My parents won and I received an amazing education, but my life would be very different now if it were not for my parents.
What has changed in the last four decades? Not enough. Parents of disabled children are still fighting, and I receive numerous emails about disabled children not receiving the education they need. One parent wrote to me this week and said that the provision they are being offered is not even physically accessible for their child, would exclude their child from the beginning of their education and will negatively impact them for the rest of their lives. I will forward the details to the Minister.
Schools currently have little incentive to support disabled pupils, and there is little lived experience in the system. I spoke to a teacher who became a wheelchair user. I was told they knew they had kept their job only because they had been at the school a long time and knew the law. This is not acceptable. They provide a positive role model for all. The Government should commit to including more disabled people while employing more teachers in the system. The Bill does not recognise the systemic ableism of things such as off-rolling, school excursions and the unmet needs that push children out of school.
I welcome breakfast clubs but they must be accessible to disabled children, both physically and by ensuring that transport arrangements enable them to get there. Feeding children is so important, but the social connections matter too.
There are other gaps in the Bill, and I look forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, later. We need a fit and healthy nation and need to think about physical activity in a different way throughout the whole school day. Physical literacy and its measurement should be an integral part of the day. There is so much research on the benefit of activity on learning outcomes and well-being if taught well. Sport England found that a child who is active is happier, more resilient and more trusting of others, yet in 2023-24 over 41,000 fewer hours of PE were taught in schools than nearly a decade ago. We need to establish a more holistic approach to improving the health and well-being of our children.
Tess Howard, the GB hockey player, has done amazing work on the uniforms that children wear to school and how they can increase engagement for girls. The Government should consider consulting her.
In Wales we are lucky that we have the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act—a lens we can use to assess the impact of all legislation on our children. Is it not time that we consider that as well? I look forward to Committee.
Women: Sport and Physical Activity
Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Grey-Thompson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the role of sport and physical activity in providing a positive body image among young women.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, I thank the Whips’ Office for finding time for this debate and those noble friends who have stayed on.
I have a number of interests in sport—all listed in the register—but perhaps the most pertinent is that I co-chair the All-Party Group on Women's Sport with the right honourable Barbara Keeley MP, which is supported by the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation. I also thank the Lords Library for its notes on this topic.
I do not think that we could have picked a better time for this debate. Anyone who was watching Rebecca Adlington on “I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” last week will have seen her tearful reaction when talking about body image. She said: “It’s making me very, very insecure that I have to look a certain way. For me, I was an athlete. I wasn't trying to be a model, but pretty much every single week on Twitter I get somebody commenting on the way I look”.
This is a young women that we should all be proud of. She is a four-time Olympic medalist and a world champion, but many will understand how she feels. It is a worrying trend that young women are increasingly put under pressure to conform to look a certain way.
If I had said at the age of 15 that I thought I had poor body image, I would have been told to pull myself together. However, body image anxiety is a leading cause of depression and low self-esteem; health and relationship problems; poor participation at school; and lack of progression at work.
It is worrying that body image has become more important than health; that the majority of young people would rather be thin than healthy. In the UK, 1.6 million people suffer from an eating disorder. Dieting can lead to eating disorders, and girls who diet are 12 times more likely to binge eat. However, a positive body image can help with academic attainment, cutting down on smoking and teenage pregnancy
We need to understand that the relationship between body image and physical activity can be both positive and negative. The reality is that young women are facing pressure from many directions. For many women, a poor body image and lack of self-confidence is the biggest barrier that prevents them being active and it is easy to understand why. Bizarrely it is one of the things that could help them. If you put “Jessica Ennis” and “abs” in to a search engine, there are pages that show how you can look like Jess in just two minutes a day. The reality is more like six hours a day, 50 weeks of the year for about 15 years.
Skimming through some of the other comments over the weekend, I noticed that Chantelle Houghton—described as a former reality TV star, which is a whole other debate in itself—was heavily criticised for going out jogging in a pair of running tights and a cropped top. The obsession with how quickly celebrities lose their baby weight and get back into their pair of jeans puts undue pressure on others. Many of the women's magazines are full of pictures of bodies which are either beach-ready or not. It is hard to find many that do not contain some diet that will help you to look like your chosen celebrity. I cannot even begin to add up the number of women who get more coverage for the colour they have dyed their hair than they do for their achievements.
The data that the YMCA presents is compelling: more than half the UK population suffers from body image anxiety. Media, advertising and celebrity culture account for 75% of the influence on body image in society; and 95% of the population cannot physically achieve the typical “body ideal” presented in media and advertising.
Physical activity in schools is not going to right all those wrongs, but the right PE will help. For most women and girls, we know that once they become physically active, their body image and self-confidence improves, leading to greater academic success and job prospects. Research by Ernst & Young in the USA shows that many of the top female executives played competitive sport at a high level all the way through university.
We need to define a new language around sport. People often say “sport” when they mean “physical activity”—physical literacy as well as competitive sport. You have only to mention PE to most women and they shudder. We need to be clear in thinking about a health agenda and getting more people active. Getting girls to be active will lead to more of them playing competitive sport, which would be great. However, if the starting focus is on competition, it is likely to lead to fewer girls being active.
Since the Olympics and Paralympics, the Department for Education has suggested that there will be an increased focus on competitive sport in schools. That is fine for many. It would have suited me fine at the age of 20 but not when I was 13. So why do we need to find a new way of doing PE in schools? Evidence from the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation shows that 46% of the least active girls say that they do not like the activities they do in PE; 45% of girls agree that “sport is too competitive”; and over a third of the least active girls do not think that they have the skills to do well in sport, so it is obvious that we need to do more to build confidence. Some 75% of girls agreed that girls are self-conscious of their bodies and 59% of the least active girls do not think that it is important to be good at physical activity. In many schools it is okay to be a sporty boy but not to be a sporty girl.
On average, female athletes are more likely to have a positive body image, and less likely to consider themselves overweight, than female non-athletes. Earlier this year, I chaired a Task and Finish Group for the Welsh Assembly Government, looking at the role of PE in schools. We recommended that it became a core subject, and that was picked up by the Select Committee on Olympic and Paralympic Legacy, which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, sat on.
We must teach good skills at a young age, which for girls also means a mix of sports and activities as well as being given the option of single-sex and mixed sessions. A number of women wrote to me about this issue. Arriene, who is 28, said:
“I never joined a gym because PE taught me that I wasn't good enough and sport made me feel useless”.
The Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation’s Changing the Games for Girls shows that 51% of school sport and PE put girls off. Kate Allenby MBE, an Olympian who is now a PE teacher, said that girls need good role models. Keith Kendrick, who wrote on the website Parentdish, said that he desperately needed Becky Adlington to be a strong role model for his stepdaughter. Many women have written to me to express the horror of communal changing rooms—and a few men as well. I am sure that most of us can remember that dreadful feeling. However fit and strong you feel, it puts much undue pressure on people.
The YMCA suggests that if we do not get this right, we will jeopardise the health and well-being of future generations, and I agree. Its research has shown that five year-olds now worry about their size and appearance, that body image is the biggest single worry for many 10 year-olds, that by the age of 14 half of girls and a third of boys have started dieting, and that children are directly influenced by parents’ body image, whether that is positive or negative
Today’s young people aged between 18 and 34 are much more likely than previous generations to have heard their parents talking about dieting, criticising their own appearance or even teasing their children about their appearance or weight. Girlguiding UK has some fantastic research results in its Girls’ Attitudes Survey 2012. When it asked why girls do sport, 29% said that they did it to keep fit, 46% said that it was to lose weight or control their weight, but 44 % said that it helped them to feel good about their bodies. It has also shown that one in seven young people would prefer to be slim than healthy, and findings from the WSFF show that 19% have said that being slim is more important than being healthy.
There is a huge pressure on girls to be skinny. The size zero that we hear about—there is a great deal of discussion about this being the size of many models—is the size of a 12 year-old girl. It is not normal or acceptable. It is worrying that so many women have an aspiration that they cannot achieve.
We need a balanced approached in schools. We need to look at best practice; to celebrate participation and not only winning. We need to look at the uniforms that girls wear—luckily, we have moved on a long way from my days in school, where it was gym knickers and an Aertex blouse—because a key component is that many girls worry about how they look. We need to address the issue of changing rooms and consider putting hairdryers in them. If that is one of the things that stops girls being active, how difficult can it be to put a couple of hairdryers in every changing room? We need to work with young girls to give them confidence.
For me this is a very important area and I would like to ask the Minister a question: how much have the different departments—Health, Education and DCMS—discussed the matter? How can they work together across departments to find a workable solution—because a solution to this will not be found through one department alone?
Sport: Women and Girls
Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
My noble friend speaks from a huge amount of experience and she is of course right that it is extremely important that we develop this from the earliest age—getting children out of pushchairs, for example, and onwards. As for primary schools, she is right. I am sure that she will be reassured to know that discussions are happening at the moment about how to strengthen school sport from primary schools upwards. An announcement will be made very shortly.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, media coverage is very important and I declare an interest as chair of the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation’s Commission on the Future of Women’s Sport. However, for elite success and media coverage we also need good participation figures and recent data have shown that mums are much less likely to take their daughters to play sport than their sons because of their own experience of sport in school. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have to insist in changing the culture around women so that they encourage their daughters to play as much sport as their sons?
Baroness Northover
Again, the noble Baroness speaks with huge amounts of experience and the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation is a crucial body in trying to take this forward. Sport England has awarded a grant to that organisation to try to identify how best to encourage women and girls to be involved in sport. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that mothers who were themselves switched off from sport are less likely to encourage their children to be involved in sport. That is one key area where we welcome insights into how best to tackle this.
Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012
Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, and welcome him to your Lordships’ House. The Games were incredible and I, for one, am very proud and a little relieved that after 10 years of saying these would be the best Paralympic Games ever, the noble Lord led the team that made it happen, so this is a very personal thank you. And, of course, the Olympics were pretty good too.
It could be easy to forget that the noble Lord had an extremely successful business career before the Games. He did not always run an OCOG, although at times I am sure that it felt like it. The success of the Games was in no small part due to his vision, dedication and hard work. I am sure that I speak for all when I say that we look forward to the future contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Deighton.
I also thank the noble Lady, Baroness Doocey, for tabling this debate. I declare an interest in that I sat on several committees of LOCOG. I add my congratulations to all members of Team GB, the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, Paralympics GB, the Games makers, and our armed services.
I have been privileged to witness the evolution of the Paralympic movement, from a time when no one knew what it was, to that Jonnie Peacock moment when he silenced 82,000 people merely by holding his finger to his lips.
The Games on their own were never going to change the world and it is not fair to expect that. I believed that they could provide a moment that would open the public’s eyes to possibilities for disabled people and a moment where, at a basic level, the public would stop talking about the “real”, the “normal” or the “proper” Games when they meant the Olympics and “the other Olympics” when they really meant the Paralympics. Language is the dress of thought, and inclusion is more than putting a few Paralympic images on a poster or in a line-up
Equality is not a tick-box exercise. There has to be substance beneath it. LOCOG proved that time and time again. It celebrated the similarities between the Games and, where appropriate, the differences. Never once in all my time involved in these Games did I feel like a second-class citizen in sport. I cannot say that that has always been the case.
At a time when the figures for hate crimes against disabled people are high, we have to do something differently. Tim Hollingsworth, the chief executive of the British Paralympic Association, talks not about legacy but about building momentum. He said, “If before the Games we had a mountain to climb in terms of attitudes, we are now on the foothills. Much of that will be about non-disabled people engaging in the way that they did for 10 days in the summer”.
The English Federation of Disability Sport, of which I am president, has published a legacy survey, which found that the Paralympics had a significant impact on perceptions of disability. Eight out of 10 non-disabled people said that they were now interested in watching disabled people play sport and eight out of 10 disabled people considered taking part in more sport or exercise. Have the Paralympics changed the lives of disabled people? Someone I met after the Games said to me that the Paralympics made him realise that disabled people were humans too.
In looking towards the future, I warmly welcome the fact that Sport England will require national governing bodies to set targets for the number of disabled people taking part in physical activity. This is the first time that that will happen. I would like to ask the Minister what action will be taken against those bodies which do not meet the targets and do not follow on from the wonderful Paralympics. Will he reassure me that the national governing bodies will be encouraged to access appropriate expertise from other disability organisations to help them succeed?
Another key part is the PE curriculum in school, which must be inclusive and appropriate for disabled children. The development of physical literacy at an early age helps support other learning. What plans are there to ensure that disabled children are not excluded from PE and just sent to the library because it is easier, which was what happened when I was at school? While participation is important, disabled people can also be coaches, administrators and officials, and I should like to know what plans there are to ensure that there is wide access in these areas and that we do not concentrate only on participation.
The legacy is more than sport and physical activity. On a personal level, very recently, I had difficulty getting off a train. I had to sit on the floor, by the toilet, and push my chair off the steps before I shuffled to the door to transfer off. Do we really need to wait until 2020 to have accessible transport? If we can deliver an amazing Games, we can do other big projects too. Recently, I was invited to a dinner where I had to use the back entrance to get in. When I wanted to use the bathroom, it took several minutes to find a ramp and, while I was in the bathroom, it was taken away and I could not get back down the steps—not quite inclusion.
I have received lots of e-mails from people who are passionate about the Games. Recently, I received one from a father who has three children, one of whom has Down’s syndrome. The father was told that his son would never walk or talk but he does. The family were enthused by the Games and decided that they wanted their son to be active. One local club would not allow him to join, saying that he would hold the other children back. There was no discussion of how his impairment would affect the group or what extra help might be needed. It was just “no”. When he finally joined a group, after one session his family were told that, as he had not made enough progress, he would not be welcomed back. I come from a world of elite sport and I do not know any performance director who is that tough over one training session. The little boy who I am talking about is just five years old. We can do better than that.
The noble Lord, Lord Coe, said in the Paralympics commemorative programme:
“We want the athletes and everyone involved in these Games to inspire disabled and non-disabled young people from all backgrounds to have the same access and opportunities to fulfil their potential”.
We can do that but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, has said, it will take a lot of hard work.
Finally, on a positive note, at the Games I saw a little girl aged about five who was a double above-knee amputee, wearing prosthetic legs. Her mum told me that for the first time she was wearing shorts because she was proud to be there. It is for her, and others like her, that we must not forget this summer of sport. In the same way that a dog is for life and not just for Christmas, respect for disabled people, celebrating what disabled people can do and inclusion, is not just for the Paralympics.