Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for tabling it.

I would like to quote from a speech I made on 26 June 2014, soon after the terrible crimes of Jimmy Savile had been analysed in the Lampard report. Our campaign for the mandatory reporting of child abuse went back at least a decade before that, but the Savile case showed clearly what happens when people who know do not tell. I realise, as the noble Baroness does, that the Minister might tell us this is the wrong Bill to explore this issue, but I have always taken every opportunity to raise it, and that is why I am doing so again today.

On that occasion, I said:

“I have always felt that a child is his or her own best protector. We can do what we can to protect a child, but we cannot sit on her shoulder all the time. This is why it is so important that children are taught in every school, through a balanced PSHE course, how to protect their own personal integrity … They also need to be taught what a healthy, non-abusive relationship looks and feels like, and who to turn to in case of fear or of actual abuse”.


I still believe that this is every child’s right. I went on to say:

“We must then minimise the opportunity for perpetrators to reach vulnerable children”,


and to talk about the shortcomings of DBS checks, which

“are not enough, as they only identify those who have offended before, and are no use against first-time offenders or those who are clever enough to avoid detection”.—[Official Report, 26/6/14; cols. 1418-19.]

This is still the case.

In that situation, the knowledge or suspicion of abuse by adults around the child is a vital ingredient of protection. We need to ensure that those who know or suspect what is going on report what they know to an appropriate and responsible person. I mentioned that lawyers who acted for dozens of Jimmy Savile’s victims had told me that the most shocking revelation of all was the number of victims who had reported what had happened at the time to someone in their institution, only to be ignored and their claims covered up. One girl in Stoke Mandeville told a nurse what Jimmy Savile had done, only to be told, “You’re making a mountain, you silly girl. Do you know what he does for our hospital?”—how shocking.

That is why I believed then, and I still believe 11 years later, that we need a clear and comprehensive system for the mandatory reporting of child abuse which would make it an offence—with clear penalties—for those in a position of trust in a regulated activity to fail to report knowledge or reasonable suspicion of abuse. The person making the report need not know for sure that abuse was taking place; that is for the competent authorities to decide after investigation. Reasonable suspicion is all that is needed.

The amendment before us refers to regulated activity as defined in the Children Act 2004 and the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, both of which I well remember—though the definitions would need amending to exclude such confidential helplines as Childline. These measures have been successfully in operation in Australia for years, so I do not believe that it would be a problem here. I am grateful for the advice of Professor Ben Mathews—who also advised IICSA—about the Australian system. The idea that there would be a lot of mendacious reporting did not occur in Australia; in any case, one cannot fail to lift a stone for fear of the slime one might find underneath.

Childline advisers will often encourage children to report the abuse themselves to a trusted adult. In that situation, the child must be able to have confidence that, if they do so, their disclosure will be properly dealt with, and no concern about reputational damage should get in the way of that adult doing the right thing by the child. The only way children can have that confidence is to make failure to report abuse an offence. When a child gets up the courage to confide in a trusted adult about abuse, they do so because they want it to stop. Imagine how that child feels when nothing is done.

The intention of the amendment is not to put people in prison, except in the most egregious cases, but to change the culture. I believe that it would help workers to report abuse if they saw it as a public duty and not as telling tales. There is considerable public support for this. In an independent poll of the public in 2014, 96% of people supported it. I am not sure what the figure would be now, but, in the years since then, given the revelations of mass grooming gangs abusing young girls for years and nobody believing the children, I would think the figure might be even higher now. I urge noble Lords to support this amendment.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment is both necessary and important. It is a credit to the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Walmsley, who eloquently introduced it, and for years fought for the mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse to be firmly placed on the statute book.

Child abuse, whether in the form of physical, emotional or sexual mistreatment, whether through lack of care, or whether leading to injury or harm, is offensive and detestable. I welcome recognition by the movers of this amendment that the amendment should capture the importance of child sexual abuse in schools and sport clubs, as covered in proposed new Schedule 1A.

Within sport, each case of sexual abuse among children is one case too many. In sport, it is compounded because it takes place within a relationship of trust or responsibility; it is an abuse of the power and it is a breach of that trust. The influence that a sports coach or physical education teacher has over children is disproportionately compounded by the physical nature of proximity in sport and the near total control which can be exercised over an ambitious child seeking success in the world of sport. We have seen how prevalent this is in the worlds of gymnastics, football and athletics, to name just three sports which have witnessed the ugliness of child sexual abuse.

Taking each in turn, for decades this was a problem that was festering at the heart of gymnastics. For far too long, some coaches and teachers have been able to act with total impunity, forcing young children to experience extreme training programmes while bullying and humiliating dissenting voices into silence. Some coaches have abused their power and authority to commit terrible crimes against the children they should have been caring for, leaving lives destroyed in their wake. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, numerous prominent gymnasts spoke out about the bullying, discrimination and abuse that they experienced in the sport at schools and in clubs. As a result, the Whyte review was commissioned, and an independent report examined the allegations of mistreatment in the sport of gymnastics. Predatory coaches and teachers were allowed to move from school to school and gym to gym, undetected by a lax system of oversight, and predatory coaches and teachers worked to conceal abuse.

In football, a child abuse scandal involving the abuse of young players at football clubs began in November 2016, and by the end of 2021, 16 men had been charged with historical sexual abuse offences, 15 of whom were tried. One was head of PE at a school in Birmingham, another a secondary school teacher. In athletics, the documentary “Nowhere to Run” in the UK concerned the sexual abuse of athletes by a coach and how the athletes tried to deal with the impact of the abuse.

The current situation in law, as noble Lords in this Committee know, is that while child safeguarding requirements are mandatory for all schools and colleges in the UK, a duty is legally enshrined in the Education Act and various statutory instruments, which are welcomed. However, we need to go further. Those measures did not deter many of the cases that have come to light, and there is no law that compels everyone to report child sexual abuse. Despite the promises for action within the Crime and Policing Bill, there is no criminal sanction for failing to report child sexual abuse under the mandatory reporting plan. We need to go further than a duty to report that “may be referred” to a

“professional regulator (where applicable) or the Disclosure and Barring Service, who will consider their suitability to continue working in regulated activity with children”.

I join the noble Baronesses in their view that there should be professional criminal sanctions for failing to report or covering up child sexual abuse, which they have put in the amendment they have tabled.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has led work on a duty of care and safeguarding; I have been privileged to support on it for over 20 years. We have sought to create a sports ombudsman, or a sports duty of care quality commission, who would also have duties of care within all schools. We have sought to develop an independent benchmark survey to measure duty of care, to monitor whether duty of care policies are working, and to inform future policy and investment decisions, and we have sought to ensure that there is a duty of care guardian—one in every school, I hope—with responsibility for engaging with participants in school sport, as well as with young people across the talent pathways and in community sport.

Today we can go one step further. We can rectify the position of the absence of a well-designed, mandatory reporting law at the heart of the safeguarding shortcomings in institutional settings such as sport and recreation at schools. Let the lessons of the past protect the children of tomorrow, and let those of us who I hope one day will vote for this amendment, if it is not accepted by the Minister today, take the lead for future generations.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, this is an extremely important amendment. I have a slight concern that the Minister in replying may say that the Crime and Policing Bill is the place for such an amendment, but the problem with the proposals in that Bill is that they are based on age, whereas this amendment is much more subtle in responding to the emotional entrapment that goes on in grooming, the activity that goes on in grooming, and the difficulty of sexual abuse being perpetrated at all ages.

There are five areas that I think would have to go along with this—a public health awareness over the dangers of the early stages of emotional entrapment, leading to grooming that leads on to sexual abuse and the pressures that children are under. Therefore, there must be an awareness overall across society that none of this is acceptable, with training and support of all those who have any responsibility for children, and, when there is suspicion, clear pathways to people who can really deal with this sensitively.

One of the situations that comes to mind is the child who goes in to see their GP, perhaps a teenager seeking contraceptive advice. They may actually be in a sexual relationship where they have been coerced, pressured and emotionally groomed, and entrapped with the person who is abusing them, even if that is somebody who is also very young. There may be an imbalance in that relationship, particularly if it is a child who is desperate for love, affection and closeness altogether in their life.

When legislation is introduced, which it must be, it will also need good scientific evaluation—not just a tick-box review but a proper study to see how it is working. I was glad to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, say that this was a probing amendment, simply because there is a change I would like to see to it. The amendment refers to healthcare, including in GP surgeries, and I would like that to be extended to primary care services, given that a lot of primary care services occur out in the community. District and community nurses are going into people’s homes, which may well be places where they pick up that something is not right, particularly if there is one parent, or sometimes even two, who are ill and need input.

Sport: Supreme Court Ruling on Sex and Gender

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Moynihan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to hold meetings with the British Olympic Association and national governing bodies of sport, including the Football Association, to discuss the implications for British sport of the Supreme Court ruling on the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010.

[The Minister of State, Office for Equality and Opportunity (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is for each sport’s domestic national governing body to set their own policies for who can participate in domestic competitions. We have always been clear that, when it comes to women’s sport, biology matters. We will continue to support sports to develop policies that protect fairness and safety. Our sporting bodies also need to come up with approaches to ensure that everybody has the opportunity to take part in some capacity.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I proposed an amendment in 2004 to the then Gender Recognition Bill, which was agreed by your Lordships’ House and reflected in the Equality Act 2010, to exempt sports governing bodies from the legislation on the grounds of fair competition and the safety of competitors. Nevertheless, does the Minister agree that, given the widely differing interpretations within the world of sport, government advice on these two very sensitive but important issues, in collaboration with Sport England, would be definitely welcomed?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that the Equality Act has always enabled sporting bodies to make decisions on the basis of safety and fairness, which we wholly support, but there are also considerable differences between individual sports in terms of, for example, the age or level at which safety and fairness become really crucial elements. I am not sure that it is the role of government to intervene in the way he is suggesting, because the clarity from the Supreme Court ruling, interpreted in relation to each individual sport, is probably the appropriate way for governing bodies to go.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister in her opening sentence stated that there are few subjects which unite people more than the well-being of children. I fully agree, and for that reason I believe there will be a constructive approach across the Committee when it comes to seeking ways to strengthen the Bill and achieve that objective.

The Roman poet Juvenal coined the famous phrase:

“Mens sana in corpore sano”—


a healthy mind in a healthy body. That emphasises the eternal interconnectedness of physical and mental well-being. It suggests that prioritising both is crucial for overall health, happiness and well-being. A healthy body can support a healthy mind by providing the physical energy and resilience needed for children to navigate life’s challenges. Conversely, a healthy mind can positively influence physical health for children by reducing stress, promoting better sleep and enhancing immune functions.

In the educational context, physical exercise is an essential part of mental and psychological well-being, yet here we have a Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in which, if you run a word search through it, there is not one mention of sport, physical activity or even physical education.

In the build-up to and during the London Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012, as chairman of the British Olympic Association, I called for a sports legacy from the Games which would reach every pupil, whether they were in the East End of London or the northern parts of Scotland. The UK needed a radical new national school policy for sport, health and well-being. The situation has deteriorated year on year since then. The Bill turns a blind eye to the importance of physical education and sport and today’s concerns over the well-being of our pupil cohort, and instead recognises a world of growing obesity, declining participation rates, reduced PE hours, poor teacher training, inequalities in access, particularly for girls and children from lower-income backgrounds, and funding cuts. The Youth Sport Trust reports that fewer young people are meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines for daily physical activity, with over 50% of all our pupils failing to reach the recommended 60 minutes, which is a de minimis recommendation of moderate to vigorous activity a day.

There is concern about the decline in the number of PE hours, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. Delays or cuts to funding for school sport, with uncertainty over the short-term funding programme for primary PE and sport premium, have led to schools using the funds for purposes not set out by government, and teachers often doing less than three hours of training for physical education during the totality of their teacher training. That is not a child-centric policy.

The pandemic has added to the problems and led to changes in how children play, with more time spent online and less time outdoors impacting their physical activity levels. Children are not learning to swim properly, with a third of primary schools delivering fewer than 10 swimming lessons a year. Yet, as I mentioned, there is not a single mention of any of this in a Bill on children’s well-being. You might as well write a health strategy without mentioning medical treatment.

In Committee, I intend to propose a wide series of amendments to rectify this oversight, to secure improvements to the Bill which place physical as well as mental well-being at the heart of school life. When it comes to school sport, state schools are in crisis: 40% of our medallists in the Tokyo Olympic Games came from just 7% of the population, those educated in the private sector—which is also under threat. It was 36% in London and 33% in Paris.

The noble Lord, Lord Layard, spoke of the vital need to measure well-being, both physical and mental. I could not agree more and will be fully supportive of any amendment which seeks to achieve this objective. Committee provides us with the opportunity to set out the changes necessary to ensure the Secretary of State’s objective—to improve the well-being of children—is achieved, and I look forward to taking that agenda forward.

“For Women Scotland” Supreme Court Ruling

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

One of the important things about the EHRC’s production of the statutory code of practice, and other forms of guidance, is that it consults as widely as possible, as my noble friend outlined. That is one of the ways that everybody will be able to be confident about their rights and the rights for trans people that remain in the law now.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, this welcome decision has long-overdue implications for competition in sport, both nationally and internationally. Will the Minister agree that national governing bodies of sport, particularly for football and cricket, along with organisers of events such as the London Marathon events, should now revise their rules? Will she agree that Sport England should publish its advice and oversee implementation of that advice as soon as possible—certainly before the Summer Recess?

Migrant Children: Welfare

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate has reminded us that it is 30 years since Section 17 of the Children Act placed a duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need in their area. Today’s debate, against the background of so many remarkable stories in the report, is about those in exceptional poverty; those at high risk of hopelessness, exploitation and abuse; those children and families without recourse to public funds; and the vital need for all concerned to listen to the voices of children.

Of course, the key finding of the deeply moving report by Project 17, Not Seen, Not Heard, goes far further than immigration issues, housing or homelessness. It has at its roots a challenge to us to listen to children and young people and, by listening, to act. So how should we listen? How best can we communicate, learn and engage? Ever since my youngest son ran the marathon to raise awareness and money for the outstanding charity YoungMinds, springing as it did from his deeply felt concern about the well-being of children and the growing incidence of mental ill-health among young people, I have learned that our concern should be not just for the poorest in society but for all those children whose voices go unheard—all those who are legally here.

As YoungMinds recognises, an estimated three children in every classroom has a diagnosable mental health problem, while 90% of school leaders reported an increase in the number or students experiencing anxiety or stress and low mood or depression over the last five years, yet fewer than one in three children and young people with a diagnosable mental health condition get access to NHS care and treatment. Since 2017, the YoungMinds “Wise Up” campaign has called for a rebalancing of the education system so that the well-being of all young people is as important as their academic achievement. Schools should not be expected to do the job of mental health services, but they have a crucial role to play in promoting good mental health in everything they do. It is time for important changes to the Ofsted framework. In that context, I ask the Minister if she will talk to her colleagues so that an outstanding school, for all children, is seen as one that prioritises the well- being of its students as much as its academic success.

I would also be grateful if the Minister could update the House on progress made following the Green Paper on children’s mental health, in which mental health support teams are to act as a link with local children and young people’s mental health services and be supervised by NHS staff. Surely an aim to roll out just 20% to 25% over the next five years means that the majority of all our children, and all our immigrant children, who need help will not be supported. When will we listen to the remaining 75%?

Our focus needs to be on challenging decision-makers to listen to and act upon the evidence of vulnerable children and young people. As Vicky Johnson wrote in the abstract for her exceptional article, Moving Beyond Voice in Children and Young People’s Participation, in seeking to understand if and how children and youth input was valued and acted upon by adults:

“Each case rested on the same value proposition: that inclusion of children and youth is critical to participatory democracy and so incorporating their views can move societies towards improved policies and services for”,


all children, all immigrant children, all young people,

“and a culture of mutual respect in intergenerational relationships”.

To me, creating participatory spaces and building dialogue and trust between children and adults are necessary preconditions for child and youth-centred transformational change in any society, particularly here at home, where such influence can be brought to bear.

Poor immigrant families are a prominent presence in the public realm but rarely have a voice. As Gill Main, who is undertaking excellent work at the University of Leeds in conjunction with the Child Poverty Action Group, wrote, children,

“rarely have the opportunity to influence how they are portrayed and to shape interventions purportedly designed to help them”.

To shape change, we need to shift our focus from what the poorest in society are doing and how they should change, towards listening to their perspectives on what they need and how society could be more fairly organised.

I was struck by Dave performing “Thiago Silva” at Glastonbury 10 days ago as he reached out to a 15 year-old boy, Alex, to join him on stage and accompany him through that complex rap in which Thiago Silva, the Brazil and Paris St Germain iconic footballer, who was once left almost for dead with tuberculosis in a small room in Russia, was recognised. Here, music became the language for Dave and Alex, representing a generation whose communication is through music. Today, I have spoken all afternoon on amendments to the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill to ensure that there is a legacy of listening to young people, inspiring them and lifting them out of depression and, often, away from the escalator to crime, through the medium of sport.

We have an overriding duty to help those immigrant children with ways to escape their daily struggles, and to provide hope—not just to dream about a future but to use everything in our power so they can have a future and discover what they can be; to find means of advocacy, mentoring and engagement. We have an especial duty to help those child refugees who have nothing, forced to leave their country because of war or for religious or political reasons, reaching out while we as a society too often fail to take their hand and listen, fail to place them at the centre of our policy-making and fail to use our two ears in proportion to our one mouth when in their company.

Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, the public judgment on the success of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was foremost a story about the remarkable achievements of our athletes. The Olympic board, which had oversight over every aspect of the Games, Olympic and Paralympic alike, numbered just four original members: the Secretary of State, the mayor, my noble friend Lord Coe as chair of LOCOG and myself as chair of the British Olympic Association. At LOCOG we were very fortunate to have the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, deliver Games organisation to a gold medal standard, and we welcome him to your Lordships’ House after an outstanding maiden speech.

For my part, I was supported strongly by my chief executive Andy Hunt and an outstanding team at the British Olympic Association. To me, the Games was above all about the athletes; every decision—from the tough, consistent, no-compromise position that we took against doping in sport to the need to secure long-term funding for the sportsmen and women that the British Olympic Association represents—was about the athletes. I have every confidence that my noble friend Lord Coe will be a major asset in taking that work forward.

I never predicted medal targets—an activity which should be left to the bookies—but I sought to ensure with my colleagues at the British Olympic Association that every athlete could be supported to the ultimate degree Puttham in other words, to deliver, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, rightly said, their personal bests. If that was achieved, the medal targets would look after themselves. The reputation set by Team GB on and off the field of play was exemplary and has been reviewed as a benchmark for sport in this country. The performance of the British Olympic Association’s 750 support staff within the delegation was outstanding and an excellent example of how over 50 organisations can come together as one team aligned behind a common mission to deliver high-performance sport, medals and a suite of personal bests.

It was a remarkable summer. The atmosphere in the Olympic park was inspirational. This atmosphere extended not just across London but across the country. During the summer of 2012 the United Kingdom became the Olympic park. Team GB became the driving force behind the success of the Games. The athletes of the world raised the stakes. Across the Olympic and Paralympic Games, 117 Olympic records were broken and 250 world records set. From our perspective we have never seen any British sporting success like this in our lifetime. As important as the success of our Olympians and Paralympians is, it is vital now—as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, has reminded us through this debate—to turn inspiration into participation.

Girl power was a key feature of Team 2012. Our women athletes led the way. Their energy, expertise and enthusiasm must now be translated into the involvement of more women at all levels of sports administration. It escaped nobody’s attention that the success of the women at the Olympic Games—boosted by 11 British gold medals—has led to calls for changes to boost women’s sport and bring to an end sports clubs that still deny women equal membership rights. I am in favour of removing the exemption to the Equality Act which permits discrimination against women in this context. The Royal and Ancient, I regret, is a classic example, for golf is now—after the London Games—an Olympic sport. Equality of opportunity should be a no-brainer for any true devotee of sport. The absence of women from the top table of so many national and international federations of sport would, regrettably, suggest otherwise.

Education’s rightful place should be at the epicentre of the Olympic sports legacy. We need a revolution, on the back of a successful Games, in the delivery of^. school sport. Every primary school needs dedicated physical education delivered to national curriculum standard; provided by well-trained, focused individuals; and supported by a vibrant, accessible and sustainable interschool sports programme which is, in turn, supported and linked into the national governing body competition calendars.

How should we do this? We need a review of initial training for specialist physical education teachers to establish quality physical education, which all our children and young people—both able bodied and disabled—need and deserve. Links should be established between all schools, both primary and secondary, and all sport and recreation clubs in their catchment areas. We should have a comprehensive audit of all our sports facilities and every one of them should be part of a concerted programme to ensure that they are used and do not lie idle for so much of the year. Our playing fields are needed and must be protected.

The delivery of quality training programmes for primary school physical education teachers is patchy at best. More than 60% of primary school teachers receive less than six hours’ preparation in total to teach physical education. As we all know, some providers do a great job. The Teaching Agency should ensure that there is a step change in the delivery of quality physical education for all teacher training programmes. I would hope that Ofsted could be required to expand its remit and inspect and report on curriculum-time physical education as well as out-of-hours sport in all schools. The success of the Games needs to be a catalyst not just for improved PE provision in schools; it should be a call for a wider healthy schools agenda, the provision for youths in general and the role of competitive sport in its proper context. What is needed is a greater concentration on the physical and emotional health and well-being of young people nationwide.

If there was ever fertile ground for David Cameron’s vision of the big society, it is through sport and recreation. Control, power, jobs and funding needs to be shifted from bureaucratic, micromanaged structures under the influence of Whitehall to families, clubs, volunteers, community groups and schools, who should be empowered with the task of translating the inspiration of the Games into participation.

While I have focused on the BOA today and the vital need to deliver on the Olympic sports legacy, there is no doubt that equal attention should be given to the British Paralympic Association and to sport for those with disabilities. For this summer gave us a moment to understand the abilities of the world’s Olympians, not their disabilities.

I hope that these objectives which I have shared with your Lordships can begin to deliver an Olympic sports legacy of which this country can be proud.

Millennium Development Goals

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the British Olympic Association and a member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games. Today I will talk about the importance of sport as a key contributor to the progress needed to deliver the millennium development goals. Over the years the Olympic movement and its constituency have applied immense resources in the area of development through sport, helping to promote formal education, culture, healthy lifestyles, human rights, sustainability, gender equality, understanding among peoples and peace, to name a few. As a family of some 205 national Olympic committees, we in the International Olympic Committee also assist several humanitarian organisations by providing sports equipment, educational material and aid to victims of wars and natural disasters.

Each of these programmes and activities offers a meaningful contribution to the achievement of the millennium development goals. For example, in community development we contribute to local socio-economic development through sport. In environmental protection we advocate environmentally sound sport practice and sustainable development. In HIV and AIDS prevention we promote healthy lifestyles through peer education. In humanitarian assistance we bring hope through recreation to people in need. In gender equality we ensure greater access to sport for girls and women, as well as leadership empowerment. In Olympic education and culture we promote Olympism and Olympic values throughout the world among youth. In peace and Olympic Truce promotion we work on conflict resolution and inter-community dialogue through sport—a subject close to the heart of my noble friend Lord Bates.

The International Olympic Committee and international sports associations co-operate with numerous United Nations agencies, programmes and funds, and with member states as well as non-governmental institutions, to develop and implement a range of initiatives, using sport as a tool for development. National Olympic committees and national sports federations play a critical role as they communicate with billions of young people throughout the world on a daily basis. They bring to the table specific organisational expertise that delivers a cadre of young, disciplined generations to be empowered and trained for the roles they will play as leaders of tomorrow. In this country my noble friend Lord Coe and we at the British Olympic Association do this through the programme International Inspiration. It is the main British project in this context. It is led by Sir Keith Mills and uses sport to touch the lives of more than 10 million people in developing countries as a result of our hosting the Olympic Games in London in 2012.

The decision by UN member states last October to invite the IOC to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly as permanent observer—a position strongly supported by the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown—has raised the level of partnership between sports organisations around the globe as a whole, and the political leadership of nations, to a whole new level that dictates that more resources should be provided to sport by Governments and by sport to deliver on its development commitments, so sport is an essential development tool and a key contributor towards ensuring progress towards the millennium development goals. We at the British Olympic Association are ready to assist government with a range of initiatives before and after 2012 so as to deliver a true and lasting legacy from London 2012.