UK Sport: Elite Sport Funding

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of recent decisions taken by UK Sport, whether they will consider a review into how the criteria for elite level sport funding are set.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, decisions on elite funding allocations are for UK Sport to make, not the Government. That funding must be invested strategically in the right sports, athletes and support programmes to deliver medal success. UK Sport’s no-compromise approach delivered our greatest Olympic performance in a century at Rio 2016, making the country very proud. I hope that Team GB’s amazing success in Rio will be repeated at Tokyo 2020.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but does he not consider that we should expand our base of elite, medal-winning sports and not simply the number of medals? For instance, if we have a sporting culture where we dominate one or two sports, we are in danger of stopping the encouragement of grass-roots participation across a much wider range of sports in which to win medals.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

Of course, that is exactly what the Government are doing. By spending about four times as much on Sport England, they aim to encourage activity and sporting achievement, which will lead to elite sport level. However, the remit for UK Sport is to win medals at the Olympics, and it has achieved that in spectacular fashion.