Sport, Health and Well-being National Plan (NPSRC Report)

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, who I first got to know after we successfully won the bid to stage 2012, when he accompanied me—I was the Schools Minister, and he was the Olympian to inspire children around the Olympics. It is also a pleasure to follow the other speakers. In particular, after the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, opened the debate, I want to associate myself with his comments about the noble Lord, Lord Willis, who so excellently led us in the committee. I also remind this committee of my interests as the chair of the multi-academy trust, E-ACT, as I shall go on to talk a little bit about schools.

The core problem that the committee addressed is that of inactivity among adults and children. Those thumbing the report need only go to pages 9 and 13 to see the graphics that show that inactivity. My noble friend Lady Morris cited some of the statistics. It is that relationship between inactivity, poor mental well-being and chronic health problems that are at the heart of the recommendation that the committee made around a national plan and something centrally driven. The Government’s response unfortunately shows a negligible appetite to change anything. I would say to the Arts Minister, in the words of Shakespeare,

“Nothing will come of nothing”.


As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, noted, the machinery of government changes announced this week mean that perhaps the particular solution that the committee arrived at might have missed the boat for the time being. However, perhaps if he were listening, the Chancellor could be inspired by one of our witnesses, Grant Robertson, who was the New Zealand Finance Minister and also the Sports Minister. I am not necessarily suggesting that Jeremy Hunt should become Sports Minister, but he could head up a national plan for sport, health and well-being, given his background as a previous Secretary of State at DCMS and a previous Secretary of State at Health and the huge savings that our NHS, in such crisis at the moment, could gain over the long term if we tackled this chronic problem of inactivity among adults and children.

I also very much want to associate myself with what the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, in respect of mandatory reporting. The committee heard from no one who disagreed with the need to bring in mandatory reporting, and I cannot understand why the Government resist that.

In the time I have left, I want to focus on physical literacy among children. The Government are defensive and rely on the money from the sport premium and that PE is mandatory between ages of five to 16. Yet again, we see a problem. We have had those things for a little while now, and the problem has not been solved, so what are we going to do differently? I have visited a lot of primary schools and asked them how they are spending their sport premium, and it is making a difference. Many primary schools are now engaging professional coaches, who are helping to address the problem of the absence of PE training among primary school teachers that the committee identified. That is positive, but other problems endure.

Swimming was made statutory. I am very proud that as Schools Minister I introduced it as part of the Olympic package, but if we do not have swimming pools for kids to learn in, it does not really amount to much. Some things will endure. The issues around puberty and body image and the mental health difficulties that girls, in particular, are going through at the moment, as well as the difficulty around changing rooms in organised sport are very difficult ongoing challenges. However, the accountability system that we have in schools values the academic subjects in the EBacc and excludes PE, with Progress 8 then enforcing that and fetishising the academic within the accountability system, so that in the end schools end up having a GCSE for everything so that it looks academic. A GCSE for PE then becomes kids in classrooms studying PE rather than being physically active, which is a perverse and ridiculous situation in which to find ourselves.

Now, of course, we have schools facing budgetary pressures with pay and energy and so on struggling to renew equipment and facilities that we need for children to be physically active. So we need an approach of physical literacy, and the PE teachers that the committee spoke to were clear about wanting to make that change, combining the health and mental well-being effects with fitness. It is less about sport for sport’s sake and allows the learning to become more personalised, using after-school clubs and community use of school facilities and updating the idea of extended schools that we had in the first decade of this century.

As the committee discussed, I would like to see more accountability about how that sport premium money is being used, so that every school is publishing on its website exactly how it is using it. A great example is Surrey Square Primary School, which talked about its investment in the professional development of staff and its membership of a local sports network, supporting and engaging the least active children with that money through new or additional sports clubs during the school day. The school mentioned a whole run of things, including inviting athletes, dance troops and gymnasts into the school to inspire the children. It listed not only how it spends the money but the impact that that then has on the children that it is targeting. If that kind of activity was mandatory across the system, we would see a real impact. Children in particular need better than just cognitive development. Our school system must change to better develop children socially, emotionally and physically, because it is key to their future happiness and prosperity.

Finally, can the Minister say when a DCMS Minister last met with the DfE and Department of Health and Social Care Ministers to discuss changing the curriculum and the accountability of schools to reflect the need for better physical activity among children?