Sport and the 2012 Olympics Legacy

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Everybody would like to praise Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins and the many others who have led by example and the 46,000 additional people who have taken up cycling, but there are still significant problems that the Government and local authorities need to tackle and that is a small drop in the ocean compared with the overall figures, which have fallen significantly. In Labour-run Wales, by contrast, the figures are considerably better. Some 70% of adults participated in sport or physical recreation in the four weeks before the most recent survey, compared with just 44% in England.

[Stewart McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I really must take issue with hon. Gentleman’s comments about Glasgow, particularly since his own party runs the council there. The price of using local football pitches has quadrupled because of that Labour council. That is why it is an issue—nothing to do with the Scottish Government.

[Chris Bryant]

Oh dear, the Scottish National party always love to find somebody else to blame. The truth of the matter is that Scotland is run by the SNP, and that 80% of local authority budgets in Scotland are determined by the SNP in Holyrood. When the hon. Gentleman starts attacking Glasgow Council, he needs to start looking into his own backyard.

The coalition Government said they would ensure the development of the Olympic Park after the games, but here there are further legacy worries. So far, the cost of transforming the venue into a stadium ready for football has reached £272 million: £15 million coming from West Ham, £1 million from UK Athletics, £40 million from Newham Council and £25 million from the Government. The overall spend on the venue will now top £700 million for the 54,000 seat arena—considerably more expensive per spectator than the £798 million lavished on the 90,000 capacity Wembley stadium. The project is now over budget by about £35 million, which comes close to the total cost of converting the City of Manchester stadium after the 2002 Commonwealth games. This has the feel, frankly, of a fiasco cooked up somewhere between the Mayor’s office, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Treasury, which is why, in the interests of transparency, I urge the Government to publish the full details of West Ham’s secret deal as a matter of urgency.

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[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is a delight to see her back in her rightful place in this House.

There are further dangers ahead. Let us take swimming, for example. As I said, this is the one sport in which participation among girls and boys is equal. Swimming is the most popular form of activity in this country, with 2.6 million people taking part every week. There are, however, many things that put people off swimming, including communal changing rooms, lack of privacy, tired facilities, never learning to swim in the first place, particularly among poorer families, and simply the cost of using a swimming pool. Every Member will have heard of the problems faced by local authorities in maintaining leisure centres, and many of us might have had to fight for swimming pools to stay open in our own constituencies. In fact, the number of pools is pretty stable, at about 5,000 in England alone. More than half of all local authority pools, as opposed to pools in expensive private members’ clubs, were built before 1985 and require significant investment to continue to operate and be attractive to modern swimmers. There are dramatic challenges ahead in respect of just that one sport. We must ensure that more people go swimming.

[Stewart McDonald]

rose—

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

rose—

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[Mr Whittingdale]

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that things such as the terms of the rent are commercially confidential and to reveal them may jeopardise future negotiations with potential tenants. There are good reasons why doing what he suggests is not possible, but we will of course respond to him and set those out in more detail.

Let me finish my remarks about the physical legacy by saying that the transport links to and from the park have also had a huge impact on that part of London. There has also been an economic legacy more generally. There is no doubt that the games provided a showcase for British business—in construction, in event management and across a number of other sectors. Where other countries have followed suit, in Rio, in Baku and in the Commonwealth games and elsewhere, it has often been the expertise that we have developed in this country that is now winning jobs and orders for this country across the world. The total international trade and investment benefits from the games and games-time activity has already exceeded £14 billion, against an already ambitious target of £l1 billion.

The games were also the opportunity to show off the United Kingdom to the world and, as a result, we are on track to deliver tourism targets of an extra 4.7 million visitors, spending £2.3 billion, over a four-year period. An evaluation of the legacy benefits from the games by an independent consortium has estimated that the total economic benefit in terms of UK gross value added will be between £28 billion and £41 billion over the period from 2004 to 2020.

[Stewart McDonald]

We would get through this debate a lot better if Members on both sides of the House stopped kidding themselves that we have any of these benefits in Scotland. This was a games for London. They were great and I do not seek to take that away, but the only benefit I can remember was when the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) was hanging from a zip wire and all of Scotland laughed. So let us not pretend that these economic benefits came to Scotland, because they did not—they came to London and that is where it ended.

[Mr Whittingdale]

The economic study I just referred to said that the impact on Scotland was a boost to the gross value added between 2004 and 2020 of between £2.3 billion and £2.75 billion and the creation of between 51,200 and 62,400 jobs in Scotland.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tracey Crouch)]

This has, on the whole, been an excellent debate, not just because of colleagues’ contributions, which I shall turn to shortly, but because despite the Opposition’s attempt to say otherwise, we have a good story to tell about London 2012 and its legacy.

I will briefly turn to the 13 contributions from the Floor of the House. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) on her excellent maiden speech. I am very fond of Edinburgh, which has much sporting heritage of which to be proud.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), as a former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, brings real expertise and knowledge to the debate. I pay particular tribute to her—and indeed my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant)—for progressing the issue of women in sport; my right hon. Friend was right to say that the Olympics started that process.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who was of course the first female sports Minister—I am merely the third—gave a brilliantly measured speech. I reassure her that there will be a proper cross-departmental approach to the strategy, and I certainly share her passion to increase grassroots sport.

My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) spoke incredibly well. I am hoping that if I say wonderfully nice things about his excellent speech, he will be very kind to me, now that he has been re-elected to the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport.

I know how incredibly passionate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is about sport. He is a man of great foresight: we spent 21-odd days climbing a volcano for charity, and he lobbied me then on facilities for his constituency, 12 months before I was made a Minister.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) on her maiden speech. I was delighted to hear her story about Cheadle Town football club and its score line. I believe the club was founded as Grasmere Rovers. She should not worry about the 22-nil drubbing; I have been a manager when we have won with a similar score line, but I have also been a player when we have lost with the same score line. Both are equally embarrassing.

The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) made some very interesting comments. She has been in the House for a while now, but I must pay tribute to her late predecessor, Alan Keen, who also served on the Select Committee and was a real advocate for sport. She has picked up his baton wonderfully.

My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) of course made an excellent speech about a legacy that he helped deliver. As Mayor of London, he gave us a memorable games, and he is right to be incredibly proud of all that the Olympics and Paralympics delivered.

The hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) was right to talk about the link between physical activity and health outcomes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) was right to point out the long tail of the participation legacy. Those inspired by London 2012 may not yet be out of primary school. His points were well made.

I have worked incredibly closely with the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on the issue of women in sport. She raised important issues. There has been progress, but challenges remain, and I look forward to working with her on those.

My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) is a fantastic advocate for outdoor recreation, but it is his fault that my knees have not yet recovered from Cotopaxi.

Finally, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) focused on school sport. I assure him that the Government have committed to funding the physical education and sport primary school premium for a further four years—something that Labour has not done. Furthermore, according to an independent assessment, 96% of schools reported improvements in pupils’ fitness, and 91% observed an increase in the quality of PE teaching.

If unnecessary attempts at political point-scoring were an Olympic sport, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) would win gold every time. He has done his best to impugn the legacy of London 2012, but the simple truth is that we have a great deal to be proud of, and it is shame that the hitherto consensus has been shattered. [Interruption.] I will come to participation shortly, but the legacy is more than that. There is the legacy of the park, the village, business, volunteers and the collective knowledge accumulated by those who delivered the games. The park is outstanding, with wonderful venues that are open to the public to enjoy. The Olympic stadium has an exciting and sustainable future. Unlike so many previous host cities, there are no white elephants from London 2012.

[Stewart McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Tracey Crouch]

No, because I do not have much time—I am sorry.

The London 2012 games were the perfect showcase for the skills of our people and our businesses, which led to £14.2 billion of trade and investment benefits to the UK. British business has already won £60 million-worth of contracts for the Rio 2016 games, with up to another £100 million to come. About 200 people who worked at London 2012 are helping to deliver the European games in Baku and assisting Rio in its preparations. [Interruption.] If hon. Members will be patient, I will turn to participation shortly. As the Secretary of State said, games maker-style volunteers have become a fixture at major sporting events. London 2012 changed the perception of volunteering, and the nation has embraced it—a direct legacy that appears to have been forgotten by the Opposition.

I now turn to participation. I am happy to have an open and honest debate on this. The fact is that 1.4 million more people playing are sport than in 2005, and sport participation has increased by 300,000 since October 2010. Yet that is not enough—it is as simple as that. London 2012 has, without doubt, inspired many people to get involved in Olympic and Paralympic sports. There has been an increase in the number of people doing athletics, cycling, archery, judo, sailing and many other sports. Let us not forget, though, that inspiration and measurement do not always run concurrently. The girls I met in my local boxing gym are in the ring because of Nicola Adams. They are not measured on any survey because they are under 14. We will have examples like that from all our constituencies.

The strapline of London 2012 was “Inspire a Generation”. The participation results show that our 16 to 25-year-olds are, on the whole, “steady”. That is good, but not good enough. When the last active people survey results were issued a couple of weeks ago, I made it clear that I am not happy with the decline in the number of people participating in sport. However, let us be clear: the last time an all-encompassing sports strategy was drawn up was in 2002, and it has been the template for sport delivery since then.

Clearly, as the Opposition have admitted today, their strategy is not delivering. This Government have been working on the basis of a strategy that was delivered in 2002 and is no longer fit for purpose. So I have ripped up the old strategy, and before the recess I shall publish a consultation on a brand-new sport strategy that will reform how we deliver sport in this country. I am sure the Opposition will embrace this opportunity to revive the consensus that helped deliver such a successful games.

We are absolutely committed to continuing to make the most of the opportunities that London 2012 gave us and to make sure that generations to come benefit from that fantastic summer three years ago. It is unfortunate that through the wording of their motion the Opposition sought to denigrate the legacy of London 2012. For that reason, we shall oppose the motion.

Question put.