Examination of witnesses (Questions 640
- 664)
THURSDAY 18 JANUARY 2001
KATE HOEY
and MR HARRY
REEVES
640. But, very often, the argument for selling
is that the quality is poor and they are underused, whereas, instead
of selling them, a little bit of investment, you have suggested
maybe a bit of it might be sold to invest in improving another
part of it, but, very often, playing-fields are sterile areas
which are of low value and interest and underused. Is there some
sort of survey of how they might be more effectively utilised,
and a little bit of investment?
(Kate Hoey) There is also going to be some money available
through the New Opportunities Fund Green Spaces Initiative. Actually,
one of the things we fought very hard for was to allow some of
that money to be used to buy back and to prevent the sale of some
of the best playing-fields. But there is no doubt about it, that
some playing-fields now, because of the way the nature of sport
has changed, there are more choices for people, different sports
that people now get involved in, and there will always be, I think,
some kind of playing-field that, even with the best will in the
world, is not going to be able to be used to its full capacity.
But I think local authorities are much more careful now about
coming up with plans to sell, because they know that because the
system is going to really put the onus totally on them to say
why it should be sold, and, all the restrictions against selling,
there would have to be a very strong reason to be allowed to sell.
Chairman
641. If I could offer a practical example of
a concern in my own area about the issue that John has just raised,
and I am very interested in `A Sporting Future', your policy document,
it talks about tighter regulations, planning guidance on sales
of playing-fields, etc., which is very, very welcome, but I have
a practical problem and I am wondering whether your joint group
would look realistically as well at further education? Because
within Wakefield there is a very important playing-field, which
I used to play on many years ago, and many local people have done,
where the College, it is disused, they have not maintained it,
or rarely maintained it, cut it once a year, I think, and they
are wanting to get permission to sell this, and they have got
it from the FEFC, I wrote to the FEFC and they are prepared to
block this. I have a letter here from Tessa Blackstone, and she
talks about, "The Government is unable to intervene. It is
our policy that FE colleges should have the freedom to make the
best use of their assets, including the sale of land and buildings.
Wakefield College is free to dispose of its property if it believes
it to be in the best interests of the college and its students."
That does not seem consistent with what your very laudable objectives
are. Does the FEFC have any involvement in this joint departmental
group on playing-fields?
(Kate Hoey) No.
642. Could it have?
(Kate Hoey) I think you have raised a point that we
could certainly look at. This was not happening a few years ago,
but now, the way they have complete control over what they do,
yes, it could be an increasing trend.
Chairman: I do not want to pursue it now, but
we can look at it later on.
Mr Gunnell
643. The Public Health White Paper, the one
entitled `Saving Lives', talks about a "marked growth in
the number of people taking part in sporting activities."
I wonder whether such a marked growth has actually occurred. I
think the Yorkshire Post produced some figures which might challenge
that. But, if it has occurred, can you point to the evidence which
shows it, and indicate whether that growth that has occurred has
occurred reasonably evenly across different sections of society?
(Kate Hoey) In our Department, we use very much as
our kind of Bible on this, for want of anything better or more
recent, the Sport England survey, `Young People.1999', their survey
into young people's participation in sport, and that did show
increases on the proportion of young people who were actually
participating in extra curricula sport and recreation, that had
gone up from, 1994 was 33 per cent, 1999 was 46 per cent. That
is really the latest survey. The emphasis, I have to say, in all
of this, has been on young people, because that is, again, as
I said about what was happening in schools, I appreciate that
the targets and the amount of sport and recreation that older
people are taking part in is not so clearly defined. But, our
own Department, as part of the Government's Public Service Agreements,
we have got a target to raise significantly, year on year, the
average time spent on sport and physical activity by those between
six and 16, because the survey also showed that, at the moment,
it is 8.5 hours per week, and the target is to raise it to nine
hours by the end of 2004, when the next survey will be taken by
Sport England, but we have asked them actually to come back to
us in 2002 with an interim survey. And, clearly, an awful lot
of the work that we are doing across the country is about how
we improve participation of young people in sport, and there are
a number of things that can be done; some of it takes place in
school. And the work that has been going on with the school sport
co-ordinators, the specialist sports colleges, the raising of
the standards generally of physical education in school sport,
trying to get more competition back into the playing of sport;
that is one way of doing it. Also looking at, after school, the
sports clubs, who have been doing a great deal of work on this
but have not really linked in with schools, how we can get the
sports clubs to play more of a part in the schools, so that it
is not that big gap when you leave school and do not know where
to continue playing a sport. The other area that concerns me a
lot is the position of young women and girls, where, clearly,
a lot of young women and girls do drop out round about that 12,
13, 14 age. The Youth Sports Trust did a very interesting pilot,
backed up by Nike, which surveyed and asked a lot of these young
people in schools why they were dropping out and why they were
not interested any more, and it threw up a whole number of reasons.
And now they are piloting that, to look at how we can listen to
what they have been saying, and lots of very obvious and simple
things, like the sports that were being offered were not necessarily
what some of the young girls wanted to get involved with, but
also things just as simple as how they had to dress, and showers.
Times have changed since I was a physical education teacher and
I was doing PE; these days, young girls are much more aware of
their own bodies and their self-esteem, and all of that. So there
is a whole range of things. There has not been a huge amount of
money spent on research into this, a lot of it is commonsense,
but also this Nike report has thrown up some good things. So,
in certain areas, there definitely have been increases, but there
are still areas we need to be concentrating on and finding ways
to see what the problem is. And then, of course, there is the
whole other area of facilities, access to facilities, how far
people have to travel to find a good sports centre, a whole range
of issues. None of this is very simple and none of it will be
changed overnight.
644. It may be that some of the contrary evidence
which we have had is because people are talking about different
groups, so that the Yorkshire Post, which I think would challenge
the view that there has been a marked growth in the number of
people taking part, may be talking about a different section of
people from the one that you have talked about. And the Health
Development Agency, similarly, have suggested that "the overall
prevalence of physical activity is low with only 37% of men and
25% of women [meeting] the current guidelines." Now they,
again, may be talking about a much wider age range there than
you have spoken about?
(Mr Reeves) You are quite right, in that you can pay
your money and take your choice of definitions of sport, in these
surveys; and also a great deal depends on your base year. We,
in DCMS, use a very wide definition of sport, which includes something
like walking two miles, that would count as sport, and if you
have done that then you have taken part in a sporting activity
in the last month. If you look through the nineties then, I think
it is probably true to say, it would be an exaggeration to claim
a marked growth in physical activity, there is a slight growth.
But, to answer the other part of your question, Sir, was it evenly
spread around different groups of population, the answer, very
definitely, is no. A very big increase in participation in things
like local gyms and health centres, which are, of course, only
accessible to people with relatively high incomes; not nearly
so good a picture for a lot of disadvantaged groups, and this
is one of the things that we are concerned to address. As the
Minister has said, our first priority at the moment is to get
it right with children and schools, but we fully recognise that
it cannot stop there.
Mr Gunnell: Thank you.
Chairman: You have taken us on to children now.
Can I bring in Siobhain there.
Siobhain McDonagh
645. We have already touched on this, about
how you get more sporting activity amongst school-age children,
and forgive me if I am wrong, but it seemed to focus on improving
facilities and coaching; but will those measures actually be something
to compete with the increasing sedentary lifestyles of young people,
or will they still not prefer to watch the TV?
(Kate Hoey) It is fairly obvious that young children
now have a lot more things to do than when we were young, Siobhain,
well, certainly me, and we did not have computers, we did not
have access to television, we did not have all of those things,
and those are all things that, certainly after school, are a big
draw for young people. The key to a lot of this is getting youngsters
engaged in something they are enjoying, as early as possible,
which is why the work with primary schools is particularly important,
because in many of our primary schools children were not getting
decent quality physical education, they might have been allowed
to run around the playground at lunchtime, but that is not a quality
physical education. And the work that is going into increasing
the training and helping improve the training for teachers in
physical education is going to make a difference. I think the
National Fitness Survey said that an active child is ten times
more likely to be an active adult. So part of this is not about
saying "You can't use computers," or "You can't
do all these other things," it is about getting the youngster
to enjoy things so much that they are wanting to continue it.
Which is why how it is offered and the kinds of things that are
offered and the ability for the schools to deliver good quality,
which is where education again fits in, because it is absolutely
crucial that teachers are properly trained and that there are
new and imaginative ways of encouraging youngsters to participate;
and then you might hold them, so that they will continue to do
it after school, and not just want to be a couch potato.
646. Which leads me to my next question, which
had the most debate earlier on. And that is, is it realistic to
increase the amount of PE, or even desirable, in the school curriculum,
in the light of other performance indicator pressures on schools?
(Kate Hoey) I think we are all conscious of the pressures
on schools, and recognise the dedication of teachers to deliver
what they have to deliver at the moment. But what we are looking
for, and there is always this debate about should it be two hours,
should it be three hours in school, how come some schools get
four hours and some get much less than that; one of the things
that we have tried to address is, what I have just been talking
about, quality. Quantity in itself is not necessarily the right
thing, if it is not good quality. And, also, there is this sort
of almost a kind of myth now, argument, about within the curriculum
and outside the curriculum; and, more and more, we are talking
about school days, where what is in the curriculum day and what
is outside the curriculum day is going to be more blurred, because
if you want to take part in a proper cricket match, or a proper
Rugby League match, you cannot do it within a 45-minute period,
anyway, in a school, so an awful lot of good sporting activities
have to take place after school. And that is where, again, the
role of the school sport co-ordinators, working with the coaches
from the sports clubs, who are going to be able, more and more,
to come into the schools and help out and work with them, all
of this is linked together. In other words, what I am saying really
is that no longer can it be left only to the school to deliver
all the sporting opportunities, the school has the most crucial
part to play but there are other agencies that we have to work
with. So I think that, if we continue to improve on the training
and the time that is spent, which is being looked at by the DfEE,
of how physical education teachers are trained, and we improve
the quality of that, then within the curriculum of the school
generally, and, remember, physical education is one of the few
curriculum subjects that has defined an amount of time that it
has to have, it is actually laid down that they must have an aspiration
and now an entitlement to two hours. So I do not take such a negative
view that some people do about what is happening in schools. I
think there is a recognition that we were going too far one way
and now we are reversing that balance.
Chairman
647. Can I sort of throw a damper on that last
comment. From my own practical experience, as a parent; when my
son, several years ago, moved from primary to secondary school,
he was at that point involved in amateur Rugby League club training
twice a week, and had to pull out because of the amount of homework
he was getting in the new school. The homework, compared with
what I used to get, and probably my generation, is much more intense,
much more extensive now. So I certainly see, in my own backyard,
my own family, a good example of where somebody who would have,
in my view, and every dad says this, some sporting potential has
dropped out by virtue of the pressures of academic study at school.
And John mentioned the Yorkshire Post campaign. What struck me
about that campaign, they call it `A Sporting Chance', was that
it rang true with my own personal experience, not just with my
own children but also what I see of colleagues' and friends' children,
and people in my locality. I do not know whether you have received
the evidence that was given to the Committee from the Yorkshire
Post, but they did this very detailed survey that John referred
to, of some 400 PE teachers within the Yorkshire area, a very
confined area but I do not think it is untypical of the rest of
the country, and 55 per cent said they were either pessimistic
or very pessimistic about the future of their subject. And the
issue of the pressure, academically, was crucial; 88 per cent
said pressure on curriculum time, because of the emphasis on maths
and English, was a major factor in the subject's decline, and
76 per cent said the current time allowed was not enough to give
children a proper grounding in sport and PE. That is a very recent
survey that was done, I think quite a credible survey, that reinforces
what I am seeing. You have got your dialogue with the Department
for Education and Employment; are you in any way addressing this
kind of issue, which is coming over loud and clear to people like
myself, and to papers such as the Yorkshire Post?
(Kate Hoey) That is exactly why, because all these
things were around, and that may be a fairly recent survey. I
think, actually, it was taken before the changes back again to
allow the extra time that is being spent on numeracy and literacy
in primary schools. So all the other subjects that had been squeezed
out for those two years were back in. But, clearly, we were picking
up—
648. Do you think the picture for this term,
or this academic year, may be more favourable than the paper picked
up?
(Kate Hoey) Yes, I do; and I think, you see, the other
thing that is happening now, with the specialist sports colleges,
that again, this is really DfEE who are in charge of but we have
been very involved with the setting up of specialist sports colleges,
because those are ordinary secondary schools who are getting extra
money to become a focus for sport, but not just about sport. And
the important thing about what we are beginning to do, all of
us have always said it, but a lot of other people have not, the
idea that if you have actually got a good sporting school and
young people are getting all these opportunities and doing well,
a school that is excelling in sport is very likely also to be
excelling academically as well, it does raise education standards.
And you can see it; you ask a teacher about a group of young people
who have not been behaving particularly well, and, very often,
if they have gone out and they have had some really worthwhile,
enjoyable physical activity, they will come in and they will not
fall asleep, they will actually be much more interested in what
is going on. And there is no doubt about it that there is no conflict
between extra time and money on sport and physical education and
academic standards, I think the two things are absolutely linked,
and the evidence will show that, more and more, when the specialist
sports colleges have been up and running for a little bit longer.
John Austin
649. Can I turn to your strategy document, `A
Sporting Future for All', because within that strategy you seem
to be aiming to combine the social exclusion agenda with the pursuit
of sporting excellence; and I would like to ask you whether you
feel these two aims are mutually compatible?
(Kate Hoey) Absolutely; absolutely. It is sometimes
asked in a different way, it is whether you can combine excellence
with mass participation; now mass participation is social inclusion,
because it is actually bringing everyone in, and all the people,
and the inequality that is there at the moment. It has to be said
that, of all the money that goes into sport from Sport England,
two-thirds of it is actually for community and grass-roots, and
one-third goes to what would be seen as the elite end. But I see
it in a very simple way, as a pathway; you do not get people rising
to the top and achieving and becoming Olympic champions, or you
will not get many of those, unless you have as wide a base as
possible, at the bottom. So it is the old-fashioned way that we
have all talked about, pyramid, where the wider the base the higher
the top. And there is no doubt about it that the motivation that
it gives to youngsters when they see sports people winning, in
whatever sport, is a huge attraction, and everyone will tell you,
in practically all the schools that you go to, just immediately
after the Olympics, the enthusiasm and interest there was; and
the important thing is now we keep that going, and that has to
be addressed. And if I do my usual bit about how the media has
a role to play here, because the media tend to focus only on many
of those sports at an Olympic Games and then forget about them
until the next Olympic Games, and I think that is very sad. So
I am absolutely clear, we have to ensure that our elite athletes
are funded properly, we have to ensure that we have got all the
back-up support that increasingly they have in sports that is
needed, if you are really going to be at the world-class level,
and we have to do that without stopping the investment that is
needed at the grass-roots to get participation, to improve the
facilities. And the thing that really comes across more and more
is that in this country, and it is not a party political issue,
it has probably affected all the parties in the past, there has
not been an acceptance that sport is important enough to invest
in, and we have not invested enough in sport; we are now beginning
to address that. It is not going to happen overnight, but there
has been huge amounts of extra money gone in this year, and that
is only the beginning, we have got to sustain it.
650. Can I go on to the issue of inequalities
in participation; you were talking about wider participation,
but there still appears to be a tremendous difference, if you
look at both social class and ethnicity, in terms of involvement.
Can I ask what your Department is actually doing to address those
inequalities?
(Kate Hoey) A lot of it we have talked about already.
The emphasis on nearly all the funding streams is for areas where
there has been a lack of sporting facilities, which has meant
that some people who have not had the money to go and pay to get
into some of the private facilities that we were talking about,
hopefully, the facilities will change. But on the inequalities
to do with women, I think I have already mentioned, I will not
go over that, I think there is an awful lot more we can do. Questions
of inequality for people with disability. All the funding through
the Lottery is very much linked into an equity policy now, and
groups that get Lottery funding have to show that they have taken
all these things into consideration, that they are open and accessible
to all people in the community, whatever their background, colour,
disability, and so on. But, again, these things will take time,
they are not going to happen just suddenly, overnight; and we
have to look at the reasons why, in some areas of the country,
some sports are played a lot, and others are not and other people
do not get involved in those kinds of sports. So there is a whole
range of issues here. It is very much to the forefront of what
we are doing, and our involvement in producing the PAT 10 report
last year. This again, was about how we can make sure that the
inequalities in participation and in involvement are addressed.
It is one of the things that we looked at. There is nothing we
do in our Department that does not involve looking at we are going
to make a difference and to get people who are not involved or
those who feel excluded, included.
651. In terms of your influence on other Departments,
and the Chair has raised the issue of the FEFC appearing to be
out of sync. with your overall strategy, but if we look at the
social inclusion agenda, if we look at, say, higher education,
and those young people going to university, who by and large will
be the socially included, will have a whole range of free, accessible,
sporting, recreational facilities available to them; whereas the
school-leaver, or the 18 year old, jobseeker, in my patch, or
your patch, who may or may not be accessing training at the FE
college, or wherever, has no such access to those kinds of facilities.
Is it time we addressed those kinds of inequalities?
(Kate Hoey) We will not get into a debate about what
is free at the universities; and, of course, part of the Government
policy is to improve the numbers of people going to university.
652. I am not interested in what is free at
universities, I want it to be more universally available?
(Kate Hoey) Yes; and I think it is an area that actually
we should be trying to use the university facilities much more,
and there is a whole debate going on there about how we can get
them more involved and working closely with their communities
and with their schools, and so on. But—I have forgotten
your question; maybe you could just summarise it.
653. I was just saying that, by and large, those
who have access to higher education, the socially included, have
a whole range of facilities at their disposal; whereas those in
the disadvantaged communities are less favourably provided for?
(Kate Hoey) Some local authorities, of course, have
made provision for people to pay less to get into their local
authority centres, if they are unemployed, or are on a low income,
and we are looking at the idea of a card, again a card, that would
be used that would give access to people with less income. Harry,
do you want to come in?
(Mr Reeves) There are a number of strands to this,
and certainly local authorities are a key provider of opportunities
to the whole community but particularly to those less well able
to afford to pay for commercial sports facilities. I think the
other strand of our work planned is to try to get some of the
key providers of sporting opportunities, namely governing bodies
of sport and sports clubs, to strengthen the equity policies that
they have, and to be more aware of the need to provide opportunities
for the whole community, and using the funding conditions that
are attached to the grants that they get through Sports Councils
as one of the levers to encourage them to do that more thoroughly.
(Kate Hoey) But, again, I was just thinking, you talk
about your constituency, and I know about mine. Some of the problems
for young people being able to participate is actually the cost
of hiring the facility, and the local authority is reluctant to
give a free booking, because, of course, within the way it all
works, they have to account for the money. And I think sometimes
we need to find ways of using the local authority, accepting that
there is a pot of money there. I have a very good example, and
I will give it to you, because I think this is a classic example,
I do not have an answer to it myself. A school in my constituency
is right beside a very nice, local authority, all-purpose weather
playing pitch; that school cannot actually afford to use it, because
of the changes by the local authority. I have tried to say, "Well,
look, the local authority has taken the money from the school,
the local authority involves the school, it is not being used;
why can't they just use it for free, what is the problem?".
And you get into all the questions of which department and budgets,
and so on. And those are actual concrete examples. And I do not
have the answers. But, clearly, if we think that young people
actually are being prevented from being able to participate, because
they cannot afford to do so, then we have to find a way of addressing
that, and part of it is giving cheaper access, but it is only
one aspect of it; and it is a big, big issue, this.
Chairman
654. But is not one of the problems, with public
health as a subject, that the results of any public health policy
are not seen until a long way down the road? And I could see us
making a very strong argument that your kind of problem, of that
nature, which clearly happens all over the country, could be resolved
by looking at the health impact of those youngsters using that
all-weather pitch; but the health impact will only be assessed
probably when those youngsters are 30 or 40 years older, the impact
of their involvement at that stage. And it is how we can somehow
look much longer term than we do, in all Governments, I am not
criticising this Government or any other Government, we look short
term but we need to look longer term, and plot in somehow the
funding arrangements to bring about resolutions to that sort of
problem?
(Kate Hoey) You are absolutely right, and it is what
I said earlier about investment. You do not see the benefits of
investment overnight, even in a year, sometimes, two years, ten
years; and it is not just on the health side but on all of the
sides. Spending money on sport actually will save us money, not
just on the health budget but in terms of truancy at school, drug
abuse, crime, all of these things, it is so obvious, and we are
beginning to address it, we are beginning to work together to
recognise that. But everybody needs to be saying it, and so your
Committee is going to be extremely important in what you say.
John Austin
655. You have just prompted me to think of something
else, which I think is very positive; if I dare mention the word
Dome in front of the Chairman here. One of the most positive things
that I saw at the Dome was one of the commercially-sponsored events,
which was the Our Town Days, where every education authority in
the country had a day in the Dome to put on a portrayal of their
town. I think they were all given ten grand by the sponsor, most
of the engaged professional choreography, etc. And I was probably
a more frequent visitor to the Dome than most people, because
it is on my patch, but I saw a number of education authorities,
kids performing on that stage, mostly involving really energetic
portrayal and dance, etc., with such verve and enthusiasm, and
I talked to the teachers afterwards, and they were saying exactly
the kind of things you were saying, about the positive benefits
that spin off from that. And I think, since there was every education
authority in the country involved in that, it may well be worth
actually looking to do a post-event evaluation and ask those education
authorities and schools what the long-term positive impacts of
that were. Do you think your Department might be willing to do
that?
(Kate Hoey) I am always reluctant to take on new duties
for my hard-working staff. I think it is also worth pointing out
that some of the governing bodies of sport obviously are well
aware that if they do not get young people involved and interested
at an early age, they are not going to get them, there are so
many other things for children to do. And I just would like to
say what happened at the end of the Test Match this year, cricket,
at The Oval, when they let in all the children free, and they
have now decided to do that on the last day of all Test Matches,
we might hope that the matches last the five days. So everybody
who is involved has a responsibility to see how they can do maybe
sometimes by very little things, but just make a difference, to
get people who would not normally be involved, or be able to afford
to be involved, to be involved.
Chairman
656. Do you think that professional clubs connect
in that way? You know my sport, and I can go back to a time, we
are of a similar era, when my school teachers were involved in
manning, and it was manning, the gate at Wakefield Trinity, and
they took the money from school kids going in, and that money
from that gate went back into schoolboy Rugby League. And those
connections in sport seem to have gone. I know I am talking sort
of 30-odd years ago. And can we recreate them in some ways, which
ties in the schools element, which is so worrying, to professional
sport?
(Kate Hoey) I think, again, it depends very much sometimes
on not just governing bodies but individual clubs within governing
bodies, and we know that St Helen's is doing some good work on
the health side, I am not sure I should mention St Helen's, but
there are also governing bodies that I think probably could do
more. And I think what we have seen in some of the Premier League
clubs, in football, and at Durham Cricket Club, for example, is
the use of their facilities for a lot more of the after-school
homework clubs, and all of that. And, again, all of these things
link in with lots of different Departments, and each club and
each organisation will come up with different things, a judo club
will have a different way from a cricket club of trying to involve
young people. But the more we can make use of the facilities in
a sporting environment, and that is again where the specialist
sports colleges have shown that, in all aspects of the curriculum,
whether you are teaching maths or teaching science, sport, if
someone is engaged in that, can be used as the tool to get the
person interested in the other subjects. Darts, for example, I
was talking to one of our famous darts players, Bobby George,
at the weekend, at the World Championships, and he was talking
about numeracy in primary schools and darts, and all these ideas
and initiatives about we could actually get young people to add
up better by using darts. It is those kinds of things that we
will just have to keep plugging away about.
Mr Gunnell
657. I know you have done a very good job, Kate,
in using the Olympics to promote sport and to get participation
in it; and it struck me that, in a sense, we saw something similar
on our visit to Cuba, because they made it very clear to us that
their success was, in a sense, that much more than others, and
certainly more than ours, because they pointed out that they had
the same number of medals and they had a small proportion of our
population. And it seems to me that that is partly because sport
and exercise have a different place in their culture from the
position they have in our culture, where they lie outside the
main stream, but it seemed very much the mainstream part of the
way they were thinking and the way they developed their sport.
I am not suggesting that we would we would want to copy them necessarily,
but I think we could learn something from them and from the intensity
which they brought to that?
(Kate Hoey) Yes. It is similar to Australia itself;
you visit Australia and the whole nation is involved, in one way
or the other, with sport, all sports, it is the whole culture
of it. I last visited Cuba in 1968 so I am not sure how it has
moved on from then. You are absolutely right, we call ourselves
a sporting nation, but actually we are not, in the true sense
of being a sporting nation, because it does not reach into the
whole fabric of our nation, and we have not seen it in the central
way that it can change things, that it can really make differences
to people's lives. Now the whole way that it impacts now on the
social inclusion agenda and all the things that I have talked
about are beginning to be recognised. And if you talk to any sports
development worker, or go to any amateur sports club in the community,
and talk to the people who are running it, they could have told
us all this, because they see it happening, how it changes young
people's lives, how it makes them better citizens, how it gives
the discipline, all of those things. So really this is not any
new science, we are talking about what sport can do and how we
can get sport to be seen, right across Government, as a very,
very important method of delivering what we all want to do in
improving health, or decreasing the numbers of people who are
involved in crime and truancy, and all those other things. So
it has taken us a long time to get there, but we are beginning
to realise, I think, that this all does knit together.
Mr Amess
658. A couple of quick things, I was going to
say, to stir things up, but I think you have made a number of
statements which are interesting. Just to recap, the link between
physical education and health and your own previous responsibilities
in the Home Office are very, very clear; this Government specialises
in its expertise in public relations. I think everything you have
said and indicated, with your small staff, the way the Departments
link together, is that clearly you feel undervalued. Now you and
your predecessor, very different styles but very effective communicators,
I recall, my former colleague, Edwina Currie, although everyone
did not agree with her message it certainly was widely reported.
What needs to be done then to raise your profile within Government,
to get you taken more seriously, given that this Government, particularly,
likes to be successful and is very keen on public relations?
(Kate Hoey) I hope I am valued. I have to say that
we doubled the Exchequer funding for sport this year, which was
the first time ever, since Dennis Howell was Sports Minister,
we got anything more than inflation; so I think the Chancellor
recognised the importance of sport. It is a very significant investment
of extra money to double the amount that is going in. I have to
say that I do not have this worry. Lots of people write about
this, about the Sports Minister should be more powerful, or whatever;
actually I feel that what is really important is what is happening
out there. And when I go round the country and see some of the
good things that are happening, in spite of all the difficulties,
then I do not have a problem with my job, my role, my position,
because, in many things, it is how you influence, it is not really
the power you have, it is actually how you can make things change.
And you make things change by making sure, as I have done, which
perhaps did not happen so much in the past, that our Department
is represented at and attends these various Cabinet cross-cutting
committees, because that is actually where you influence other
Departments, and that is where the real influence is, in terms
of changing things. That is how I have tried to work. And also
to make a very strong statement that all sport matters, and it
is not just about one or two sports.
659. I am sure that Number Ten will be very
pleased now, when they read the report; but it still seems to
me that everything you said was that it was a Cinderella Department.
The other thing I wanted to explore just briefly with you, success
is so important, this is the incentive to young people, the Olympic
Games, marvellous success, the Australians did it far better than
the Americans, and it seemed as if they did not spend as much
money, and I was so pleased that rowing and sailing, very interestingly,
did particularly well. But, Minister, our national sport is football.
I am a lifelong West Ham supporter, and, of course, a Southend
United supporter; what incentive is there now to our young people
when we all know that the Premier League clubs are absolutely
stuffed full of overseas players, I think Chelsea have got only
one home-grown player, where is the incentive now to all our youngsters
to participate more and more in football, when the whole thing
is driven by big money now and all the players seem to be coming
from overseas? Surely, you, as Sports Minister, tying it in with
the health of our nation, could be proactive in this area?
(Kate Hoey) It is a long way from health.
Chairman: I was trying to relate it to public
health. But you did slightly get around to getting youngsters
involved. It is engaging youngsters; it is a fair point about
that, yes.
Mr Amess
660. Yes, that is the point, engaging them?
(Kate Hoey) Every sport and every governing body has
to be thinking of the long term, and has to be looking at decisions
they make, as to "whether this is actually going to help
our sport over the next ten, 20 years," which is why some
of the decisions in the past which have been taken about, for
example, choosing not to be on terrestrial television, and so
on, for example, rugby, they made a real, real mistake there,
and they know that, but we will not go into that. I do not run
football in this country, the FA is the responsible governing
body for football, and the Premier League have power to do, in
a sense, whatever they wish to do. But I think that there are
many people within football who do realise that they have to be
thinking of how they make sure that our young people get the opportunities.
Now the academies that have been set up at many of our Premier
League and other clubs actually have helped to give young people
opportunities, and, at the end of it, we have got some very successful
teams, with many, many overseas players in them, but we have got
some successful teams that do not have many, the team that is
second at the moment has not spent huge amounts of money.
Chairman: Who is that?
Siobhain McDonagh
661. Sunderland.
(Kate Hoey) Ultimately, it is up to football to sort
it out, they decide how many overseas players they want to have.
And my view is that it is important for all football clubs that
they are ensuring that young people in their areas are getting
the chance, and that they are given that chance, and, ultimately,
I think that will happen. I think this may well be a trend that
we will begin to see reverse, as a miracle does not happen when
you put 11 overseas players in a team, as has happened with one
team in particular, it does not necessarily mean you win everything,
and, ultimately, that is up to the club to decide.
Mr Amess
662. It is just, Chairman, simply, I feel, and
I understand the points you are making, but the link between physical
exercise and health is proven, the younger that we get people
engaged the better, and if only we could see more of our youngsters
playing football and then they will see, ultimately, that it leads
to success, and whether it is girls, with tennis, where are the
Virginia Wades and the other successful players that we have?
And I just think it is a great shame that somehow we cannot do
more to give some sort of direction. I know what you are saying,
it is a bit hands-off, you are going to say the Lawn Tennis Association
runs tennis, it is not down to—
(Kate Hoey) The Lawn Tennis Association actually is
putting huge amounts of money into grass-roots now; and, again,
developing tennis players who can win Wimbledon takes time, and
until we have a British champion winning Wimbledon people will
say nobody is doing anything about tennis. But, in fact, there
is an awful lot going on and a lot of money being spent, and tennis
and rugby and cricket are putting substantial percentages into
grass-roots development, and Rugby League, it is only more recently
that football got all the publicity for that, and we welcome very
much the Football Foundation, where they are putting 5 per cent;
but rugby, cricket, tennis and Rugby League have been doing this
for some time. And that is the way; you cannot have success at
the top unless you are ensuring that there is real support going
into the grass-roots. But, you are absolutely right, a successful
England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland football team is
a huge incentive for young people to get involved in sport.
John Austin
663. I was just going to comment that Mr Amess
mentioned Edwina Currie. I shared a tandem with her recently,
and Members might be interested to know that she is about to cycle
across Africa for charity. But can I go back to John Gunnell's
earlier point about the elderly. We were talking, in the earlier
evidence session, about the value of exercise and a non-sedentary
life, particularly for the over-50s, and we were talking about
encouraging people in exercise, but is there not also a value
in encouraging people of my generation to take up sports, for
sport's sake, because it can be enjoyable? And I am interested
to know to what extent your Department does have a policy of trying
to encourage older people to take up new sports, or take up sports
they have not played before?
(Kate Hoey) I think the Sports Council has put substantial
amounts of money into activities enjoyed by older people; something
like £33 million has gone into it. And I do not want to associate
elderly people just with bowls, but it is a very popular sport,
recreational activity, for elderly people, and the Sports Council
has really targeted a number of initiatives for elderly people.
We are actually meeting DSS officials later this month, our officials,
to talk about the potential for some new sports initiatives targeted
at older people. But there is no doubt about it that the emphasis
and the priority, and I do not deny it, in the last year, has
been on school sport.
Chairman
664. Are there any points, Minister, you want
to add, before we conclude?
(Kate Hoey) No, thank you very much.
Chairman: If not, can I thank you both for your
very helpful evidence. We are very grateful that you fitted in
to your busy schedule coming along here this morning. Thank you
very much.
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