Select Committee on Health Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1440-1459)

29 MARCH 2004

RT HON MARGARET HODGE MBE, MP, MS MELA WATTS, RT HON TESSA JOWELL, MP AND MR PAUL HERON

  Q1440 Mr Burns: It cannot be because he said over three years and we are now in 2004.

  Tessa Jowell: No, you are confusing allocation with programme build. The allocation was certainly over three years.

  Q1441 Mr Burns: How much has been allocated in those three years: £8.5 million?

  Tessa Jowell: The majority of the funding will be committed by the next year and the majority—

  Q1442 Mr Burns: Hang on, you said that, over three years, the allocation would be made. Surely the allocation is allocating the funding to then do the build.

  Tessa Jowell: Let me explain by taking you through the process by which the money was allocated. Indicative allocations were made to every local authority. Local authorities were then asked to bid and put in specific proposals against the allocation that they were given. So, initial approval was then given. Those individual projects had to be designed, contracted for and put out to tender. That is the process which is now in train.

  Q1443 Mr Burns: I understand that but I am still confused because the Prime Minister said at the Labour Party Conference in 2000 that, over the next three years, £750 million from the New Opportunities Fund would be spent on sports and only £8.5 million has. Now, I understand about allocation.

  Tessa Jowell: We can look at the precise terms of what the Prime Minister said but I am advised in my briefing that he made it clear that this was a long-term five to six year project. You are right in that the money has been allocated over three years so, each year, there has been a contribution to this headline figure of £750 million from the New Opportunities Fund and that is now in the process of being spent. As I am sure you are aware, you could spend that money in a year but spend it very badly because the sort of decisions that have to be aligned are decisions about building schools for the future. Most schools now have the prospect of major capital investment. We have to make sure that the decisions about what are really much smaller amounts of money for sports facilities are compatible with the major redevelopment of many schools which are now in train. That said, there are now already . . . I am just seeing if there is one in your constituency. St Christopher's School in Southend?

  Q1444 Mr Burns: No, nowhere near me.

  Tessa Jowell: Langdon School in Newham?

  Q1445 Mr Burns: No, nowhere near me. Secretary of State, please, this sounds wonderful but can we get back to the original question about the money that the Prime Minister announced on the New Opportunities Fund because, whatever the rhetoric, the basic fact remains that only £8.5 million of the £750 million has been spent. The Prime Minister said, "We are going to spend £750 million over the next three years on sport from the New Opportunities Fund." Most people would think that that means that, after the end of year three, £750 million would have been spent by the New Opportunities Fund. To make an exception to that, to be fair, I understand that you do not want to rush in if it is not going to be the best, but you could allocate the funding in order that you spend in allocation the £750 million during the Prime Minister's timescale even if you do not actually physically have the facilities because you are still designing them and building them. That I do understand but that has not happened either.

  Tessa Jowell: Can I take you back to a matter of fact. I entirely accept your rhetorical flourish in that. The facts are that commitment was made to allocation from the New Opportunities Fund of £250 million a year over three years. We are now at the end of that process.

  Q1446 Mr Burns: How much has been allocated of the £250 million each year? That would help us.

  Tessa Jowell: So far £8.5 million has been drawn down but that money is drawn down when the projects are complete. We have 44 projects which have been completed so far, another 36 are on site and another 356 have funding firmly committed to them. I have been driving this programme very hard indeed and I am assured that all the projects will be completed by 2006 on course within the timeframe set out by the Prime Minister of this being a five to six year programme.

  Q1447 Mr Burns: I am not going to dispute your allocations but can you give us an assurance that when every one of these projects that has been allocated is completed, it is not unveiled and heralded as a new spend in addition to what has happened already because we are used . . .? Secretary of State, you look a little shocked but we are used to Government constantly recycling announcements and presenting as a new initiative something that they announced six months ago or 12 months ago and we all get a little confused.

  Tessa Jowell: If you do not say that this is part of the great Lottery spend on sport facilities, people do not understand what it is. Of course you do that.

  Q1448 Mr Burns: Exactly but if you keep saying that this is a brand new initiative that the Government are making available under the New Opportunities Fund, £750 million can go even further if you keep re-announcing it at each stage.

  Tessa Jowell: But nobody has ever—

  Chairman: This exchange has been very interesting but can we move on.

  Q1449 Mr Burns: But it flushed you out!

  Tessa Jowell: It has what?

  Q1450 Mr Burns: I said that it flushed you out on what is going on.

  Tessa Jowell: Can you explain what you mean by that.

  Chairman: I think we should move on.

  Q1451 Mr Burns: It flushed you out on what is going on because everyone assumes that all this has been spent by now.

  Tessa Jowell: "Flushing out" suggests that somehow I was withholding information.

  Q1452 Mr Burns: No, no.

  Tessa Jowell: I have set out the information very clearly and every new facility that is opened is a new facility funded on the back of £750 million.

  Mr Burns: I was not suggesting that the Secretary of State was doing that and I would not want her for one minute to think that. It was a terminology but not in a derogatory sense.

  Q1453 Chairman: It might be helpful, Secretary of State, if you dropped us a line covering the points you have made in order that we can understand fully.

  Tessa Jowell: I would be very happy to do that.

  Q1454 Jim Dowd: Members of the Committee often have difficulty in deciphering when Mr Burns is acting as a member of the Conservative Front Bench and when he is acting as a member of this Committee. Can I take you back to something you said earlier on. One of the first remarks you said was that the evidence is that decline in activities stems not from sporting activity per se, but actually a decline in activity in everyday life in terms of walking and cycling and associated activity or inactivity as the case may be. Your department leads on the promotion of physical activity; is sport the best portal through which to focus that given the fact that all sport is physical activity but nowhere all physical activity is sport?

  Tessa Jowell: No, that is absolutely right and that is why we are, through Sport England, funding an increasing number of governing bodies: we fund 22 governing bodies and an increasing number of those are governing bodies that run more kind of leisure-type activity rather than what would be regarded specifically as frontline sport. The approach that you describe is also driven by our PSA target to promote increased participation and we are very alive to the importance of extending the opportunities for physical activity to people from ethnic minority communities, disabled people and older people. The levels of inactivity amongst older people are very disturbing indeed. Also, we are aware of the fact that there are different ways of getting young girls to become more active than through mainstream sport. This is something that we are very much alive to and has been represented in the funding pattern for participation through Sport England and I hope will yield results against our PSA.

  Q1455 Jim Dowd: Driving the message of increasing physical activity goes way beyond sport, does it not? That is what I am trying to get at. If people decide that they are not participants in sport, organised, disorganised or the kind of football that Crystal Palace play, for example, if it is not something for them, how do we get a message to them about increased physical activity in their own lives not just for children because we are not saying that we are actually giving up on adults, are we? I understand the imperative of getting people early because that sets the pattern for the rest of their lives but, equally, we are not giving up on adults and saying, "You are a lost cause, so we will not bother putting any effort into that."

  Tessa Jowell: Absolutely not and I think that Melanie Johnson will have talked about the LEAP pilots and the work that has been done at the regional sports boards in how developing their plans has this as their overriding focus: how do we get people to become more active and more active not just by playing sport but more active in the course of their daily lives as well?

  Q1456 Jim Dowd: Perhaps by sticking bus stops further apart! You mentioned earlier about calories and we have certainly taken scientific evidence on this which does indicate that overall calorific intake has not been radically different over the years, it is the lack in activity, but what we did see was the balance within that intake far more towards fats, sugars, salts and all the rest of it. So, it is not just the quantity, if you like, it is the quality of the diet as well. I presume that you would support the Food Standards Agency's recent call for sports clubs and sports personalities to redress the current imbalance by promoting healthier eating styles and healthier food choices. Assuming that you do agree with that, how do you think that can be practically achieved?

  Tessa Jowell: I think it is a very good proposal but I think it will have to be handled with the greatest care. I do not know whether or not success will be achieved. I was going to say "whether or not we will achieve success" but it is not a job for government, this is a job for negotiation between the individuals concerned and their sponsors. It links back to the point that I was making earlier about the challenge that I have laid to the industry to respond to public concern about the quality of diet and obesity by promoting healthier lifestyle messages. Nobody should underestimate the significance of the endorsement of some of the celebrities who do endorse products and, if that endorsement can be linked to an exercise and healthy eating message, it will be doubly powerful.

  Q1457 Jim Dowd: Is there not a danger within this if it is a personality—and I will not mention any names particularly—who you intend to recruit into doing this who is also saying, as Jon Owen Jones mentioned earlier, "Drink more X or Y and you will be fitter", of a mixed message there?

  Tessa Jowell: That is the point. My point is that I would hope that the consumer will perhaps have an impact on sugar levels of fizzy drinks, just as the market has responded in relation to salt levels, but that also the celebrities' potential endorsers will rise to the challenge and recognise the value of positive promotion.

  Q1458 Mr Bradley: Secretary of State, you mentioned the acknowledgement of the sedentary lifestyle of children particularly now and the reduction level of activity, particularly walking and cycling. Could I ask both you and the Minister what actions you would take to encourage children to walk or cycle to school?

  Margaret Hodge: What can we do to encourage it? Let me just take that in a number of questions. It is undoubtedly true that more and more children are now being taken by car to school and, whilst that is unhealthy, I think that you have to be very careful on this issue as well as a working mother because, for quite a lot of parents who are attempting to balance their lives between work and their care and responsibilities, sometimes using the car is the only way in which they can get to work on time. So, we have to watch because, as with many of these questions, there are wider issues about how employers respond to work-life balance issues in the wider context. Having said that, what we can do and are intent on is bringing in the draft bill that is before the House where we will try and encourage various experiments and pilots to take place where people can look at alternative ways in which they can innovate and find new ways in which children can be transported to school, and the other thing we are doing is putting a bit more money into things like cycling sheds and pedestrian sheds to stop rain pouring on us. So, those are the sorts of incentives that we can try to promote, different habits. What is interesting is that of those who do choose to drive to school, for the vast majority the school is within two miles, so it is about lifestyle choices that go beyond just the availability of the car.

  Q1459 Mr Bradley: Would you agree that one of the reasons for the decline is the safety of routes to school and the problems of traffic en route? If you do, what is your view about children wearing cycle helmets as a safety measure?

  Margaret Hodge: Children wearing cycling helmets when cycling?


 
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