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?
| 
