Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1460-1479)
29 MARCH 2004
RT HON
MARGARET HODGE
MBE, MP, MS MELA
WATTS, RT
HON TESSA
JOWELL, MP AND
MR PAUL
HERON
Q1460 Mr Bradley: That would be preferable,
yes!
Margaret Hodge: I thought we were
talking about children wearing them as a safety device when walking
to school. Are you suggesting that we should regulate in that
regard?
Q1461 Mr Bradley: I want your view about
whether you think it is a sensible safety measure.
Margaret Hodge: I would not let
a child of mine cycle without a cycling helmet and I would not
myself cycle without a cycling helmet, so I think they are probably
a good idea. Should we regulate in that regard? I do not think
anybody has mentioned parents in any of the discussion this afternoon
which rather surprised me because I think the role of parents
in the way that they . . .
Q1462 Jim Dowd: We have a long way to
go yet!
Margaret Hodge: . . . develop
children's habits in all sorts of things, whether it is in choice
of foods or anything like that or indeed whether they have a safety
helmet when they cycle into school is an issue which the Committee
would be wise to address. They are the biggest influence.
Q1463 Mr Bradley: May I just press you
a little. You are saying that, as a parent, you would like your
children to wear a cycle helmet and there is a great deal of evidence
to support the fact that wearing cycle helmets help prevents serious
injury. If you accepted that, would you agree that having a regulation
to tell children to wear such helmets would be a sensible approach
by government in that that would lead to more children cycling
to school and being more active?
Margaret Hodge: I am actually
not adverse to that sort of regulation, although it is not for
me to say. I certainly think it would be something one could perfectly
well consider. Whether of itself it would encourage more children
to cycle to school I am not sure.
Q1464 Mr Bradley: Perhaps I could ask
the Secretary of State the same question.
Tessa Jowell: I agree very strongly
with Margaret's caution in relation to this. Of course, it is
excellent to make it easier and safer for children to cycle to
school. You cannot prescribe it. There are great opportunities
for making it possible for children to be more active when they
get to school: playing sport before school, playing sport at lunch
time and playing sport after school and this is what is beginning
to happen. So, once children get to school, they do have more
opportunities to be more active than is otherwise the case.
Q1465 Mr Bradley: From that answer, are
you saying you are not in favour of taking measures that will
promote the use of cycle helmets for children travelling to school
by bicycle?
Tessa Jowell: I am sorry to sound
equivocal about this but, if you take statutory measures, then
who is responsible? What happens if a child is caught not wearing
a cycle helmet on the way to school and so forth?
Q1466 Mr Bradley: That is similar to
many other regulations.
Tessa Jowell: Yes, but these are
things one would have to think through. I would honestly want
notice of a question about whether or not regulation was essential
to achieve the change in behaviour that would actually see more
parents feeling that their children would be safe enough to be
able to cycle to school, which would be a good outcome, or walking
to school rather than going by car.
Q1467 John Austin: It was very clearly
said to us in Denmark that compulsory introduction of cycle helmets
would actually discourage and lead to a reduction in the number
of children cycling to school. Has the department looked at that
negative possible impact or has the department not looked at it
at all?
Tessa Jowell: I have to say that
this not an issue that we have looked at departmentally. This
is something that I am quite sure the Department of Transport
are looking at and I am quite sure that DfES, in discussion with
the Department of Transport, are looking at, but school transport
and how children get to school is part of the range of issues
to be addressed here but it is not one which sits within the responsibility
of my department.
Q1468 John Austin: You referred earlier
to social disadvantage and social exclusion. You could apply it
to cycle helmets. A number of local authorities do encourage children
to wear cycle helmets: a number of local authorities bulk purchase
and then sell at a discounted rate to children. Would your department
encourage that?
Tessa Jowell: That is obviously
a very good idea. Anything that makes safety equipment or sporting
equipment cheaper to buy must be a good idea.
Q1469 John Austin: On access to what
we are told is one of the most healthy forms of exercise, swimming,
a lot of young people in particular are excluded from access to
swimming not only because of the lack of access now through the
schools' programme but in their leisure time because of the cost
of the facilities. A number of local authorities in London over
Easter, for example, are providing free swims. What is your department
doing to ensure that all children have access to swimming facilities?
Tessa Jowell: There are now in
this country more swimming pools than ever before.
Q1470 John Austin: Many of the newer
ones are the more luxurious facilities which actually cost a lot
more.
Tessa Jowell: That is absolutely
the point that I was going to make. There is—I think it
is between the Department of Health and DfES—an initiative
on swimming at school. It is certainly a focus sport for the PE,
School Sport and Club Links programme, but there is a specific
programme about getting children to be able to swim between health
and education.
Margaret Hodge: In fact, it is
now a statutory programme, so we would expect children by the
age of 11 to be able to swim 25 metres and we are getting closer
and closer to that. We have massively increased. Bristol—and
Doug Naysmith may know about it—has undertaken a top-up
programme specifically geared at those kids who have not yet learnt
to swim as has Durham and they have cut the rate of non-swimmers
dramatically to I think 8% in those two areas.
Q1471 John Austin: It is great if more
children are learning to swim through the school but, if they
cannot access the facilities in the holiday time or in their normal
leisure time, it is not doing much to—
Margaret Hodge: Is that not a
responsibility for the local authorities and, as you have said,
there are some local authorities that have put in place practices
which enable some children to swim more cheaply or freely at particular
times in the year? I think that is probably the right direction
for that policy to go and that should be left to the discretion
of local authorities.
Q1472 Mr Jones: Secretary of State, you
spoke of parental responsibility earlier. As an irresponsible
parent, when I did not reset the alarm this morning, the kids
missed the school buses but, as a responsible parent, I drove
two of my children to school. I did that because I would not let
my children walk or cycle, with a helmet or without a helmet,
to school because the routes are too dangerous.
Margaret Hodge: Or maybe because
they would have been late!
Q1473 Mr Jones: They are very dangerous
routes. I live in the middle of Cardiff and, like many other cities,
we do not have safe cycleways to school. It is not my responsibility
as a parent to ensure that there are safe cycleways to school.
It is my responsibility partially as a legislator and it is your
responsibility as part of the Government to ensure that there
are. I am sorry, you do not believe that it is a government responsibility
to ensure that the roads are safe enough so that children can
cycle on them?
Margaret Hodge: I would not divest
yourself as a parent or I would not divest myself as a parent
from the responsibility of taking my children to school in that
way navigating roads that may not be as safe as one would have
wanted.
Q1474 Mr Jones: That was not the point
I was making. The point I was making was that the choice available
for my children to cycle to school is not there because the roads
are dangerous. When we were in Odense in Denmark, 80% of the children
cycle to school but the roads are much safer because they are
designed that way. In fact, we saw a marvellous example where
each and every child in the City of Odense every year looks at
a computer programme and they put on to the computer programme
the route they take from school to home and back again and they
put on the programme where they feel safe and where they do not
and then the city planners design the routes according to how
the children feel about their safety. Cycleways go right across
junctions. If that existed in my city and in other cities, I would
encourage children to cycle. Do you have any intention of doing
anything to make it safer in order that children can use this
choice?
Margaret Hodge: The responsibility
for promoting cycle routes is down to both local authorities and
what they do in their local areas supported, clearly, by investment
which partially comes from Government. One could point to local
authorities up and down the country where great emphasis has been
placed on developing cycle routes to enable safe cycling and I
think that they are very successful. So, what I would suggest
as the appropriate way forward is to put a little pressure on
both the Welsh Assembly and local authorities in Wales to do that.
I think always thinking that the answer lies in there being further
legislation—
Q1475 Mr Jones: I was not making a devolved
position. I am quite sure that the position is not different in
cities in England as it is in Wales. The levels of cycling to
school do not compare. There are one or two examples—and
they are largely rural examples—of where there are large
numbers of children cycling to school but, in the urban examples,
the cycle routes that we use are lines painted on the side of
the road which frankly in many cases are more dangerous than not
having them there at all. I regret that you do not feel it is
in any way the Government's responsibility to promote this.
Margaret Hodge: I did not say
that at all. First of all, there are many examples across the
country, some of which are here in London, where there is huge
effort being made to develop safe cycling routes and I would support
that. It is an issue for the Department of Transport but, as the
Minister for Children, I would support that. However, that is
largely down to local authorities and their willingness, both
at the upper and lower tier, to promote that, with some funding
from Government. So, there are a number of players in this arena
who have to come together and I think that is being encouraged.
Most children in an urban environment, interestingly enough, to
go back to the issue of why they get taken to school by car, live
within two miles of the school they attend, so cycling is not
the only option of a healthy and safe way of going to school—they
could walk—and it was in that context that I was saying
that parents could actually walk with them to school. Whilst accepting
what I said at the beginning of this, I think there are real tensions
between the increasing participation of mothers and fathers in
the labour market and therefore just trying to hack it and balance
your life between going to work on time and getting your children
to school.
Q1476 Mr Jones: Minister, I agree with
you about getting to work and so on, which is why I was talking
about the cycling because you are not required to move with your
child if they are cycling in. Another comparison between Denmark
and us is that, where we have a three-mile free transport provision,
the position in Denmark is that it is not on the basis of distance,
it is on the basis of how dangerous the route is. So, they have
free transport if the route is dangerous. That obviously gives
the local authority an incentive to make the routes less dangerous
because they save money by doing that. We do not have the same
incentive. This is not a devolved issue, I assure you, but a newer
school built in my constituency is built right next door to a
dual carriageway and a large roundabout meaning that you could
be living 100 yards away from the school yet your child could
not safely walk there. If I can move on to a different issue.
We understand that less than half the schools currently do the
two hours recommended PE every week and the evidence that we have
been given by many witnesses is that they would say that the curriculum
is so crowded that they cannot fit in the time. We have also seen
some evidence that doing PE can actually help the academic achievement
of children. Do you think there is any possibility that we could
move to alter the curriculum work in order that this extra PE
would be done?
Margaret Hodge: It is because
we wanted to increase the activity of children in taking part
in high quality sports that we set ourselves this target, which
Tessa and I are both working towards, of ensuring that 75% of
children have at least two hours of PE and sport by 2006. That
is the target we have set ourselves because of the base from which
we have come and we are pretty confident from where we have got
to so far that we are being effective in that. Where we do have
either the specialist sports colleges or the school sports partnerships
in place, we are seeing evidence of a massive increase in child
participation in sports activity. It measures it in those areas
that have had a school sports partnership for three years and
we are up to 68% of children now taking part and, if you go to
Years 7 and 8, we are at 90%, so we are beginning to change the
culture and the behaviour of children in schools. We are also
doing a survey as we speak which will come out, I am told, in
the summer, as these things always do, so probably not in time
for your report, to measure the difference between opportunities
being available and children participating because it is actually
the children's participation which we are interested in. I do
not think this is an issue of rethinking again the curriculum
in the sense of moving away from the emphasis we have had on building
skills in other areas, I think it is an emphasis on providing
the facilities which we are doing, on training the staff which
we are trying to do much more about, on creating those partnerships
and collaboration between institutions, on creating the links
between schools and clubs, it is all these initiatives in which
we are engaged which will help us to reach our target but we are
confident that we will get there.
Q1477 Chairman: Before I bring Richard
in, are you familiar with the work that Barry Gardiner is doing
in Brent on the issue of two hours of PE in a school day? Barry
came to the Committee to give evidence on this initiative and
I was certainly so encouraged by what he mentioned to me probably
about 18 months ago that I tried to do something similar in Wakefield
but without success because the head teachers felt that really
they were under such pressure in terms of academic achievement
that they simply could not build into the day the kind of things
that I was wanting to see happen. Are you following that pilot
and, if so, what are your views on it?
Margaret Hodge: We are following
that pilot and what the pilot does indicate is that actually you
can have the two but there has to be a willingness on the part
of not just the head teacher but the staff. I actually think that
it is much more about lack of confidence in teaching, particularly
in primary schools, around PE and sports which is why our training
programme for teachers and the links that we are trying to create
through partnership arrangements are important in raising the
confidence of those who teach, that they feel they know what they
are doing when they teach PE and sports to children.
Q1478 Chairman: That is an issue we have
picked up in evidence. So, what you are talking about is actually
improving the existing training.
Margaret Hodge: Yes.
Q1479 Chairman: Not specialised sports
teachers in secondary schools but giving the teachers who are
in primary schools the skills to do that particular part of their
work?
Margaret Hodge: We are talking
about a number of initiatives and levers. One is improving the
skills of the teachers in the primary schools; the other is creating
the links, particularly with the specialist sports colleges which
are growing all the time, in order that they can share not just
their facilities but some of their expertise and we are actually
funding teachers to take time out of the sports colleges and to
move into, let us say, the primary schools which is probably the
place where you need to give most of the professional support
in order that they can support better-quality teaching by the
existing staff there and creating the links with clubs, sports
clubs and right across all the sports facilities. So, I think
using those levers will help increase the quality of the teaching
and PE and sports in all schools but particularly in primary schools.
Dr Taylor: We have really covered the
question of walking to school, cycling to school and safe areas
to play. We have all seen on this Committee that the issue of
pedometers introduces a tremendous air of competition and I think
we are now more aware of the exercise that we are taking, perhaps
some more than others. Would there be any prospect of extending
this to schoolchildren in some way and to parents of schoolchildren
who have the time to walk with their kids to school and introducing
this sense of competition amongst children? Is there any thought
of issuing, as a trial, pedometers to certain schools to see what
happens?
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