Sarah
Teather: This has been a useful discussion and I thank the
Under-Secretary for his very positive response to the points that have
been raised. Points that were made about our amendments Nos. 149 and 64
were particularly helpful—especially the extra
information and constituency experience that the hon. Member for
Sheffield, Hillsborough brought to the debate. In the light of that I
shall not press those amendments to a
vote.
5.30
pm As to amendment
No. 150, I am sympathetic to the Under-Secretary’s point that it
is not just disabled young people who face barriers in gaining access
to leisure facilities, or, indeed, many services in a local authority
area, and his points about cultural differences are particularly apt in
the context of my constituency. However, I am also pleased to hear him
say that young people with disabilities—particularly learning
disabilities—face particular barriers to access. I was reassured
by the information that he gave about the issuing of statutory guidance
on that matter, and I shall, again, not press the amendment.
In relation to the question that
my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole raised about
charging, will the Under-Secretary specifically address the issue of
children in care when he publishes guidance? That is one particularly
vulnerable group whose access to such facilities should be specifically
considered.
Mr.
Hayes: Two matters have been made less, not more, clear by
the Under-Secretary’s response. I do not want to be too pedantic
about this, but it is vital to get a clear answer to the question that
the hon. Member for Bury, North posed at the beginning of this debate
about sport. I hope that the Under-Secretary will also be able to
answer my supplementary questions. He was crystal clear, I thought,
about the breakdown of sports in which young people are engaged, but he
said that 35 per cent. of pupils are involved in inter-school sport at
partnership schools. That is a bit of a Sir Humphrey answer, because we
do not know which those partnership schools are, or what proportion of
the total school population is represented, or where in the country
they are distributed.
What we really want to
know—what I imagine the hon. Member for Bury, North wants to
know, although he will make his own judgment about it—is what
proportion of children in all maintained schools spend two hours or
more a week on school sport. What I wanted to know was what proportion
of children in all maintained schools, whether those are in
partnerships or not, are involved in competitive sport or sport that
involves a relationship with other schools. Those seem to me pretty
straightforward questions, and I should be grateful if the
Under-Secretary could answer them so that we could at least agree on
that point. I know that he is trying to be helpful; I am trying to be
helpful
too.
Phil
Hope: I hope that I shall be helpful. I can tell the hon.
Gentleman that 80 per cent. of schools in England are in a school sport
partnership. That gives him some idea of the scale of the response. All
schools will be in a partnership by September. At the time of the
survey 50 per cent. of schools were in a partnership, so the figures
are based on that proportion.
Mr.
Hayes: That is helpful, because we now know that 69 per
cent. of children in 80 per cent. of schools engage in school sport for
more than two hours a week, and that 35 per cent. of children at 80 per
cent. of schools engage in sports that involve inter-school
work—participating with other schools in competitive or
collaborative ventures. I conclude from that that we have a problem,
because a lot of children are not involved in physical education or
sport for two hours or more a week. That suggests that a large number
of children engage in school sport or physical education for a very
short time, which underpins the concerns outlined at the beginning of
the debate. At least we know where we stand now. I fully acknowledge
the Under-Secretary’s desire to do something about
that. This debate has
been conducted in a spirit that shows that we are all interested in
doing our best by children in respect of physical education and school
sports. Following this Committee, I should be interested to take the
matter further and to consider how we could measure the trend over
time, what difference we could make to the figures, what targets we
might set, and what ambitions we might have for ensuring that more
children participate. I hope that that will arise from this debate and
from the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bury, North, which
have been discussed at some
length. The other
matter on which there was lack of clarity was access to playing fields.
I want to be as generous as possible: it is true that the Government
recognised the problem as early as 1998 and changed the
guidance—and, indeed, the legislation—to try to deal with
it, as the Minister for Schools will remember. However, the
Under-Secretary and the Committee will be aware that the outcome was
not entirely happy for the Government. In 1999, there were 590
applications to build on playing fields, but by March 2003 the figure
had more than doubled to 1,297 applications per year. It is hard to
imagine, is it not? At that time, the then Secretary of State for
Education and Skills was asked to decide on 176 applications to dispose
of school playing fields that were larger than 0.2 hectares, which is
the size of a sports pitch. Of those applications, only two were turned
down; so there were only two cases in which the Secretary of State
intervened in favour of Sport England’s objection to building on
those fields. The
Government recognised the problem and by August 2004, as the
Under-Secretary will know, the then Secretary of State announced
further protection for playing fields, because he recognised that, as a
study conducted by University college London revealed—that is
where I have drawn my figures from—there was a big problem in
terms of school playing fields. I would be interested to hear from the
Under-Secretary what the position has been since 2004, as we have not
heard that today. We would hope that the series of tighter measures
introduced by the then Secretary of State—now the Home
Secretary—had to some degree stemmed the tide of building on
playing fields, but I have not seen any figures to date or, indeed,
today. It is important
for the Under-Secretary to reassure those Committee members who have
expressed an absolute determination that sports should be given a
prominent position, both in school and outside the school gate, that
that sale of open space has not
continued unabated. I do not think that it has, and I am sure that the
Under-Secretary does not think so, but let us have the facts and
figures before us so that we can make a judgment. Once again, this has
been a helpful debate. I repeat my thanks to the hon. Member for Bury,
North, for giving us the chance to hold
it. Mr.
Gibb: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s dogged
tenacity in extracting those important figures from the
Under-Secretary; they reveal that there is a problem. Even in the
partnership schools, a large proportion of pupils—the
Under-Secretary said 31 per cent.—are not getting two hours a
week or more of high-quality PE or games. We have a problem that we
need to address together, as a Government and as a
Parliament. The debate
has been interesting. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough, is
right that the duty does not necessarily require local authorities to
provide the recreation facilities themselves; they can commission the
voluntary and private sectors and other bodies to provide those
facilities. It was refreshing and encouraging to hear that from a
Labour Member, and even more so to hear it from her. I think that the
Committee is reaching consensus on some important points of
principle. I am
grateful for the Under-Secretary’s full and informative
response. He pointed out that 70 per cent. of young people believe that
lack of provision leads to antisocial behaviour and crime. Again, there
is consensus in the Committee on that point, which was first raised by
the hon. Member for Bury, North. I think that the Under-Secretary
confirmed my understanding that the funding for the new duty comes
principally from the youth opportunity fund, although he also mentioned
local area agreements and other sources of funding to which local
authorities have access. From what he said, however, I understand that
the fund is the principal source of funding. That was a helpful note of
confirmation.
Phil
Hope: I do not want the hon. Gentleman or the Committee to
be misled. Local authorities have a duty to secure access as I
described, but they should not use the youth opportunity fund, which is
there to help to engage young people and ensure that they are involved
in decision making regarding needs assessments and in giving their
views about existing
provision.
Mr.
Gibb: I am grateful for that clarification. We support the
clause, but that explanation demonstrates the general problem with what
we do in this House. When we impose duties on local authorities without
providing funding to discharge them, they have a problem: they must
either raise council tax to fund the new duties or divert resources
from other services. Our amendment is only a probing one, but
discussions on it have revealed a problem faced by local authorities.
Too often, we pass laws without thinking through the consequences that
new duties and facilities will have on those who have to discharge and
provide them, or how they will be funded. We have to take a serious
approach. We want many
things from our public services—I reiterate that we support
clause 6—but we have to be serious about the problem of
introducing legislation
and imposing new duties and responsibilities on local authorities and
leaving the funding of those new duties to them. Sometimes there is a
disconnect between the elected representatives who impose duties and
the elected representatives who have to raise money from the public to
pay for new services. We have had a revealing and informative debate on
our probing amendment, and I do not intend to press it to a
Division. Mr.
Chaytor: I thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for
his long and detailed response to the amendments. It should give us
food for thought that had the hon. Member for South Holland and The
Deepings not taken tea at the Savoy, we might not have had the
opportunity to explore these detailed issues, and might already have
been well into our discussions on clause 7 and the Secretary of
State’s veto, but that is a side issue. I am pleased that the
brief amendments in the group have opened a debate on a clause that
might otherwise have been unfairly neglected.
I have two brief points to make.
First, the Under-Secretary has described an impressive level of
commitment and achievement in encouraging school sport, in particular,
and a stronger focus on education outside the classroom. I very much
support the imminent publication of the manifesto on education outside
the classroom. With legislative support for local authorities, we can
look forward to further advances in that area, but the existence of
sporting and other cultural facilities alone will not automatically
develop the wider levels of participation that we all want. We must
reinforce the argument that we need a coherent approach. On one hand,
there should be a strong role for local authorities in providing or
commissioning new facilities. On the other, we need stronger
encouragement for schools to place far more emphasis on the importance
of sport and cultural activities in the curriculum.
This is a debate for another
occasion, but it is important to flag this point up now. I fear that
the constricting effect of the national curriculum in recent years has
had an adverse effect, whereby in subjects such as sport, dance, drama,
art and music, some activities that do not contribute directly to a
school’s record of achievement as defined by GCSE results have
been squeezed out of the curriculum. I know that the Government have
recognised that and are taking steps to free up the national curriculum
and gradually reduce the burden of assessment that the national
curriculum has triggered. However, that process must continue if we are
to see the full flourishing of sport and the arts in our schools.
Although many youngsters in surveys say that they want to spend more
time on such activities during the week, they need guidance from an
adult in a school setting because the capacity creatively to use
leisure time does not come about by chance—it is taught,
encouraged and facilitated, and we need time in the school day to do
that. 5.45
pm My second brief
point is that the hon. Member for Gainsborough, who is not in his
place, drew attention to the sometimes substantial differential between
sports facilities in private and state schools. I do not want to
over-emphasise that point, because it is not true in all circumstances,
but it is true in many. I simply flag up the question of whether the
Charities Bill, which is wending its way through the other place and
which grapples with the public interest criteria for continuing the VAT
exemption for private schools, might provide a way of reducing that
differential, which all members of the Committee see as unacceptable.
However, that is a debate for the other place, and with those few
words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause 6 ordered to stand
part of the
Bill. Schedule 1
agreed to.
New Clause
2Education
of children detained under an order of
court ‘(1) Chapter 5 of Part
10 of EA 1996 (Persons not covered by the Act) shall be amended as
follows. (2) Leave out section
562 (Act not apply to persons detained under order of a court).'.
—[Annette
Brooke.] Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Annette
Brooke: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss new
clause 3— Education of children in immigration removal
centres— ‘When a local
authority has within its boundaries an Immigration Removal Centre it
shall ensure that all duties and powers pertaining to education of
children are applied to any child resident within an Immigration
Removal Centre.'.
Annette
Brooke: When we discuss children in custody or asylum
seekers’ children in detention centres, we talk much about
“Every Child Matters”. I often feel, however, that those
two groups are excluded in many ways, so the two new clauses are
important in the context of education. There have been had long debates
and, indeed, High Court cases about the position of social services as
regards children in custody, but education is the topic
today. I turn first to
new clause 2. On 31 March 2005, 2,204 15 to 17-year-olds were in prison
and 234 12 to 15-year-olds were in privately run secure training
centres. As we are all aware, many children in prison have a background
of severe social exclusion. Of those of school age in custody, more
than a quarter have the literacy and numeracy levels of an average
7-year-old. Sadly, more than half of those under-18-year-olds have a
history of care into the bargain. In young offenders institutions, just
under a third of the population has basic skills deficits, while the
reading ability of 48 per cent. of the overall prison population is at
or below level 1, compared with 21 to 23 per cent. in the general
population. Education
is important because it gives us the opportunity to put an end to that
revolving door syndrome. Otherwise, the problem builds up, with that
basic lack of literacy and numeracy still showing itself in the adult
population and making some contribution to
reoffending. | 
