David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 183, in clause 6, page 4, line 13, leave out ‘adequate' and insert ‘sufficient'.

Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 185, in clause 6, page 4, line 13, leave out ‘adequate' and insert ‘such'.

No. 184, in clause 6, page 4, line 14, at end insert

‘as may be sufficient according to their needs'.

No. 149, in clause 6, page 4, line 15, after ‘may', insert

‘enter into partnerships with other public, private or voluntary organisations in order to'.

No. 236, in clause 6, page 4, line 18, after ‘centres,', insert ‘field centres,'.

No. 64, in clause 6, page 4, line 29, after ‘provision', insert ‘or commissioning'.

No. 150, in clause 6, page 5, line 30, at end insert—

‘(d) a local authority must have regard to the access requirements of qualifying young persons with a disability.'.

No. 23, in clause 6, page 6, line 27, at end add—

‘(3) Provision under this section shall be restricted to that which can be funded by the revenue support grant separately identified but not specifically allocated or ring-fenced.'.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I am pleased to speak to the amendments, particularly to amendments Nos. 183 to 185, which are probing amendments designed to elicit the Minister’s response to clause 6 on local authority functions respecting recreation. I hope that the debate will be slightly less controversial than the debate on probing amendment No. 347.

I welcome the provisions in clause 6 that will strengthen and clarify such functions and update the provisions of the Education Act 1996. Local authorities’ role in providing recreational services for young people is more important now than ever, especially in the context of antisocial behaviour, a growing concern that all Committee members have experienced. It is indisputably one of the most striking social phenomena in the United Kingdom that for the past two to three years or perhaps longer, as the level of serious crime has fallen, the level of unpleasant, unacceptable antisocial behaviour—particularly but not only among young people—has increased. It could be argued that there is a link between the long-term decline in funding for youth services, such as the provision of community recreation facilities, and the declining capacity of some young people to occupy themselves creatively and constructively without resorting to drugs, alcohol, violence or personal abuse. That is the context in which clause 6 is particularly welcome.

My reservation about clause 6 is that it does not draw a sufficient link between local authorities’ responsibility to provide recreational services for young people and curriculum activities in schools. We need to forge a stronger link between what individual schools wish to provide for their young people as part of the national curriculum and wider extra-curricular activities and what services and facilities exist outside the school and need to be provided by local authorities. We have not yet forged that link.

I shall make four brief points. With luck, I shall make them before we break for lunch, to provide a convenient point from which to continue the debate this afternoon.

London’s success in securing the 2012 Olympic games gives the UK a unique, once-in-a-lifetime—arguably a once-in-a-century—opportunity to encourage vastly greater numbers of young people to take an interest in sport. The Government recognise that and have already brought significant levels of new investment into sport. I want to reinforce the absolute importance of using the Olympic bid as the hook to transform attitudes to sport and physical activity of a whole generation of young people.

The current requirement in our schools is a minimum of two hours a week of sport and physical education. I am not sure that that is enough. We need to build on it, and strengthening local authorities’ responsibilities will be a small encouragement.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman refers to the minimum two hours a week of sport. Does he have a feeling of what proportion of schools are achieving that?

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

I do not have a feeling of that, but the hon. Gentleman asks an important question. It is something that we should seek to flush out from the Minister. It is important to get an accurate assessment, not just a feeling, of how many schools are fulfilling that requirement and how many are falling short. Let us bear in mind that it is a bare minimum requirement. If we are to transform attitudes among our young people, two hours a week is not really enough. Of course, the two hours a week in school needs to be supplemented by a number of hours outside school. That is where the clause comes in.

My second point is that within the national curriculum, to my recollection, there is an intention that all young people will have learned to swim by the age of 11. I am not sure that we have yet achieved that. My feeling is that we are some way short of it, but it is again important to identify precisely the levels of achievement of young people. It is not just an issue of recreation and pleasurable physical activity; it can be an issue of life or death in certain extreme circumstances. The Olympics give us an excellent opportunity to strengthen the role of swimming in our schools.

Thirdly, I wish to draw attention to the report of the Select Committee on Education and Skills published last year entitled “Education Outside the Classroom”. It contains a number of positive recommendations to strengthen the extra-curricular work done by schools, and I hope that it has contributed to turning the tide in favour of a much more positive attitude towards taking children outside the school, not only on longer-term expeditions but using the immediate environment as the content of educational experience. One or two of the amendments in this group refer to that matter. We need to open a much bigger debate on the way in which the immediate environment outside the school, school visits to places of interest, outward bound centres and, in certain circumstances, overseas visits, can enrich the curriculum and young people’s experience.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland & The Deepings, Conservative)

In talking about the important role of sport in schools, the hon. Gentleman draws attention to the amount of time that is available in the  curriculum. Will he also say a word about access to facilities? Many school playing fields have been sold, not only under the present Government, but under previous Governments, and I suspect that public open spaces are declining. Many houses are being built with small or non-existent gardens, and the chances of children accessing public or other open space to engage in sport seem to be less than they once were.

David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)

That is correct. I stress that far fewer playing fields have been sold off under the present Government than under the Conservatives, because the  criteria for selling them off have been tightened, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We should also point out that in every suburban housing estate, the streets in which children could at one time play freely have been completely occupied by their parents’ 4x4 vehicles. We need to look more carefully at the question of land use planning.