Community Sports Clubs

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Culture, Media and Sport – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 19 January 2009.

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Photo of Andy Burnham Andy Burnham The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 2:30, 19 January 2009

The hon. Gentleman is right to challenge me and the sports Minister on these issues, and I hope that he will carry on doing so, as they are clearly incredibly important. However, the picture is more mixed than he acknowledged, or than the press release that he recently put out suggested. Overall, half a million more adults are playing sport, which is a really good sign of progress.

More people are taking up sport, but the hon. Gentleman is right that there is a worrying decline in participation among some groups. I see Simon Hughes nodding, and indeed there are particular issues to consider about participation in sport in London. I am happy to continue to be challenged by Mr. Foster on these matters, but I hope that he will acknowledge that the overall trend is up. That is a good thing, and in this Olympic period I am sure that he will join us in wanting to drive it up further among all groups in society.

Under the whole sport plans that we have just agreed, we want to place sport governing bodies on the spot to get more girls and women playing sport, to improve disability sport and to create more opportunities for people from black and ethnic minority communities. Those are not optional extras; they are critical targets if a sport wants to benefit from public funding.

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Michael Bourne
Posted on 7 Feb 2009 12:32 am (Report this annotation)

Has the Secretary of State missed out here? He could have fired back at Mr Foster with figures issued last spring by the England and Wales Cricket Board. These were an overall increase of 27% in participation levels in cricket, with 45% more girls playing the game and a 22% increase for those said to be from ethnic minorities. He might have quoted also the chairman of the ECB, Giles Clarke who, in giving evidence to a parliamentary committee a year ago, said that 900,000 women and girls in this country were now playing cricket.

But being an honest sort of chap and knowing that these figures to be preposterous, Mr Burnham refrained from quoting them. It is just a pity that, like his predecessors, he is shackled by a political dogma which contradicts anything that is said about help for all sports clubs.