Youth Sport

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 11 June 2013.

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Photo of Tavish Scott Tavish Scott Liberal Democrat

Christine Grahame gave us a litany of all the sporting and gym equipment that she did not like. I would have thought that, after the vote on courts this morning, she should be more worried about the high bar—but maybe that is just me.

I confess that I sensed a slight frisson of—how can I put it delicately?—atmosphere between Jenny Marra and the minister in an intervention. I have fallen into a few political traps in my time, and I certainly sense a political trap being laid for the minister by Jenny Marra over the national performance centre for sport. If the minister’s colleagues do not award the centre to Dundee, Jenny Marra will no doubt slam the Government for that; if they award it to Dundee, she will undoubtedly take the credit. That is the benefit of the great political traps of our day.

That exchange brought to mind the importance of the national performance centre for sport. I rather agreed with the minister’s response to Margaret McDougall, who made the case for locating it in Largs, because it struck me that having a centre for more than just football—one that covers a range of sports—is the right approach for Scottish sport more generally. The case for that approach is well proven.

I have been to Heriot-Watt University to be talked through the bid that it has submitted. I must confess that, like Alison Johnstone, I find its bid pretty compelling, but, in fairness, I do not know in any detail the benefits of either the Dundee bid or the Stirling bid, which I am sure are equally strong. I guess that that is ultimately a decision for the Government. However, on the principle of a national performance centre and of £25 million being invested in sport for the long term, I endorse the approach that the Government is taking. As other members have said, we are a sport-mad country. When we take an international view of investment in other countries, we see that they have been down this route over many years and across many sporting disciplines. Such investment is an important principle and a practical measure that can help considerably.

On sport more generally, I believe that the Riccarton bid would be stronger were consideration given to the stadium issue that bedevils Edinburgh to this day. Stadiums matter, but elite athletes matter more, because they inspire young people. We have heard about curling and about many different sporting figures, and it is healthy to concentrate not only on our well-known and exemplary elite athletes but on the many unsung heroes who support people at all levels.

I sneaked a look at the British Lions this morning, and it is quite nice to see a young Hawick lad called Stuart Hogg playing fantastically well—indeed, starring—at fly half. As a representative of a rugby-mad town such as Hawick, he is certainly the epitome of youth sport.

Alex Johnstone raised an important issue about participation or “activity”—a term that other members have also commented on—versus elite sport. If we are to inspire the next generation and encourage more young people to follow different sporting disciplines or to take part in a range of sports and then decide which one they want to pursue, we need a bit of both.

What really struck me about the Olympics was how much money went in from the national lottery to deliver for sporting success, and how focused that funding stream was on success, both for young athletes coming through and for more established elite athletes. There was no room for failure, and sports that did not match up to the agreed targets simply had their funding reduced. Irrespective of how that approach develops in future, Scotland faces a challenge: UK-wide lottery funding is fundamentally important to the number of young Scots who can make it.