My Lords, I return to a subject raised by only one speaker in front of me: sport. I am afraid I have drawn the short straw. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is not in his place at the moment, but he spoke about the importance of sport and various aspects of it.
If we are moving sport from DCMS back to Education, it will not make that much difference because, as displayed by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and his wonderful 12-point plan, it is a department that is now increasingly dominated by the online world. What do you do with it and where do you move it? It does not really matter that much, as long as you give it some priority. We have always called for it to have its own department, but everybody calls for their subject to have its own department in Westminster, and we do not usually get it.
The important driving factor behind it has been the National Lottery, which has given it some real oomph and spending power. This meant that we were capable of achieving the Olympics. It means that we have grass-roots backing and that our infrastructure for grass-roots sports is a little better than it was, and not so dependent on the grass-roots fundraising that traditionally has been there.
What are we going to do to back this up and guarantee that it maintains this funding? At the moment, the entire infrastructure of the National Lottery is, to a degree, under threat from the rise of the other two lotteries, the Health Lottery and the Postcode Lottery. They may be doing good work and other wonderful things, but they are not that guarantee of funding. The Postcode Lottery is a very slick organisation. I commend to you its correct use of advertising in the House magazine—the recent copy, with all the new MPs in it. Put your advertising in there. Well done, somebody knows their job.
Are we going to guarantee this body of funding going through? It helps just about everything in the sporting world. We must make sure it is always there as something to fall back on. You know how to apply, and it is quicker, easier and more efficient than hunting down sponsorship. Can we make sure that it is there? If we are going to allow a properly free market and competition in lotteries, I absolutely recommend that we make sure that if they achieve a certain degree of success, they inherit with that success a degree of responsibility. It should not be that difficult: “Great, you have become the major lottery player in the country. You have to make sure the Olympic programme has support.” That would be a reasonable thing to call for.
This goes down a long way, because one of the other things I will talk about is at the other end of the sporting spectrum: mixed-ability sport. Something I came across totally by accident through the parliamentary rugby team was mixed-ability rugby. That is, you adapt the rules to allow people with a learning disability or cerebral palsy to take part alongside you. You adapt your game. You have a social activity, which is good for the club. You have build-up. You get everybody joining in—an extra string to your bow. This has been done at international competition level, supported by
the lottery and the Erasmus programme. The Government must come in if things are being changed here, to guarantee these organisations a backbone of support. The same could be said of the Commonwealth Games project, which we are apparently going to get through eventually. We must ensure that a success of decades-standing continues. If we are going to change it, we must guarantee that support.
Sport is only one aspect that has been changed for this; the arts and other projects also come in. But can we ensure that this great success, probably the greatest success of John Major’s premiership, is continued? If we allow it to wither on the vine, we will end up making ourselves that little bit poorer at every level.
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