Lord Addington (LD)

My Lords, I rise to give a few words of support to my noble friend in sport Lord Moynihan—that is his expression, but I will use it today. Sporting activity is an incredibly important part of building most communities in our country. It brings them together and contributes to health. We have heard a lot about the Department of Health; it may not be represented here, but I am sure the Ministers are quite capable of carrying the message to it that if you do not have good sporting facilities and activity, you cannot utilise this. I hope that when the Minister comes to respond she will tell us how they are going to work this—or some duty that looks at all the benefits—into the new structure. We have a great deal here about driving something forward; as other noble Lords have said, if we drive forward something that does not deliver a decent environment—the opening comments from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, got to the heart of it—you will ultimately create unpleasant environments. We have done so in the past. We have already heard Billy Connolly’s description of being moved out of the Gorbals, because it was a slum, to somewhere which rapidly became a slum except with new buildings, because it had no facilities. Can the Minister give us a description of how they are going to work in access to green spaces, active travel infrastructure, sport and physical activity? If these are excluded from planning up front, those making the decisions will not follow up on them—if you do not have to do it, you will not, because you are busy and you have a prime objective. I hope that the Minister will tell us how they are going to deal with this, because if they do not do so, I am afraid we are going to have to put it into the Bill, one way or another.