Baroness Sater (Con)

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly in support of Amendments 138A, 185SC and 185SD in the name of my noble friend Lord Moynihan, who has articulated very well why these amendments are so important and should be considered. The focus of the amendments, as we have heard, is to ensure that any national or local plan or strategy relating to planning and development must be designed to provide access, spaces and facilities, and to preserve existing sites for sport and physical activity, so that we can improve the health and well-being of society. A proper local plan and strategy is critically important. Why? Research from StreetGames, the sports charity I chaired for several years, showed that children and young people living in the most deprived neighbourhoods typically tend not to travel outside of their immediate locality, and with other barriers, they have less access to opportunities for sport and play. Sport England’s active lives survey shows that individuals in lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to be inactive, partly due to a lack of safe, affordable and welcoming home spaces and facilities. This disparity has not helped factors such as limited school facilities’ access for community use, with data showing the correlation between facilities available and activity levels. The Fields in Trust charity, this year celebrating its centenary, publishes the green space index. It estimates that by 2033, 4,000 new parks will be needed to maintain the current level of accessible green spaces across the country—and the current level is not enough. To preserve these park spaces and sports facilities, planning in future will need to be truly focused if our country is not to be worse off. The pausing or ending of the Opening Schools Facilities Fund is also unhelpful and detrimental, as this fund was providing its worth. If we are to tackle health and socioeconomic inequalities, we need to improve community provision of opportunities for all, including those in the most deprived neighbourhoods. To do this means making sure that integrating sport and physical activity in all planning decisions is an absolute requirement. StreetGames and many other similar organisations daily demonstrate the importance of local community facilities, sports fields, leisure centres, gyms and parks. We know how sport and physical activity help to improve lives, whether the issue be obesity, isolation, physical and mental health, or crime and anti-social behaviour. These organisations help aid social cohesion and provide places for social interaction, provided they have access to the right facilities. They deal daily with the rebalancing of issues of health inequality, and without concerted efforts through planning, they will be unable to do their work. For these reasons and many more, I hope we can prioritise the issues raised in these amendments. I support these amendments because they protect the provision of sport and physical activity in the National Planning Policy Framework. In so doing, sport and physical activity become the underpinning of health and well-being within communities, and help eliminate inequalities.