Member

Today, those of us in favour of this amendment simply set the scene. I am grateful to my noble friend in sport, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for echoing my amendment because I think he realises, as I have for many decades in this Chamber, that this is an essential and important point about education. It is one of the areas that many young people engage in and want to engage in. If you are talking about absenteeism, many children who are absent from school will come back to school if they know that quality sports facilities are there. It encourages them to come there. They may, rather unwillingly, sit through hours of classic education to enjoy the possibility of engaging in sport later in the day. So, this is an important educational issue.