Andy MacNae

I absolutely agree. Of course, communities know best. Communities know what works; local people know what works, and empowering them to get involved in their local sports facilities is a hugely beneficial approach. I will highlight the Sunderland Community Action Group’s “Night Riders” initiative, which specifically targets people in antisocial behaviour hotspots through detached youth workers. In the evenings, kids are taken from hotspot areas to cycling hubs, where they take part in a fun group cycling activity and are given bikes and helmets covered in LED lights. It takes people away from hotspots and puts them in a controlled, safe environment, with good mentors to work with them. We know that sport-based interventions are an excellent way of tackling the causes of crime and antisocial behaviour. Through introducing young people to new experiences and new peer groups, their impact is long-lasting. Again, however, to make a real difference, we must take the best practice, mainstream it and do it at scale. Finally, investment in modern and well-maintained sports facilities, and encouraging people to go cycling and walking, can help us to meet our net zero targets. Older, poorly maintained sports facilities can be difficult both to heat and to run. This is a huge issue, with 63% of sports halls and swimming pools now over 10 years old; indeed, nearly a quarter have not been refurbished in over 20 years. The Local Government Association has also found that leisure facilities produce between 10% and 40% of district and unitary councils’ direct carbon emissions. Inevitably, with those come higher running costs. Investing in modern, well-maintained facilities, ideally with renewable energy generation, is a route to environmental and financial sustainability. Walking or cycling rather than driving to work or school delivers multiple benefits—a key benefit, of course, being reduced emissions and better air quality. Indeed, a University of Oxford study found that those people who switched just one trip per day from car to cycling reduced their carbon footprint by about half a tonne over a year. Yet despite the great potential to support the delivery of such a wide range of benefits, after 14 years of Conservative cuts and the impact of covid, community sports facilities are struggling to survive. Many have been forced to close and many remain at risk of closure. It has been particularly difficult for small councils, without the reserve spending powers or bid capacity of larger councils, to maintain leisure facilities. Despite the best efforts of their officers, it is incredibly difficult to maintain facilities, let alone open new ones. My Rossendale and Darwen constituency is a good example: we have four small towns, with populations ranging from 15,000 to 25,000. The borough council budget is less than £9 million a year. For the past 15 years, there has been some pretty heroic work by council officers, councillors and volunteers to try to keep our leisure facilities open, but despite that work we are now in a situation where two of our four towns have no significant public sector leisure provision. Despite having a clear forward plan to deliver the facilities that we need, along with innovative and high-impact projects, at present the council, with dwindling reserves and myriad cost pressures, has no realistic way of funding it or indeed of match funding any potential capital grants—so we fall ever further behind. Yet the irony is that these are exactly the kind of small-town communities, often lacking opportunity and with serious patches of deprivation, that are most in need of the benefits that local sports and leisure facilities can offer. I am pleased by this Government’s commitment of £123 million for funding to grassroots facilities in the current year and I am sure that we will see equally significant commitments in the future. However, I ask the Minister how we can ensure that we do not leave behind small towns and struggling councils, and how we make sure that we focus support where it is needed, and not just where the voices are loudest or the match funding pockets are deepest. The need to ensure that funding is structured to recognise particular challenges and opportunities in small towns is one part of the equation; responding to opportunity and maximising impact is another. Our country is full of innovative people and local organisations who are keen to get together and make a difference. Our funding structures should embrace this reality and not put up barriers by pretending that central Government know best. I have already given the example Rossendale Works; for seven years now this locally designed programme that has been helping long-term unemployed people into work, yet it has been reduced in ambition and remains reliant on short-term funding. Let me give an equally exciting example in Darwen: a top-class BMX and skatepark facility called Junction 4 Skatepark. Next to it is Darwen Vale high school, which is run by the Aldridge academy trust. Drawing on its experience of delivering the Aldridge Cricket Academy in Brighton, which has delivered excellent academic and sporting outcomes, the trust has come up with an innovative proposal for Britain’s first BMX and skateboard academy. This approach would give students the chance to develop sporting talent and academic qualifications together, rather than having to choose between the two. More broadly, it is a chance to target pupils who have not engaged well with education and are at risk, and to give them a powerful reason for getting positively engaged in school life. At the same time, the skate park has been developing innovative proposals to add media and creative elements to their offer. As well as learning to ride, young people can learn about filming, content development, photography, event organisation and so on—all skills that could lead to excellent careers. The academy trust and skate park are currently working on a business plan to pilot this approach. The only funding gap is likely to be revenue to cover the sports coaching elements, yet as things stand there is no obvious way of addressing it. I ask the Minister to consider how we can support such innovative approaches, responding to opportunity where it comes and mainstreaming what works, and I invite her to visit the facility and see what they can do. The evidence for how sport can positively impact our missions seems crystal clear. Indeed, Chris Boardman would say we are “drowning in evidence”. We have plenty of examples of how to deliver on this potential with local authorities and sporting and community organisations that have initiatives ready to go. Yet under the previous Government, interventions were piecemeal, short-term and small scale, usually subject to competitive bidding and the need to fit with predetermined outcomes. At the same time, community and leisure facilities were closing at an unprecedented rate. That has led to pockets of good practice, constantly under threat of funding running out and with very limited impact nationally. That then leads to a key question. When we have an approach like this one, which is clearly capable of delivering an excellent return on investment and a positive impact that supports the objectives of multiple Departments—such as DWP, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and the Home Office, as well as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—how do we properly value these benefits? How do we mainstream these programmes at scale, with an appropriate level of support to deliver nationwide impact? How do we ensure that our small towns and left-behind places equally benefit from any such approach? I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley has a saying that, “Whatever the problem, sport can be the solution.” We know the benefits and power of sport and physical activity, and its awesome, unarguable return on investment. However, the previous Government let our community facilities wither, leaving young people in small towns like mine with nothing to do and nowhere to go. With our focus on prevention and our commitment to left-behind communities, I hope and believe that our new Government will grasp this opportunity and empower our local authorities, sports clubs and volunteer organisations to put sport back at the heart of our communities.