§ 14. Mr. HainTo ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if he will make a statement about sports provision for young people.
§ Mr. SproatThe Sports Council provides financial and other assistance to enable governing bodies of sport, local sports clubs and schools to enhance their sporting provisions for young people. One of the objectives of my current proposals for restructuring the council is to strengthen the links between governing bodies and schools so that young people have wider opportunities to develop their sporting skills.
§ Mr. HainDoes the Minister accept that those are mere words because the figures show that the number of physical education teachers has been cut by more than 40 per cent? There are also reduced facilities because of opting out and cuts in local government provision. Why do not the Government invest in a major national programme to boost youth sport? If we did that, as the Australians do with their cricket academies, we might start winning some test matches and other sporting events that appear to be beyond our grasp at the moment.
§ Mr. SproatI have been following with great interest the hon. Gentleman's series of questions on PE teachers to the Welsh Office and the Department for Education, which he has tabled over the past few weeks. He certainly has a serious problem in his sights. He knows the answers—such as, more teachers used to take sports but now PE teachers tend to do that; that there are fewer pupils, and so on. However, I hope that the future of PE training will be looked at in the joint paper being prepared by my Department and the Department for Education.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman's point about Australia and I am going there some time in January to look at exactly what the Australians are doing and to see what lessons we can learn.