My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my declaration of interests: I am chair of ukactive and a board member of the National Academy for Social Prescribing, and I also sat on the Select Committee which the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned. My name is attached to Amendment 297C.
1.30 pm
The debate so far has been really interesting. Our amendment would offer some solutions, or at least support, to the main arguments around obesity and diet. The amendment, which is in a large group of amendments, looks as though it is asking for many things but in reality is quite simple. It asks: where is the best place for physical activity and sport to sit to get the most benefit from the investment that is put into them? After all, we are talking about the health of our nation and our desire to protect and support the National Health Service. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, was absolutely right when he talked about silos. This amendment is about bringing in and supporting the work of different government departments.
The statement that major games inspire the long-term physical activity of the nation has been disproved; it is a misnomer. The noble Lord and I both worked on the 2012 Games in different ways. They were stunning and they were amazing; they will be the best Olympics and Paralympics for a long time to come. But they were a moment in time, and we know that people’s relationship with physical activity changes, depending on numerous factors. As a legislative body, we can do better and do more to change this pattern of inactivity.
Subsection (4)(g) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 297C, which looks at schools, is really important but we also need to look beyond that at our lifelong habit of physical activity. Shifting sport from DCMS to the Department of Health would allow us to have a really different conversation, plan differently and bring a different lens to what we are trying to do. We know that disabled children experience deep-rooted inequalities in their ability to be active. We know that children who are out of school for the six-week summer holiday lose 80% of their fitness, and that the children who are hit hardest are those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. During Covid, children were out of school for multiples of the summer holidays, and we know the impact that inactivity often has on school attainment. Being able to look at this differently would also allow us to help the Government with their levelling-up agenda.
I know the physical activity sector is so much behind the Government in trying to change this pattern of behaviour. The pathways to elite sport will still exist, and I am incredibly proud of what our GB teams have done. This is not about building a broader base of the pyramid—that is not my main motivation. It is about the health of our nation. We can no longer afford not to think radically differently about how we use physical activity preventatively and for good health. The fact that we have got so far into this debate with physical activity barely having been mentioned shows that we need to do more to raise it up the agenda.
I hope that my noble friend Lord Stevens will forgive me, because I will now quote extensively from when he was head of the NHS. At the 2016 ukactive national conference he said:
“The pharmaceutical industry dreams of discovering a treatment that could cut 3% of strokes, prevent 30% of dementia, 30% of osteoporosis, radically reduce breast cancer and bowel cancer, not to mention prevent depression, reduce stress, eliminate type 2 diabetes and cut the falls that our parents’ generation”—
more than one-third of them—
“experience each year.”
He continued:
“If you could pack all of that into a magic pill, it would be a worldwide pharmaceutical blockbuster. But the label on the side of this treatment says ‘activity and exercise’.”
I know we do not have much time today, but I would really value spending more time with the Minister exploring how we can put activity at the heart of what we are trying to do, and I know there are amendments on social prescribing which seek to do that. But some of the things that we have been talking about, such as trips and falls, fit into the Building Safety Bill as well, and the issue of safer stairs. So we should not just talk about sport but about wider physical activity as well. Although it might feel a big change to some, an office for health promotion is a much more natural home for physical activity and sport and would give us a bigger chance of maximising investment. I hope the Minister will look favourably on this amendment, and I look forward to further making our case.