I couldn’t have agreed with Kim Leadbeater more when she said, ‘whatever the problem, sport can be the solution’. For every £1 we invest in sport, we get a £4 return in social and health benefits. As I argued in my recent Westminster Hall Debate, sport facilities have a unique and untapped potential to bring change to every corner of this country. Looking at a few of the key challenges we face – low growth, unprecedented economic inactivity and a struggling NHS – I believe modern, well-supported community sport facilities could offer the key to a breakthrough.
Firstly, well-tailored sports programmes centred around local facilities can help to drive economic growth and unlock opportunity. If we want to see the next generation thrive, our young people need the confidence to seize the opportunities before them. Regular sports and physical activity provide an excellent way of embedding that confidence while growing teamwork and leadership skills. The Youth Sport Trust has demonstrated that sport is a key predictor of children’s self-confidence and resilience, with girls receiving an even greater positive impact from sports than boys. With sport, we can equip our young people for the working world.
Alongside this, sports can provide strong and unique incentives for people to continue coming to school. For instance, Rugby Works offers a term-time programme for those permanently excluded from school in key stage 3 and 4. The year-long intervention is underpinned by four pillars of change: developing life skills, raising aspirations, improving physical health, and increasing mental wellbeing. 89% of programme graduates progressed into sustained education, employment or training. By contrast, the national average is just 62% for young people in alternative provision.
Another key challenge we have, which creates a £300B drag on our economy, is record economic inactivity. We have nearly 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds out of work – nearly one in seven young people. Poor mental health is by far the most commonly cited reason. This is a tragedy for each individual, because the potential to learn and progress through being in work or training is crucial to getting a good start in life; on a societal level, it undermines our economic growth and puts huge pressure on our finances.
Sport can be a highly effective route back to work, as seen in Rossendale Works in my constituency. The programme is a partnership between Active Lancashire, Rossendale Borough Council and the Department for Work and Pensions, centred around the local job centre. The project works with individuals suffering from entrenched worklessness and low self-esteem to understand what may be preventing a return to work. It develops a tailored plan to address those barriers with a focus on sport and physical activities delivered through council leisure facilities to boost confidence, health and wellbeing. Importantly, there is also a process of job matching, guided by the needs of local employers. The aim is for individuals to at the very least have a guaranteed interview at the end of the process, and support is maintained throughout the work placement. In 2022-23 alone, 203 people with multiple issues were supported, with 68 directly going into employment as a result.
Finally, sports facilities play a crucial role in the health of our communities, preventing and mitigating illnesses and, in doing so, easing the pressure on our NHS. Even with our current provision, Sport England found that over 600,000 cases of type 2 diabetes, 150,000 cases of heart disease, and 1.3 million cases of depression were prevented through sport in 2023-24. As it stands, it estimates that sport activities provide at least £10 billion of savings for the NHS. On mental health, there is a 20% to 30% lower risk of mental illness for those taking part in daily physical activity. It’s these combined effects that led the chief medical officer to note in 2019 that if exercise “were a drug, we would refer to it as a miracle cure”.
The benefit and power of sport and physical activity, and its unarguable return on investment, is crystal clear. Yet 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 this new Government’s focus on prevention and commitment to left-behind communities, I hope and believe that we will grasp this opportunity, empowering our local authorities, sports clubs and volunteer organisations to put sport back at the heart of our communities.
The Tories let our community sporting facilities wither – Labour will not make this mistake
