Physical Activity: The Need for Improvement and the Cost of Failure
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-661, in the name of Tom McCabe, on physical activity: the need for improvement and the cost of failure. There are two amendments to the motion.
Inactivity in the Scottish population constitutes one of our most serious public health issues and one that we must tackle with urgency. Two thirds of the adults and almost half of the children in Scotland are inactive and are currently putting their health at risk. Research shows that inactive people have a greater chance of suffering from a wide range of illness and disease than do people who are active. Of course, there are other costs—poor self-esteem, higher levels of anxiety and stress, higher rates of sickness-related absence from work, loss of basic strength and flexibility in older age and, for many, the loss of independent living.
The problem is not unique to Scotland: physical inactivity is a global problem that is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a significant contributor to the burden of chronic disease and, increasingly, to the burden of obesity. To benefit their health, adults need to accumulate a minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity every day and children need to accumulate one hour a day. It is frightening that less than a third of adults and less than half of all children achieve that minimum level.
However, there are solutions. Scotland is one of the first countries to produce a national physical activity strategy, which is evidence based and in line with the types of strategies that the World Health Organisation is advocating worldwide. We need to avoid distraction and to focus on people being more active, and we need to support sustained daily activity for life. That reaches deep into the fabric of our society, which is why the physical activity task force worked with representatives from sport, education, transport and health. Thanks to all that good work, we now have a physical activity strategy.
The strategy, which was published in February 2003, sets out our targets for increasing the overall levels of activity by 1 per cent a year over the next 20 years. We have already started to deliver. In schools, we have the physical education review, active schools co-ordinators and safe routes to schools. Other organisations—the Scottish Out of School Care Network, Play Scotland, Sustrans and the Scottish Road Safety Campaign—are involved, too.
What is happening with the review of physical education in schools? When is it likely to finish?
Mr Canavan will appreciate that that is a matter for my colleagues in education, but I have no doubt that they are progressing the review with as much speed as they can, because it is recognised throughout the Executive that we have no time to waste as we pursue the agenda.
In workplaces, we have the stair-walking campaign by NHS Health Scotland, the Scotland's Health at Work award scheme and jogscotland, which is developing jogging networks and corporate activity challenges. In communities, we are working with Paths to Health to support the development of walking groups throughout Scotland and we are funding additional staff in Sustrans to develop and support active travel plans. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 that was passed by Parliament means that local authorities have a duty to maintain a system of core paths in their areas. Access to core paths will provide a major opportunity for all members of the public to be active.
At home, NHS Health Scotland is taking a key role through the development of training programmes, materials and resources that cover parenting, children and older people.
I share the minister's enthusiasm for land reform in relation to access. To ensure that progress continues to be made, will he tell us when the Scottish outdoor access code will be made available? That is an essential step in implementing the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.
In line with my previous answer, I say that the code will be made available without undue delay. Parliament has legislated, so it is important that such measures be put in place as soon as possible. However, it is also important to be robust and to make the policy as effective as possible. Sometimes it is fine to look for undue haste, but I would rather have robust and sustainable outcomes that provide the public of Scotland with what Parliament intended to provide.
We are making progress quickly. I take this opportunity to acknowledge local government's enthusiasm in embracing the importance of physical activity. I cannot emphasise enough the huge potential of community planning partnerships to bring about the sustainable progress that we all seek. Impressive work is already emerging in places such as West Lothian and Fife, to name but two examples.
The key challenge now is to focus leadership and channel energies. We intend to establish a national leadership forum for physical activity that will bring together all the relevant policies throughout the Executive to address this critical health issue. The national leadership forum for physical activity will pick up where the physical activity task force left off. It will bring together knowledge and research from top-flight academics with those who are charged with translating evidence into delivery in all sectors of Scottish society. I will bring together ministers, senior officials from all relevant departments and experts in physical activity to begin that important work in the new year.
The minister talks about bringing together people from the Executive's departments, but a few minutes ago he could not answer Dennis Canavan's questions because he did not know what the Minister for Education and Young People would say. Will the new forum be able to pull together budgets from different Executive departments?
It is not a case of my not being able to reply to interventions from Mr Canavan or anyone else. The debate is serious and I ask Opposition politicians to take it seriously, rather than try to score points, and not to expect someone who speaks on behalf of the Executive to know every aspect of what is going on in every Executive department. The situation is too serious for such a nonsensical intervention.
We must remain fiercely focused on closing the health gap between active and inactive members of the population. We must avoid investing in activities that simply offer greater choice and opportunity to those who are already motivated and active.
While we invest for the long term in schools and communities, we clearly need to reach those who are at risk today. The best evidenced activity that meets our requirements—being accessible and capable of being sustained for life, undertaken at any stage of life and supported locally—is walking, so we intend to focus on walking. It is an activity that can be built into every day of our lives functionally, as a choice over cars or buses to get about, or recreationally, for enjoyment alone or as a group. It can be tailored to suit individuals' activity levels, including disabled people, and can be made progressively more challenging. Research from around the world demonstrates the effectiveness of that approach. Walking is a simple way to communicate what it means to lead an active life and how easy it is to be active.
On what the minister said about the importance of research, are there any endeavours to examine community schools and new public-private partnership schools such as the one at Balfron, where sport is an integral part of the activities?
In all of our work, we want to examine what is going on in different parts of Scotland, be it in schools or communities. I will make some mention of the contribution that sport makes and, in so doing, I will try to put sport, which is important, into some context. It is commonly thought that the key route to increased physical activity is to take more formal exercise or to play more sport. Although developing fitness in a gym or playing sports can contribute to an active life, for the majority of people, those are not the mainstream daily actions and activities that make the life-long differences to their health. Members may be surprised to learn that among those who participate in the minimum amounts of activity that are required for health, only 8 per cent of their overall activity comes from sport.
After today, I will continue discussions with my ministerial colleagues across the Executive to scope and plan a national walking campaign. The messages for success are deceptively simple. It is easy to trivialise a national drive to promote walking in Scotland, but I suggest that it will be less easy to deal with the consequences of an increasingly inactive nation.
Right now in Scotland, with the huge effort that we are making to improve health, we are in the vanguard of delivering a radical shift in our culture and behaviour throughout the country. Other countries, inspired by what they have seen so far in our strategic approach, are already looking to Scotland to inform their future planning on the important issue of physical activity. The title of the physical activity strategy is "let's make scotland more active". The people of Scotland deserve nothing less than that—their health, happiness and quality of life depend on it—and we are determined to succeed.
I move,
That the Parliament acknowledges the significance of the Scottish Executive's physical activity strategy Let's Make Scotland More Active as the approach to tackling the serious, nationwide problem of inactivity; acknowledges the need for urgency and the action taken thus far to tackle inactivity in Scotland as part of the Executive's wide-reaching programme to improve health in Scotland; welcomes the Executive's plans to emphasise walking as the means of increasing levels of physical activity in Scotland, and supports the Executive's intentions to secure national leadership for physical activity in Scotland.
I am probably in danger of incurring the wrath of the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care by saying this but, in response to his comments to David Davidson and Dennis Canavan, I suggest gently to him that it might have been useful for the Minister for Education and Young People to have briefed him in advance of the debate on the continuing review of physical education and the progress that is being made in that review.
We all agree that the level of physical activity among Scots needs to be improved. I am sure that we also agree that, if we fail to do that, even higher levels of obesity will occur in our population. Obesity is a fundamental factor in many of the diseases that plague Scotland—it has clear links to coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes—and not only is the level of physical inactivity in the population a health risk for those who are overweight and suffer from obesity, but it increases the risk of health problems for those within the normal weight range.
Sixty per cent of men and 70 per cent of women fail to meet the recommended weekly level of physical exercise, and physical inactivity is a problem not only for adults, but for children. I will focus for the moment on children. Thirty per cent of boys and 40 per cent of girls fail to take the minimum level of physical activity each week. Already, 20 per cent of our children are overweight and child obesity levels have more than doubled in the past 10 years. That impacts severely on children's health—25 per cent of Scottish children aged between 11 and 14 are beginning to show signs of heart disease that are not normally expected until middle age. Those are frightening statistics which, if they are not tackled, will lead to a generation of adults in Scotland that is even less healthy than the current one. Given that we already have the bad reputation of being the sick man of Europe, we cannot allow or afford for that to happen.
There is a cost to the current situation. It has been estimated that people's lack of exercise will cost the NHS about £16 billion within the next 10 years—not to mention the number of lives that will be lost. What can we do to tackle the problem? We welcome very much the funding to improve children's physical activity levels. The active schools programme has received funding and the new opportunities fund is providing resources for physical education and sports in schools. Those developments are to be welcomed.
However, for many of our children it is not easy to access safe ways of undertaking physical activity. Many schools do not have sufficient playing fields or sports pitches: 40 per cent of schools in Scotland do not have a football pitch and 14 per cent do not have access to their own grass playing field, another local authority facility or even private pitches. One reason for that situation is that schools that had to raise much-needed funds have sold off the lands that surround them for housing developments and so on. Access to sports facilities is important for increasing and encouraging physical activity, not just by children but by the whole community. Allowing and assisting community access to facilities is beneficial to everyone. The need to improve access to such facilities is the subject of my amendment.
Access to sports facilities has been made worse by the use of PPP funding, which has led to extortionate rates' being charged for community use of many facilities. Access has been denied to many people in our most deprived areas because of financial barriers.
Does the member agree that PPP is a wide term and that there is great variation in access to schools? The later development at Balfron High School took on board some of the lessons that were learned from the PPP at Falkirk High School, in Dennis Canavan's constituency. The situation is not as Shona Robison describes it.
Many of the PPP projects that are alive and kicking in Scotland are as I have described. People are paying the price for them—that is the reality of the situation.
Another problem with physical education is that rather than being expanded in many schools it is being contracted because of pressure of time, lack of teachers and so on. I look forward to the review of physical education and hope that it will be able to solve some of those problems. Without a major expansion of physical education in our schools, I cannot see how we will achieve the target of 80 per cent of Scottish children meeting the recommended level of physical activity.
I want to bring another subject to members' attention—the anecdotal evidence that has been passed to me in advance of the debate by parents who are concerned about the threat of litigation in our increasingly litigious society, which has led schools to discourage children from being active. I have received a number of comments from parents who say that their children are being told not to run in the school grounds, for fear that someone might be hurt and the school sued. PE programmes are also being revised to make them safer by making them less active. I suggest that that anecdotal evidence must be investigated to ascertain whether such things are happening. If so, that clearly runs counter to the messages that are being given from the centre. We need to sort out the problem and to reassure schools that they should encourage children to take part in more physical activity, rather than less.
There is no doubt that increased exercise can help to improve health. Exercise referrals are another way of doing that. More exercise referral schemes need to be established to enable health care professionals to prescribe patients exercise as a means of improving their health. Has the minister issued national guidance on establishing exercise referral schemes? National guidance is important if we are to avoid the development of postcode prescribing of exercise that it is available in one area but not another. I look forward to hearing the minister's comments on that.
The enormous benefits of increasing the percentage of the population who take more than the minimum recommended level of physical activity cannot be overstated. We need to aim higher than just trying to reach the minimum recommended level. If we increase the level of participation by just 1 per cent it is estimated that more than £85 million could be saved each year and that 150 lives could be saved, so there is an economic benefit to promoting physical activity. Even more important is the future of our nation's health, which we cannot allow to fall into an even more deplorable state. The Scottish Executive has pledged to turn the situation around, but I would like it to be far more ambitious in trying to achieve that. If it were, it would certainly have our support.
I move amendment S2M-661.2, to insert after first "physical activity in Scotland":
"; recognises that the physical activity levels amongst children and adults would be enhanced by improved provision and access to community sports facilities".
In speaking to my amendment, I assure the minister that, as a health professional, I take the matter extremely seriously.
Once again we have a glossy document describing clearly the future problems that we will face if we cannot turn round the increasing inactivity of our people. However, there is no real solution, other than the four extra documents that will be published. There is a lot of diagnosis, which we have had from the previous documents that the Executive has published, but we need to move towards finding the treatment for the problem. I accept that there will not be one solution for everything.
The document talks about the price that we have to pay to turn the situation round. It also talks about a 20-year period before we will see a difference. For me the key phrase, which is on page 17, is:
"We are asking Scottish ministers to adopt a ‘spend to save' (spend extra money now to save healthcare costs later) approach".
However, all that is in the First Minister's foreword is talk of another £20 million over three years for a particular piece of research. We have a health budget alone of £8 billion, not to mention the other departments' budgets. Surely encouraging people to take exercise has to become one of our national priorities. If it is going to take 20 years, we need to equip parents—because that is where action must start—by providing accessible advice as well as by providing community facilities, walkways and parks and by helping schools to deliver programmes to set their children on the road to a healthy future. The McLaren sport centre in Sylvia Jackson's constituency, which I remember from my work as a councillor there, is a good project, because its facilities are shared between the school and the community. That is the sort of example we want to see rolled out throughout Scotland.
People have a personal responsibility for their lifestyle choices, but that hinges on how youngsters are brought up in the home. Scotland has many bad habits, which I do not doubt many members in the chamber share. However, we all agree that we must have our people acquire at an early age the habit of taking exercise. That must start in the home and it must be developed through the school years. We should not accept less than two hours every week of structured PE in our schools, which already happens in England.
We have to make the opportunities fun, interesting and almost compulsive. Inter-school competitive sport, which is organised so that pupils play against equally matched opponents in the early stages, builds health and fitness and an esprit de corps in schools. It encourages community spirit and pupils who are disgruntled and cause difficulties at school tend to calm down as a result of it. Out-of-school sporting activity relies on voluntary teachers, but can we not involve others who are suitably accredited and cleared to deliver it?
Last Sunday, I was invited to attend a men's lacrosse match between Aberdeen and Edinburgh at the University of Aberdeen. When I spoke to the players and supporters afterwards, it became clear that the players were all amateurs, many playing their first game. They were coached by former players and had no funding, but they had a passion for a rapid-moving and exciting sport in which hand-eye co-ordination, fitness and flexibility are mixed.
My sons played non-contact pop lacrosse at school. It is played in parts of England and Australia and was started in the Dumfries and Galloway Council area four or five years ago. My sons followed that on in community sports clubs, which did not receive a lot of state support—they were completely run by accredited volunteers. I am using my sons' case as an example. The state can help to provide some of the resource, whether through councils, through Government or, as has been mentioned, through lottery grants. My sons were lucky—they went on to become international players in competitions throughout the world. That was just a case of lads starting off with an interesting sport that was displayed to them at school.
I appreciate everything that Mr Davidson says about sport and I do not want to undermine or devalue the important role that it plays, but I spoke earlier about an evidence-based approach to the issue. A lot of evidence tells us that, for those who participate in the minimum amounts of activity required for health, sport makes only a small contribution towards their requirement for physical activity. The evidence also tell us that if we are to appeal to young women, for example, activities such as dance are also important; if we focus entirely on sport, that will encourage some people, but it will discourage many more.
I accept that; I was going to go on to talk about that issue.
One of the helpers at the match that I mentioned e-mailed me this afternoon to tell me about the difficulties and the cost of setting up training facilities, particularly for minority-interest and new sports. The problems include sorting out the ground, the pitch, the insurance, access to schools and getting people accredited. We have to consider packages for all those aspects.
People walk to school in towns, but in rural areas it is almost impossible for them to do that, because of concerns about road safety. It is vital that we focus on what we do in the rural areas. The other aspect is to consider all age groups. In rural areas, people need to have community transport to access facilities that may be provided centrally. In Banff and Buchan, we had a problem when the community was going to build the central pool in Mintlaw. The community raised a lot of money and the lottery board put in money, but the council failed to make the necessary small contribution in deficit funding. Those are the issues on which communities want to take control and responsibility. We have got to ensure that they get the support to finish off such projects.
On the family front, the minister spoke about walking and so on but did not mention the healthy eating that goes with that. Shona Robison mentioned safe play parks. We must get the elements of law and order involved so that we can have clean playing fields that have no needles, bottles, glass or anything else that is dumped on them these days. We must have some kind of respect for community facilities and that will require involving the communities. There should be a joint approach on physical activity; it should not merely be top down.
I move amendment S2M-661.1, to leave out from "welcomes" to end and insert:
"notes the Executive's plans to emphasise walking as one of the means to increase levels of physical activity; encourages people to take more responsibility for their own health and that of their family; calls for more access to organised sport in schools and the community, and further calls on the Executive to provide more support for the voluntary sector, which provides a huge variety of sporting opportunities for children and adults alike".
During the Parliament's first session, I used to criticise Executive motions for being rather feeble. Although I feel that motions have improved during this session, I do not think that the motion that we are debating is one of the Executive's best efforts; it could have been a bit more vigorous. However, it has enabled me to rise to a new political height, because I have been appointed as our group spokesman on walking. I just hope that, as this is my third speech of the day, I do not get summarily sacked from that important position for committing the ultimate political sin of falling asleep in my own speech.
The issue of combining budgets, which has been raised already, is very important. The minister said many good things about having an integrated policy and bringing various aspects together, but that has to be backed up by cash. It is not the minister's fault that we are still suffering from many years of consistent underfunding of sport—especially sport outwith school. We must bring together the health budget, the law and order budget and all the other budgets to contribute to worthwhile activities. As the minister stressed, such activities include walking and related initiatives such as encouraging walking to school—walking buses—and making more use of the canals that have recently been opened up, as there are some very good walks along canals. Those activities also include sport—sport outside school, as well as sport inside school.
We must have more facilities and activities that are organised by the councils. Such facilities must have charges that people can afford; it is preferable that they have no charges at all, because charges deter many people from going to existing facilities. In rural areas, there is the issue of access—getting to the facilities.
We must support a wide range of sports and activities, as the minister and other members said. Some sports may turn people off, but it is surprising how many people find that a particular sport, perhaps a minority sport, really turns them on.
As well as council-run activities, we must encourage clubs, which have suffered desperately for many years. We must give proper funding and support to people who train as coaches, referees and officials—they are the backbone of their sports and they have to go on courses, for which they pay. We must adequately fund the clubs. That does not need a huge sum of money; for many clubs, a few hundred or a few thousand pounds can make a huge difference and can enable them to get on with running their sport instead of fundraising, which they are usually rather useless at.
I have one specific suggestion. Frank McAveety might consider setting up a commission to examine all aspects of football, from the bottom to the top. The number of people—children, for example—who get involved at the bottom level is seriously lacking compared with how things used to be. As a result, our senior team loses 6-0 and football clubs are in serious financial decline.
Does the member agree that the problem relates to the lack of competitive sport in schools, where children can learn that sport is not war, play responsibly and develop a competitive spirit?
I agree. Sport in schools has a huge part to play and I will talk about that in a minute.
The minister mentioned dance. The varied types of dance offer very good physical activity and appeal to many people who are not competitive.
We have steadily lost outdoor play spaces—not just football pitches, but spaces for informal play, which are important. The lack of such spaces is serious, but I do not know how we can reverse the decline, as many of those spaces have subsequently been built on.
Research shows that where schools offer more sport, young people's academic performance, attitude and attendance improve. Sport helps especially boys, who have been falling behind girls in academic school work. I know that some good things are happening in schools, but we could invest more, for example to bring in coaches from outside the school system, or to encourage teachers to take up coaching. Many people have great enthusiasm for their sport and their efforts could make a huge contribution if they were mobilised in the right way.
In this morning's debate about violence in the home we talked about the need to change attitudes. This afternoon's debate is also about changing attitudes. There is a sort of sickness in our society and too many people become couch potatoes. We must somehow persuade people, by offering a wide range of activities and by helping the volunteers who get involved to promote those activities better. If we do so, we can have a Scottish people to be really proud of, and we can even win the odd football match.
I am sure that Donald Gorrie's announcement that he is his party's spokesperson for walks will send a shiver down the spine of certain organisations in the west of Scotland, but we will see how that plays.
David Davidson's speech not only reminded me of my aversion to exercise but recalled unpleasant memories of physical education at school. I remember running up muddy hills and swimming past the icebergs in the Battery park pond, while the technical teacher had a fag and threatened us if we did not get in there—if we survived hypothermia, we were doing very well.
I remember being forced to play something called rugby—a game that was as alien to us west coast boys as attending the chamber is to the SSP. Not that that mattered too much, because we got plenty of exercise away from school. We chased buses, sugar lorries, ice-cream vans and milk motors. We all used to play street games—do members remember them? We played enduring favourites, such as football and rounders; those that have not stood the test of time, such as ring-bang-skoosh; and those that would get us in trouble with the politically correct police, such as cowboys and Indians—or western imperialists and oppressed indigenous persons, as we would now call it.
Even watching television kept us fit. We lived in the bottom flat, with our TV aerial in the tenement loft. Every time we lost the picture, I was dispatched up four floors to hang from the skylight, performing gymnastics, in an attempt to get "Joe 90" in focus. The received wisdom is that we had a far better diet back then. Coke was what we put on the fire, and going for a McDonald's meant buying eggs from the local farmer.
But times have changed, and we have to recognise that. Children these days are more likely to be managing Brazil on the Xbox than kicking a ball outside in the street. They are more used to being driven to school in the family car than running for a bus. It is more common for a child today to learn about brain trauma from the kids' science channel than to go into a boxing ring.
The thing that I do not get, though, is why if my contemporaries were all so rosy cheeked and full of natural goodness back in the wholesome 1950s, my generation is dropping down dead with heart attacks left, right and centre? We have to remember that point today. As politicians, we have used creative avoidance in this debate and when we talk about physical education, we all immediately talk about schools and sport and children—it is good for everybody apart from us.
Principally, we are in this situation because we did not follow it through. As soon as we did not have to go to sadistic physical education classes at school, when chasing girls was more interesting than chasing vans, and when we lost the jobs that kept us physically active, no other exercise was built into our daily lives. That is known in the medical profession as the Derek Johnstone syndrome.
The consequences are all round us. That is why the minister—with whom I regularly keep active on the golf courses of Lanarkshire—is right to be increasing access to sport and to fitness facilities for those of us who might be a bit set in our ways. I wish him well in a difficult job to change the culture of the people of Scotland, and support the initiatives that have been announced today, on the basis that it is never too late to begin and continue to exercise.
As a comparative youngster, I enjoyed Duncan McNeil's recalling of life in early 18th century Greenock. It was very interesting.
It is ironic that I intervened at question time to talk about Scotland's declining population and we are now having a debate on encouraging physical activity in Scotland. Something tells me that there might be a link there, and a win-win situation, but perhaps we should not delve too far into that particular debate.
The health statistics in Scotland highlight just how important it is that we make people much more active. I know from personal experience that it is not easy for people to access sports, youth and leisure facilities in their area. I play indoor football in Aberdeen. To get there, I have to travel about 8 miles by car. I am quite lucky, both because I have a car and because there is such a facility within 8 miles of where I live. However, most people in north-east Scotland and, no doubt, elsewhere in Scotland must travel a lot further. I have always found it ironic that such indoor football facilities are always packed out and that it is difficult to book pitches. It is clear that supply is not meeting demand as far as five-a-side or eight-a-side football is concerned. That sport is played mainly by men, but the same applies to all leisure facilities.
I understand that the community of Tillydrone is the area of Aberdeen with the youngest population, but it has next to no sports facilities. That situation is replicated throughout the country. The exception is Shetland, where virtually every village, no matter how small, has leisure facilities, because Shetland Islands Council has used some of the oil money to build them. No matter where someone lives in Shetland, they have access to such facilities. As a result, people there have a much better quality of life and are more likely to be physically active. Scotland is a relatively rich country, so why can we not achieve those standards on mainland Scotland too? I have always thought that some sort of formula should be applied to communities, whereby people should live within a minimum distance of sports facilities.
One problem with changing people's lifestyles is to do with housing estates being built with no facilities. Two garages might be put next to each house, but there are no amenities or facilities nearby. Unless some planning gain is built into the planning permission—which is worth while pursuing, although we cannot rely on that—there will be no facilities. When new settlements are being built, it is expected that people will get into their cars to go to the shops, given the fact that all the small shops have closed down and it is now necessary to go to out-of-town shopping centres, or to get to other facilities.
There is also a problem with parents always getting into their four-by-fours, despite the fact that they live in built-up areas, to take their kids to school. Kids are therefore getting out of the habit of walking even to the local school, which might be less than a mile away, because of frequently over-hyped safety issues. That is a cultural aspect that we must address.
Does the member agree that it is not just a matter of leisure facilities not being incorporated when communities are planned, and that there is also a lack of facilities for spontaneous play, which means that children cannot play out in the streets? Does he agree that we should start to view residential streets as part of the living environment, rather than as part of the transport infrastructure?
I agree with that sentiment. Building community, sports and leisure facilities should somehow be done automatically. It should not rely on planning gain built in by local planners, because that happens only in some cases. I do not see why that cannot be done automatically. Perhaps the minister should be addressing that.
We must encourage national sports. That means encouraging the national football team and encouraging Rangers and Celtic to put some indigenous players on the pitch, so as to encourage youngsters to come through in Scotland. It is reported in the news that the England team winning the rugby world cup—although it inspires many of us to switch off our television sets—is inspiring many people south of the border to get involved in sport. We must encourage national sporting role models and support our national teams.
We can benefit not only people's health but Scotland's environment if we encourage people to be more active and to get out of their cars. That will save the national health service a fortune and it will make Scotland a much more fulfilled and healthy nation.
Although I welcome the initiative, I must ask how we have come to be in the dismal position where, although sport dominates our television screens and the talk in the pubs is more likely to be about football and, lately, rugby, than anything else, formal and informal participation in sports is very low. Unfortunately, for many young people, participation in sport consists of sitting in front of a television, watching their heroes, swallowing sweet drinks and eating potato crisps. That does not produce fit sportsmen; it grows couch potatoes. Is it not ironic that the national obsession with sport, although it seems to be growing, is producing so many unfit youngsters? That boils down to a lack of physical activity and inappropriate diet. On that point, I am glad that the Daily Mail has informed us that the English rugby victory was in fact inspired by the team's Scottish cook.
A key factor must be more sport and more physical exercise in schools. However, playing fields are still disappearing at an alarming rate throughout the United Kingdom. In Scottish secondary schools, there is only one hour a week for sport, games and physical activity. That is clearly a big problem, given that in England there are two hours. As a very minimum, we must climb to that level as soon as possible.
I have seen sportscotland's targets that the Executive has set for the future fitness of the Scottish population. Will the minister tell me what progress is being made to achieve the targets and how he is going about doing that? Will he give me an assurance that he will raise the amount of time for physical exercise in Scottish schools?
In March, after an exhaustive and broad consultation, a document was launched on a strategy for Scottish sport. The strategy attempts to position sport and physical exercise as a key to delivering a healthier Scotland. The strategy is called sport 21 and is managed by sportscotland. Sport 21 has 11 targets and an overarching target that, by 2020, 60 per cent of adult Scots will participate in sport at least once a week.
Sport 21 is the national strategy for sport. It is not the strategy of the Executive but the strategy of the sports community in Scotland.
The strategy is being carried out after a very wide consultation in Scotland.
Target 1 is that 80 per cent of primary school children should have at least half an hour of daily exercise or play.
Target 2 is that secondary schools should have at least two hours of high-quality PE classes per week.
Target 3 is that 85 per cent of 13 to 17-year-olds take part in sport in addition to the school curriculum more than once a week.
Target 4 is that 49 per cent of teenagers over 14 in social inclusion partnership areas take part in a sport at least once a week. That emphasises the extra need for sporting opportunities within deprived areas.
Target 5 is that 55 per cent of 17 to 24-year-olds take part in sport more than twice a week.
Target 6 is that 43 per cent of those aged 45 to 64 play sport once a week. That target is particularly important given our aging population.
Target 7 is that at least 250 Scots will have been made medallists somewhere on the world stage by 2007.
Target 8 is that, by 2007, Scotland will have more than 500 sports halls with public access, so that 70 per cent of Scots can access a hall within 20 minutes.
Target 9 is that over 1 million Scots play sport in membership clubs, which are very important in promoting sport culture.
Target 10 is that Scotland should contain at least 150,000 volunteers who contribute to organising participation in sport through, for example, coaching, secretarial duties or refereeing.
Target 11 is that, by 2020, every local authority will have contributed to the sport 21 agenda.
That is the strategy. Will the minister tell the Parliament what progress is being made on those targets, which are being managed by sportscotland?
Finally, I agree with Tom McCabe's support for walking. Walking in Scotland's countryside, particularly in the Highlands, is a very beautiful and good experience. More Scots must be encouraged to be more active by accessing more of Scotland's great outdoors.
I am pleased to take part in a debate that acknowledges the issues that our nation faces, given that physical inactivity is a barrier to health improvement and causes problems for the country's economy. In particular, I will deal with the lack of physical activity among women and girls, which is particularly worrying for their current and future health and well-being.
The document "let's make scotland more active" contains some worrying figures. It says that 72 per cent of women and 59 per cent of men
"are not active enough for health"
and that 40 per cent of girls and 27 per cent of boys are not active enough to meet the guidelines that recommend one hour's moderate activity on most days of the week. The amount of physical activity among girls drops off sharply at puberty. Moreover, girls are less active than boys at the age of only four.
The 1998 Scottish health survey showed a strong correlation between lack of physical activity and socioeconomic grouping. Some 25 per cent of professional women participate only in a low level of physical activity—that is, once a week—compared with 51 per cent of women in unskilled occupations. That trend is also observed among men, although the overall levels of physical activity for men are higher.
I have a 16-year-old daughter and I often think about what the world is like for her and her friends compared with what it was like when I was 16, which was not exactly yesterday. Significant advances have been made for women. For example, physical, sexual and mental abuse of women, which we discussed this morning, is generally considered to be unacceptable nowadays. Very few careers today are perceived as being unavailable to women or as being male preserves, although I do not deny that there are still glass ceilings. Nowadays, nobody would tell a young woman who was interested in studying science that girls are not as good as physics as boys are.
Girls are probably more confident and assertive than they have ever been. That makes me wonder why they do not look after themselves. Why are we failing to get the message across to them that a moderate change in lifestyle would bring benefits that would improve the quality of the rest of their lives? Why, for example, are women more likely to try to control their weight by smoking than by taking more physical exercise? Let us not underestimate what a moderate change in lifestyle can do. Nearly 2,500 Scots die prematurely each year due to physical inactivity. That accounts for 42 per cent of deaths as a result of coronary heart disease, 25 per cent of deaths as a result of a stroke and 25 per cent of deaths as a result of colon cancer. We are talking about premature death as well as about our quality of life and our well-being, especially in later life.
The physical activity task force looked at barriers to being more physically active. The greatest barrier cited by all age groups, except for people aged between 65 and 74, was lack of time due to other commitments. For the oldest age group, the principal barriers were ill health, disability and being put off by the weather. The task force also reported that 71 per cent of people aged 25 to 44 and 51 per cent of those aged 45 to 54 are not physically active because they feel that they do not have time to be.
What can we do to improve the situation? Obviously, we need to raise public awareness about how much physical activity is needed to improve health. People tend to think that one has to run a half marathon or give up an awful lot of time in order to be healthier. Only 34 per cent of the population knows that an accumulation of 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days will improve our health. Many people think that they need to do a lot more than that and are put off even from trying to exercise.
One of the encouraging statistics in the report is that walking up two flights of stairs every day for a year uses up energy equivalent to 4lb of fat. I thought that that was rather nice, which is why I run up and down the stairs. People also need to make small changes to their normal way of life, such as walking more, cycling, gardening, doing housework and using the stairs instead of the lifts.
I am not going to disagree an awful lot with what Tom McCabe said on the subject, although at the moment it may sound as though I am doing so. The debate is also about offering sport and physical exercise that people enjoy and about encouraging participation in physical activity early on in children's lives.
Jamie McGrigor referred to the national sports strategy, sport 21, which notes that participation in the most popular sports—walking, swimming and cycling—has grown fast over the past decade. It also notes that those sports are the sorts of individual activities that people can do in their own time and perhaps in their own homes or that they can fit in with their lifestyles and family lives.
I will not go through all the targets, as Jamie McGrigor recited them for us. It is worth noting, however, that the document takes a broad definition of sport.
On that point, is Elaine Murray interested in trying to reach the targets?
Of course I am. I would hardly have chaired the group if I had not been interested in doing so.
In 2001, the Council of Europe defined sport as
"all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation aim at expressing or improving physical fitness or mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competitions at all levels."
That definition could involve chasing buses. If chasing a bus in high-heeled shoes had been an Olympic sport, I would have been a contender when I was younger.
As Tom McCabe said, sport also involves activities such as dance and horse riding, although I have to say that my participation in the latter sport has not always helped my physical well-being. Women enjoy those sorts of activity—dance, in particular, is enjoyed by pensioners at tea dances and by young women in nightclubs.
Bill Shankley once famously said:
"Football isn't a matter of life and death; it's much more important than that."
I am sure that the same thing could be said about sport and physical activity. I believe that money that is invested in sport, and in culture, is an investment in the health and well-being of our nation. The investment of relatively small amounts in health budget terms in initiatives such as the active primary schools programme and the school sports co-ordinator programme would make a great contribution to our nation's future health. Having tried to persuade Tom McCabe to give some of his funding to Frank McAveety, I will sit down.
There is a general acceptance that we need to improve the levels of physical activity in the population as a whole. Members have mentioned the statistics. It is estimated that more than 70 per cent of women and 60 per cent of men are not physically active enough and that 27 per cent of boys and 40 per cent of girls do not meet the recommended daily activity levels. Physical activity among the population has been declining over two or three decades and I am sure that we all agree that changing that trend will be a difficult task.
To turn the problem around, the Government must, in my view, target resources on the young generation. Recent scientific reports have predicted that average life expectancy will decline as a result of the lifestyle and diet of the younger generation today.
The positive impact of sport and physical activity on young people should not be underestimated—I do not think that anybody underestimates it. Sport provides an opportunity for personal and social development. It improves health and it can boost confidence. Moreover, it teaches leadership and social skills that contribute to a greater breadth of education.
The Executive must consider reintroducing physical activity into the curriculum—not just piecemeal but on the basis of a double period of activity for up to two hours on a weekly cycle. I am advocating not a return to the 1940s and 1950s exercise regime, but an educationally based exercise programme that fulfils minimum activity requirements and introduces pupils to a broad range of sports and activities. Through such a programme, schools can meet activity requirements as well as introduce pupils to new activities, which may spark those children's interest for the future.
The activity levels of children today cannot be compared to the levels of 30 years ago. Television and computer games have replaced sports and reading as the main recreational activities of a large proportion of our young people. The only aspects of developing a young person's life that the Government can influence directly are the ones that apply during children's school years. I understand that it is not the custom in Scotland to interfere with the curriculum. Nevertheless, activity levels are currently so low that the Government needs to set a minimum weekly level of activity to prevent the health of Scotland from getting even worse in the long term.
As we have heard, physical activity is not confined to sport. Local authorities throughout Scotland, with Government support, have provided a network of local and long-distance footpaths and cycle tracks, which can be enjoyed by all who wish to participate, according to their physical aspirations and ability. We have established the Great glen way, which, with the west Highland way, means that a footpath now extends from Loch Lomond to Inverness. We have also provided a magnificent cycle track that stretches from Perth to John o'Groats—that is quite a distance. Those tracks and paths are popular with individuals, groups and families, who enjoy the challenge and gain a lasting appreciation of our great outdoors.
I am sure that all members agree that we must do more to promote and encourage physical activity as a lifelong pursuit. If we do so, the reward will be a healthier, happier and more active population. I am pleased to support the motion.
The Executive's acknowledgement of the serious levels of inactivity in Scotland and its support for walking are welcome, as is the call for national leadership for physical activity.
The chairman of the physical activity task force notes in the foreword to the report "let's make scotland more active" that we live in times when
"the people of our country would rather drive than walk and when parents are terrified to let their children play in the streets because they are full of cars."
It is appropriate to reflect on the fact that, 30 years ago, 80 per cent of young people walked or cycled to school and only 20 per cent took the bus or went by car. The situation is now completely reversed: 80 per cent of children arrive at school by bus or car and only 20 per cent arrive on their feet or on a bicycle.
We need a combination of an acceptance of personal responsibility and national and local leadership to break the lose-lose circle. That call is in line with my party's policy for widespread implementation of home zones to make residential streets primarily part of the living environment—to which Duncan McNeil referred—to give priority to pedestrians and cyclists and to recreate outdoor spaces for children to play in safety. Shona Robison referred to such spaces. We need regulations that require new housing developments to comply with a minimum standard on access to high-quality informal play spaces for children. If we create spaces, children will fill them up. Informal spaces for football and other games are sadly lacking and the existing spaces are being built over at a horrifying rate.
Only when people live a healthy lifestyle in a healthy environment will our health improve substantially. The report makes the observation that environmental policies are essential to help people to be active as part of their everyday lives and cites the example of the ring-fenced resources in the public transport fund that are used to support developments that will help people to walk and cycle.
We have made tremendous progress in tackling smoking, even though that has taken half a century and we still have a way to go. That fact gives a context to the task force's 20-year target on physical activity. As we speak, the level of activity is declining—I will mention an example later. It is ironic that obesity looks set to overtake smoking as a health hazard. The annual cost to the national health service of obesity and obesity-related illnesses has been estimated at £171 million. Think of the number of schools within walking distance of the communities that they serve that we could build with that kind of money. At present, the NHS is a sickness service, but we need a health service that works through health promotion.
The task force is to be commended for its broad view of physical activity. The fact that the report dispels the notion that organised sport has a monopoly on physical activity is particularly welcome, as is the stress that is placed on play.
David Davidson mentioned links with the education service. I am surprised that Peter Peacock is not in the chamber, given the links between education, sport and health. This afternoon, I have lodged a motion on outdoor education. Members, including Jamie McGrigor, have referred to walking and hillwalking and we heard on the radio this morning that the magazine Trail recommends the Lairig Ghru and other parts of Scotland as being safe to walk in, particularly when there is no snow. Outdoor education for every pupil in Scotland is essential, but, in the past decade, the amount that pupils do has declined or stayed still.
My motion addresses those concerns. There is no national programme of outdoor education in Scotland and we need an update of the guidelines on the health and safety of pupils who are on educational visits. Outdoor education programmes vary greatly from council to council—I suspect that some councils have hardly any programmes. Children do not have equal access to the opportunities and advantages that are provided by outdoor education and even within council areas schools lack uniformity in implementing outdoor education programmes.
Financial and socioeconomic factors and a lack of access to outdoor educational facilities serve as obstructions. For instance, the City of Edinburgh Council utilises only two outdoor education centres—Benmore and Lagganlia—excellent though they are, and only a few schools offer activities at those centres. There is no national teaching certificate in outdoor education and primary teachers have access to only one week of outdoor experience in their four year course—geography teachers get only a few days. Moreover, the number of biology students who go on outdoor environmental studies courses is declining.
I ask the Executive—the request is really to Peter Peacock rather than to the ministers who are present—to set up a working group to report before June 2004 on all those issues. We cannot discuss walking without talking about outdoor education and walking in Scotland's countryside. Of course, children, young people or even adults who go out into the countryside must learn about the risks. Outdoor education is about ensuring that people go out well informed and trained so that they can enjoy Scotland's countryside in absolute safety.
I am pleased that the Executive has decided to debate this issue this afternoon. Indeed, I am particularly pleased that—negative as it might sound—the Executive recognises the high cost of failing to improve the nation's health. A healthy nation is a successful, intelligent, vibrant, dynamic nation and failure is not an option.
Sadly, lack of physical activity is a factor in Scotland's reputation as the sick person of Europe. After all, 42 per cent of deaths from heart disease and 25 per cent of strokes and cases of colon cancer can be attributed to physical inactivity. We have to tackle the problems that underlie such statistics.
Part of the problem relates to the lack of physical activity among young people. Although I do not want to launch into an "In my day" type of speech, it certainly appears that young people do not take part in the same amount of physical activity that most of us did when we were young. However, Duncan McNeil went into explicit detail about some not-too-welcome memories of those days. Members have already pointed out that physical activity has to be enjoyed if it is to be sustained. I think that my experience of physical education in school, like Duncan McNeil's, probably caused untold psychological damage and does not provide a model that we should follow.
The differences between then and now are impressive—we need only recall the school sports co-ordinator programme and the safer routes to school programme, for example. I agree with the minister that the promotion of walking should be a key plank of the Executive's physical activity strategy. It is a cheap form of exercise that, as has been mentioned, can easily be tailored to suit all levels of ability. In that regard, I also welcome the investment of more than £18 million through the public transport fund for cycling projects or projects that contain a large cycling and walking element.
If Scotland has the reputation of being the sick person of Europe, Glasgow has the reputation of being the sickest of all. For example, the city contains seven of the 10 most unhealthy constituencies in Britain and research indicates that 76 per cent of women and 67 per cent of men in greater Glasgow are not getting enough physical activity.
NHS Greater Glasgow, in alliance with the relevant local authorities, is committed to alleviating the city of that most unwanted reputation. Like the Executive, it has emphasised that walking is central to its strategy. Glasgow's city health walks will target inactive people who are most at risk of coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancer or obesity. The programme will also provide encouragement and support for people to take part regularly in independent and organiser-led walks around the city. A co-ordinator will be appointed to develop the proposals.
A new £7 million sports centre in Cambuslang in my constituency will be of real benefit in improving the local population's health. Indeed, it is suggested that, with an estimated 230,000 visits each year, the facility will triple the number of people in Rutherglen and Cambuslang who use leisure facilities.
South Lanarkshire Council, which is responsible for that new development, has also provided £2.6 million to fund the "Get Active" sports programme, which will run for the next three years and will give more than 25,000 young people the opportunity to become involved in a range of activities. The programme will focus specifically on girls, young people with disabilities and those who are at risk of offending. Moreover, given Robin Harper's remarks about outdoor education, I should tell him that South Lanarkshire Council also has an outdoor education programme, so at least some councils have introduced them. It is important to recognise that much is being done at a local level.
However, we must acknowledge that local and national Government can do only so much. The simple fact is that people have to help themselves; it is simply misleading to pretend that the physical activity strategy is a panacea. As with the healthy eating programme, the Executive has to play a facilitating role that will enable people to take up more physical activity. However, the ultimate responsibility lies with the individual.
I am pleased that the Executive, NHS boards and local authorities are working to improve levels of physical activity in Scotland. Although there will be no short-term fix for Scotland's health problems, a co-ordinated approach that focuses on prevention as well as cure can only benefit us all. I support the motion in the minister's name.
It is clear from the debate that a radical strategy to promote physical activity is absolutely essential for the health of the nation. About 21 per cent of Scots are obese—that is more than 850,000 people. According to the Scottish health survey, more than 2,400 people die every year as the result of an inactive lifestyle.
As several members have pointed out, there are economic implications. Recent research by the University of Glasgow indicated that the NHS in Scotland is spending more than £170 million every year on the treatment of obesity and related illnesses. However, if the physical activity task force's modest target is met by 2007, 157 lives will be saved, £3.5 million will be saved for the NHS and the total economic benefit will be around £85 million. It makes good economic sense, therefore, to invest in physical activity. I hope that the Scottish Executive will ensure that the physical activity strategy is backed up by adequate resources, despite the sniping from some critics.
I notice that one of the minister's erstwhile colleagues, Sam Galbraith, who formerly had ministerial responsibility for health, sport and education, has recently been bleating from the sidelines. One would think that with his experience he would know better. According to this week's Sunday Herald, he claimed that spending money and energy trying to make Scots lead a healthier lifestyle is a waste of time. In the article, he arrogantly tries to discredit those people who are working to persuade Scots to take more exercise and to eat more fruit and vegetables—he calls them the "banana brigade". I hope that Tom McCabe and Frank McAveety will tell him that they are proud to be fully paid-up members of the banana brigade, or indeed, the apple brigade, although they might draw the line at admitting to being members of the orange brigade.
The Scottish Executive has a duty to encourage people of all age groups to lead healthier lifestyles, including healthier eating habits and more physical activity. I take the point that is made in the Tory amendment that people have to accept responsibility for themselves. However, the Scottish Executive and the Parliament have a duty to show a lead to the nation and to give some encouragement.
The Executive has a particular responsibility for young people in our schools, where the state of physical education leaves a lot to be desired. I am not convinced that the Scottish Executive and the schools inspectorate are doing enough about that. Peter Peacock, the Minister for Education and Young People, has not been present during the debate. Perhaps he has a good excuse, but I think that we are entitled to know what it is.
A couple of weeks ago, the First Minister told me at question time:
"Ministers are committed to providing more and better information for parents about how their child's school is performing. From next month, we will publish information on performance against the national priorities, exam results, school-leaver destinations, and attendance and absence rates. In total, that will be the most comprehensive and comprehensible package of information for parents on individual schools ever made available."—[Official Report, 13 November 2003; c 3263.]
That might be so, but the First Minister made no explicit mention of sport or any other form of physical activity. If the physical activity task force has set targets, surely we are entitled to know what progress is being made to meet those targets. Parents are entitled to have information about the sports opportunities and sports achievements of schools.
We are also entitled to know what is happening about the review of school sport and what exactly is being done to make physical activity an enjoyable experience, especially for young people. Too many people are put off physical activity because they perceive it to be too strenuous, too tedious or too exhausting, but virtually everyone can find a form of physical activity that gives them a lot of fun, whether that involves serious competitive sport or a pleasant walk in the countryside. More effort should be made to present sport and other physical activities as something to be enjoyed. If the national strategy succeeds in doing that, it will help to make Scotland a happier as well as a healthier nation.
I genuinely welcome this debate and the importance that the Executive and the Parliament have attached to physical activity. Like other members—I will mention Duncan McNeil, but I will not name all the others—I grew up in an era when we could play out on the streets, although I do not know whether I played the same games as Duncan McNeil and Janis Hughes did. We belonged to an era in which we did not have computer games, video games or television and I believe that we were healthier and fitter, too. As has been said, however, those days are gone and we must look at the realities of the moment.
I will concentrate on the SNP amendment. Although I agree with the Executive's motion to some extent, I feel that its emphasis on walking and walking alone as a means of increasing levels of physical activity is a bit simplistic. Shona Robison was absolutely correct in what she said about PPPs. Our amendment encompasses everything that the Executive motion does not. I feel that there is far too much emphasis on walking—laudable though that might be—in that simplistic motion.
Shona Robison was absolutely correct to say that we must make more of the school facilities that exist in our communities. I know areas where there are school facilities such as swimming pools, sports areas and football grounds that kids and members of the public are locked out of at the weekends and after hours. I cannot for the life of me see why we cannot do something to change that. Community facilities such as swimming pools are an excellent means of involving children and the wider public in sporting activities, but currently people are locked out.
I hear what Sandra White says but, as I said earlier, we have to broaden our thinking. Of course adequate sports facilities are critical, but the evidence tells us that we are not appealing to young people, so we have to engage in lateral thinking. I mentioned the attraction of dance to young women—we must focus on such things. Facilities are important but, if we are to achieve the success that we need, the agenda must be far broader.
That is what I am trying to say. There must be a far broader agenda than the one in the motion, which focuses on walking. I am not saying that we cannot encourage young girls to dance, but there are also young men who like dance and young girls who like football—those activities are not gender specific. We can encourage the uptake of such activities in the local schools and community centres that provide them. In certain areas, those activities are available at affordable prices, but in other areas, although the community centres and schools are there, the young people cannot get into those facilities or, if they can get in, they have to pay astronomical prices. I ask the Executive to consider that issue in developing further strategies.
The Executive must be applauded for the investment that it has made, particularly in the active schools programme. However, once we have encouraged young people to take part in dancing, swimming, football, rugby or any other activity, we have to give them access to the necessary facilities outwith school hours. I ask the Executive to consider that.
If we are serious about physical activity and the well-being of children and adults, we must also look at diet, which David Davidson, Dennis Canavan and others have mentioned. We must look at the fast-food zones in schools and encourage a healthy lifestyle for our kids. Healthy lifestyles and physical activity go hand in hand and will go a long way towards improving the general health of our nation. Perhaps Peter Peacock is the minister who should take on that responsibility.
Donald Gorrie and Richard Lochhead mentioned parklands and facilities that are slowly but surely being taken away from communities. As the Green party has said, developers are coming in and taking over parkland. That is happening all over Glasgow and other areas. Parkland, community facilities and football facilities are being sold off to developers who are building private housing with no thought of any form of facility—not even ordinary green parkland for young kids and others to walk, play football or exercise in.
We must look at encouraging physical activity in the round, holistically and in a joined-up way. I welcome what the Executive is trying to do, but we could do more.
I think that I am a little ill-suited to wind up the debate. I am conscious of the fact that Donald Gorrie, in his youth, was something of an athlete. Our colleague, Menzies Campbell, was an Olympic athlete and Paddy Ashdown, of course, was marine trained. Then there is me. I follow Duncan McNeil's train of thought because, like him, I have horrific memories of cross-country runs with a gym teacher in an Arnhem beret who used to pursue us around the place, urging us on to greater efforts. That had a long-lasting effect on me, which I am only now beginning to come out of—I am now able to do a little gentle cycling occasionally and occasionally I go for a walk.
In many ways, this is not a sexy debate and the chances are that it will be written off by the commentators as the Scottish Parliament discussing minor inaccuracies and irrelevancies. If that happens, the commentators will be hugely wrong. The challenge of physical activity is central to the health and well-being of the nation. It raises issues right across the board, as we have heard in the debate, from children's journeys to school and the loss of playing fields and green areas to planning of urban areas, community use of facilities and swimming pools, pricing policies—especially for youngsters—and support for youth and sporting activities. I shall concentrate on one or two of those issues.
There is an organisation in Castlemilk called Community Can Cycle. I know that Robin Harper has visited the project and one or two other members may have heard of it. The project recycles bicycles for local youngsters and provides sports training. Its services are paid for largely through the collection and recycling of tin cans. As such organisations go, it must have a growth principle, as half of Castlemilk is now covered with warehouses full of bikes. Not only has Jim, who is in charge of it, delivered bikes to all the children in Castlemilk; he now has a project to send the surplus bikes to Africa so that children there will have cycles on which to go to school.
I mention that initiative to highlight the importance of community projects in this area. The way in which that project provides bikes, involves youngsters and encourages physical exercise is extremely important. Somewhere along the line, in our planning and organisation mechanisms, we have lost the ability to do such things as holistically as we might.
On the planning regime, like others I am conscious of the disappearance of the greenbelt and the loss of all the little bits and pieces of space in Glasgow and South Lanarkshire as a result of the unbridled planning control that seems to be given to developers in those areas. The number of playing fields has also gone down dramatically over the past 15 or 20 years, with a resulting loss of facilities. There is a need to change direction. As somebody—perhaps Robin Harper—said, it is too late to change direction altogether, but we can prevent the situation from getting worse. We can look at our planning arrangements and do something to make an improvement in that regard.
We can certainly do something about journeys to school. Mention has been made of the change, over the past 20 or 30 years, in the number of children who walk or cycle to school. I was brought up in the north-east of Scotland and walked home a mile and a half each day from primary school—in the pitch darkness in the winter. I do not say that to get sympathy, but to illustrate what was an accepted phenomenon at that time. That was the sort of thing that happened. We must be able to do something about the current situation. It would not be that difficult. There are ideas about school travel plans, safe routes to schools, dealing with problem sites such as busy junctions and overgrown paths, the provision of cycle training, consulting with parents and local authorities, road design changes, more cycle and pedestrian-friendly facilities, and so on. A series of measures must be taken and a targeted and localised approach must be adopted.
Mention was made of chasing buses. I do a bit of that from time to time, but when I board the bus, I am somewhat appalled to find three or four people smoking on the upper deck—smoking arrangements on buses are not adhered to.
In the dying moments of my speech, I will talk about sports clubs and youth clubs. Nobody has mentioned the importance of the uniformed organisations, which have waiting lists. They could be given more support to reduce those waiting lists and to involve more people. They probably do as much as any other organisation to encourage activity by youngsters. Their efforts are matched by what takes place in non-uniformed organisations. Those are all important issues that the Executive must deal with if its policies are to succeed.
The motion and the amendments all have merit. We want progress through administrative action. That is important and what the debate is about. The debate about the Executive's plans has been interesting and helpful.
The title of the debate—"Physical Activity: The Need for Improvement and the Cost of Failure"—interested me. I could claim to be not only a closing speaker, but evidence for the prosecution.
The debate has been constructive, but we must take into account an issue that lies at its heart. The minister talked about the importance of walking and I am the first to admit that walking is an important way to keep fit. It is the way in which I keep fit, and reasonably successfully too. [Laughter.] I see that Shona Robison is laughing—I will see her later and we will sort that out. Walking in Edinburgh is how I keep reasonably fit.
Walking to Deacon Brodie's.
Presiding Officer, I am being heckled unreasonably.
I have my hour's walk every day, which makes a big difference. However, we must consider the broader importance of walking. The minister said that the access provisions in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 give people the opportunity to walk more than before, but I question whether the act has done anything to improve opportunities to walk for people who do not walk already.
The 2003 act's provisions on identifying a core path network remain critical to encouraging people who have not traditionally walked in the countryside to go out there and take advantage of the opportunities that have been given to them. However, I do not believe that the Executive is in a position to deliver on that yet.
The minister was determined to impress on us the idea that walking was the key element of the strategy that he would talk about. The Conservatives' amendment makes it clear that there is more to keeping people fit than encouraging walking. If we are to persuade people that fitness is important, we must address the continuing problem of a lack of physical activity by our young people. We must tackle that in schools. However, as many speakers have said, a problem continues with the availability not only of facilities but of people to oversee those facilities in schools.
It is disappointing that, unlike the days when I was in school, teachers of subjects other than physical education are less willing to support school clubs and teams, to take people around and to give them the opportunity to participate in competitive sport. In previous debates, I have paid tribute to the people who did that when I was at school. We have a problem in identifying the people who will provide such support in our schools today.
Nevertheless, a large number of clubs could, with the right encouragement, be more involved in encouraging young people to become more active. If the facilities were available, our football clubs and rugby clubs could get people more involved in sport. That is a desperate need, as our rugby team was knocked out of the rugby world cup at an embarrassingly early stage and, to rub salt in the wound, Holland beat us 6-0 in the football.
If we are to deal with that problem, we need to involve people in sport at an early age. It is important to realise that there is a link between the success of our national teams and the willingness of young people to become involved in physical activity, because if our teams were more successful, people might be more willing to get involved in sports, and if they got involved in sports, they might be more able to make our national teams more successful in future.
In the debate, we have heard some interesting alternative ideas on how we could keep fit. In a very good speech, Duncan McNeil, whom I have always regarded as a more aggressive, bruiser type, gave us an insight into the physical activity in which he was involved when he was a younger man. We also heard from Richard Lochhead, who suggested—I hope that I get this right, as he is not in the chamber to correct me—that there might be a link between improved physical activity and increasing the birth rate in Scotland. I will ask him to explain that attitude in greater detail at some point in the future, but perhaps not in the chamber.
Some serious points were made about the fact that it is more difficult for women—particularly girls and young women—to become involved in active sports, especially when they get into their teenage years. Many of the sports in which women choose to get involved are more expensive to support, and the lack of willingness to get involved in them makes it much more difficult for us to get large numbers of young women involved in sport.
Although the Conservatives accept that much in the Executive motion is worth while and positive, we believe that it fails to see the point. Unless we can catch people young enough and fire their enthusiasm to become involved in physical activity in a way that people were only a generation or two ago, we will be fighting a losing battle when we try to encourage those people to become more active in their later years.
I start by doing something that I am slightly surprised has not been done before now: congratulating and thanking John Beattie and the task force, who have undertaken their activity without being paid for it. That activity is an excellent example of the way in which people who have been involved in sport can contribute to success in further generations' participation in it. I am sure that I will not be alone in saying that.
As a bairn, I was probably less sporty than even Duncan McNeil, because I was one of three asthmatics in my class in secondary school. That rather restricted my choice of physical activity and sport, so I played rugby rather than football. Members might ask themselves why I did that. The reality is that, until the rules were changed bit by bit over 30 years to make rugby a sport that can really only be played by athletes, it was a game that could enable people of all levels of fitness—or lack of fitness—to participate, and I was certainly at the back of the queue for fitness. Scrum halves were small and slippery, wingers were fitness gods, and fullbacks were extremely mentally healthy so that they could avoid the intimidation of a tonne of opponents rapidly bearing down on them. I do not encourage the minister to make any undue reference in his closing speech to what I am about to say: I have a corrugated set of shins from playing in the front row of the scrum at school at, of course, loosehead prop. It says something about the standard of rugby at my school that our first rugby international, Dave Rollo, played football all the time that he was there.
There is an important point in all this: sport has increasingly become a professional activity that we watch rather than participate in. I regret that deeply, because, from my point of view, sport is what we do and entertainment is what we watch, and many of the professional teams that are active in Scotland seem to be disconnected from the feeder systems of people like me, of little fitness and less ability, who could nonetheless participate at the bottom end of an escalator that went up to international representation.
I want to address, on a purely factual basis, the answer to question S2W-3680 that Mr McAveety gave me earlier this month. I am slightly concerned by the data in the minister's answer, which will be the basis for testing his success in moving forward on this issue. The answer suggests that one third of our population is involved in walking 2 or more miles. I would love to believe that, but the samples that I have taken do not suggest that the figure is borne out. The written answer indicates that 21 per cent of people are involved in swimming, 10 per cent of people play football and 10 per cent of people cycle. Is there a robust methodology underlying the statistics, by which the minister will measure his future success or that will enable him to understand that he needs to make more effort? It is vital that sport is supported and that all people can participate in physical activity.
Earlier Sylvia Jackson intervened on the issue of PPP. On 16 May 2003, the Bo'ness Journal reported that a PPP school sought to charge £1,200 for an over-30s football tournament. That compares with the local council's rate of £7.25 per hour. Undoubtedly, there are a number of instances of the structure of the PPP contracts into which local authorities have entered inhibiting community access to facilities.
The member will agree—I think that he has done so by allowing me to intervene—that his comments apply only to some cases. We have learned from earlier PPPs and have improved on the situation. Balfron High School is a model of what should happen in relation to sport.
I accept that there are cases in which PPP works, but I know of many more instances in which it does not. There are much more recent examples of PPPs in my constituency where the community does not get access to facilities.
What are people's reasons for not participating in physical activity, whether as part of their normal day-to-day life or as sport? People say that they do not have time. In reality, we all have time, but we choose how to use it. The first step in getting those whose level of physical activity is far too low to step up to the mark is to persuade them of the importance of such activity.
People also say that they do not have the equipment. Members have talked about recycling bicycles. In the north-east, we are slightly less generous and recycle them inside our community. My bicycle, which I bought at the Whitehills church group held in Gatt's net store in Inverboyndie, cost £5. I had a choice of 20 bicycles at that price, all of which were sold. When the tyres finally wear out, I will buy another bike rather than fix it. We can recycle our bikes.
There are financial issues that act as barriers to physical activity. The Princess Royal sports club in Banff is also a community club that runs a very successful programme of going out to older people in residential homes to help them to take exercise. The club does not get paid for that and cannot keep doing it for ever. It has great difficulty getting the funding to make the programme work. We need to address such issues.
It is essential that exposure to risk is part of young people's growing up. Sport has been restricted to such an extent that people are no longer exposed to risk. We do not sledge in school or run in the playground. I refer members to Andy Nicoll's excellent column in today's The Sun—in particular, I commend the attached cartoon. Andy Nicoll says:
"I'd like to get down the stairs and cross the road to watch"
the debate on physical activity
"but somehow I find I just can't get out of this comfy chair."
Let us hope that he is in a minority.
I say well done to everyone who has participated in the debate, because they have focused on the key challenges. As Tom McCabe said at the beginning of the debate, physical activity is not just about sport; it is about the cumulative effect of a variety of small interventions in our daily lives and activities to ensure that we do a wee bit more exercise. Much of the research and evidence indicates that even if we improve organised sport—I will cover that in my contribution—that applies to only 10 or 15 per cent of the population and the real target should be to encourage those who are presently inactive to engage in some form of physical activity.
Will the minister give way?
I will give way after I have made a few points.
There have been many references to walking as a form of exercise. The health statistics for my constituency in the east end of Glasgow show that it faces many challenges. I hope that if we introduce walking codes, they are not colour co-ordinated in the east end of Glasgow, because that can cause substantial confusion.
I turn to the real challenges that we face and I will knock on the head some of the points made in the contributions. Much of the evidence that is being produced indicates that it is not simply cost that is the barrier to participation in physical activity. There are many examples throughout local authority areas of free access to sport and physical activities and there have certainly been substantial increases in participation rates as a result of those initiatives. In training programmes organised by the Scottish Football Association and the Scottish Rugby Union, it can cost as little as £1.50 for up to two hours of coaching by qualified staff in many new sports centres. Partnerships have evolved through local authority initiatives, through health boards and through the Executive's better neighbourhood fund and quality of life fund.
It is important that encouraging physical activity is seen to be the responsibility of each and every organisation, agency and individual in our country; it is important that that cuts across portfolios. The fact that Peter Peacock, the Minister for Education and Young People, is not available for the debate does not indicate that he is not keen on developing the shared agenda in relation to outdoor education and physical activity in the curriculum. I hope that the report on that will be available early in the new year.
As Tom McCabe said, the debate is about broad definitions of activity and, more important, how we remove the barriers to it, such as the experiences that members related of organised PE lessons resulting in people having a disinclination to participate. We need a wide strategy.
I made the point in my speech that schools in England have two hours a week set aside for physical education, but in Scotland only one hour is set aside. Does the Executive intend to try to raise the threshold?
We have flexibility in the present Scottish curriculum. If schools feel that they can provide for two hours, there is nothing to prevent authorities from encouraging that. There is a passionate debate about that among those who are involved in physical education at school. Some wish there to be two hours of PE at school, but much of the emerging discussion is about other forms of activity, particularly in relation to the participation of girls of secondary-school age for whom taking part in formalised PE results in a disinclination to participate. That debate is at the heart of the task force's work and I hope that it will come to conclusions about it.
A number of members talked about the accessibility of sports facilities. In relation to how local authorities are endeavouring to develop the school estate through public-private partnerships, we have to take a holistic view on how to maximise the opportunities for using the facilities that that affords. A number of local authorities have modernised their approach and now have good arrangements. It is not the funding arrangements for school investment that matter, but the willingness of departments not to operate in silos and to ensure more effective development.
Robin Harper mentioned outdoor education, of which many people have had positive experiences. In the old Glasgow District Council days, my experience was that the outdoor education service provided a key feature of the annual school experience, broadened people's experience and contributed to their curriculum development and exam performance.
We are engaging with the Scottish advisory panel on outdoor education to try to develop outdoor education more coherently and to synchronise investment in it with the availability of money through the New Opportunities Fund and the school sports fund. I hope that we will make progress on that.
In my role as minister, I am taking a keen interest in the issue and, along with my health colleagues and Peter Peacock, I chair the ministerial implementation forum on the sport 21 agenda. In addition to sportscotland, a range of individuals and organisations will have to pull together to deliver on that agenda.
Duncan McNeil made a passionate, powerful, humorous and enlightening speech. Although my personal experience does not stretch as far back as his, I can say that he was right to identify that there have been many social and economic changes. He was also right to ask why, if we were getting things right in the 1940s and 1950s, as some people have argued, the members of that generation are exceptionally inactive and more likely to face coronary heart disease and many other health problems as they face their 50s, 60s and 70s. We need to change and to shift the balance much more; that is why we need to be committed to a radical strategy.
As Duncan McNeil said, we want to get beyond the imagery of the Ken Loach film "Kes", in which Billy Caspar is chased around the playing field and brutalised by the character played by Brian Glover, who is more interested in his confidence and his experience than in the individuals in the school curriculum. We need to shift the balance dramatically to ensure that the necessary quality is there.
During the past few years, we have been doing many of the things that are necessary. The investment of £180 million over three years in the quality of life agenda will create opportunities for many local authorities to make a difference. In my local authority area, that difference is visible. Outside my constituency office, there is now a multi-use sports facility, which is used until 10 o'clock at night. It targets youngsters from the east end of Glasgow, to ensure that they have access. The cost is minimal and the quality of the experience and the coaching is high. That represents a marked improvement on the experience of 20 years ago in the same area. Just a mile away from that facility, there are fully-modernised and new swimming pools to which anyone who is under the age of 18, and anyone who is of pension age, have direct access without cost. Those initiatives have resulted in a fourfold increase in participation in sport and swimming in those areas. We need to pull such initiatives together much more effectively.
Last night, a number of members attended a meeting with the lottery distributors. The New Opportunities Fund has been one of the key tools in making substantial investment in schools, particularly in relation to dance and aerobics, to target young girls' participation in sport and activity. As Tom McCabe said, that is about getting a more flexible approach that recognises that attitudes have changed.
We must also recognise that, in many sports, much of the money that is being made available is for modernising at grass-roots level. This week and last week, there has been much debate about the dilemma that our football clubs and our national team face. We have an opportunity to change that situation through the resources that may become available over the next few years for the national regional sports facilities. That commitment has to be linked simultaneously to a commitment to grass-roots development. If we can do that, I genuinely believe that we can make a difference to the health of the nation.
The issue is about sport, activity and engagement with citizens at a level that they feel is appropriate. Many folk have identified those issues in the past few hours of debate.
As I mentioned, Duncan McNeil referred to the 1950s. I hope that he will forgive me for referring to his favourite musical, "Carousel". I know that his favourite song from that film is "You'll Never Walk Alone". If we can get things right, I would be delighted if Duncan would march with me in the east end of Glasgow—on a non-parade day—singing "You'll Never Walk Alone". That would ensure that we linked walking and sport as complementary activities and would enable Scotland to march forward so that in future we can look forward to having celebrations for our national teams and our national sports like those that people down south will have on Monday. I hope that members will support the motion.