Speeches by McKinnell.

“We are looking at harnessing the partnership. There are currently pockets of very good partnership activity going on around the country. We want to make sure that is much more universal, accessible and transparent, and that every part of the country can benefit from the power that comes from working together collaborat…”

“We are being quite clear in the legislation on the number of branded items that a school can require children to wear, but in terms of uniform policy, they are decisions that schools need to make in terms of what is appropriate within their school, for their school community. We encourage schools to do what they feel i…”

“I think that is a really important question because clearly your outfit should not be the barrier that holds you back from participating in sport. You are right to identify that that can be the challenge. I just want to add to the previous point as well that we have resources from Oak, the online resources that are mad…”

“That is a good question. Going back to the issue of swimming, it really does pick up on some of the challenges that Tom outlined in terms of the demographics and the accessibility to sport. Some of the headline education figures indicate that 70% of children in year 7 report they can swim 25 metres, but when you break …”

“I will answer that because my heart is with all the parents looking ahead at the six-week break and wanting to make sure that the children have a fulfilling time during the holidays. I share the challenge. I think that schools do provide lots of opportunities for children and young people to be physically active beyond…”

“You have identified what the real opportunity is that we have here to make sure that we take all those fantastic examples. We can all think of them in our local area as well, in my local schools, and the children who benefit from them. It is to make sure that that is not dependent on some of the challenges in girls' an…”

“Do you want to come in there?”

“If you are talking about the partnership model that we are working on, as a Department, we are very keen to develop school sport partnerships and we will be taking a leading role in that, but it is very much a cross-Government approach. I think that is the difference from what we have seen before.”

“When we have worked out and will announce our new partnership approach, the intention is that we maximise all the community assets that we have available. By taking a co-ordinated, cross-departmental approach—because some of it, yes, is related to the Department for Education. Some is related to MHCLG, communities and …”

“Oh. Some of the funding went to Active Partnerships, which then co-ordinated the approach in the local area. Some went directly to schools. What we want is a sustainable model that makes sure we are maximising all these assets that we have in our communities.”

“Forgone?”

“What we want to do is to wrap it into the partnership approach. Schools will be partners in that approach, and national governing associations, local authorities and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, making sure that we have a genuine partnership, all focused on improving access to quality sport, PE and phys…”

“That is a fair challenge. The principle of the three-year limited timeframe fund and what it was intended to achieve was to tackle some of that challenge. Although I cannot speak for the previous Government, my understanding is that the intention of the programme was to understand why these facilities are not being mad…”

“Do you have a response to that?”

“Clearly, that is part of the focus that we have generally in our approach that we need to take. We are very conscious of the gendered challenge when it comes to participation in sport and the socioeconomic challenge of communities that have less resource and therefore fewer facilities. We know that schools on a much wi…”

“Is that based on a report on the opening schools facilities programme?”

“I appreciate that you have directed this specifically at me, but could Matthew just finish what he was saying?”

“It was a scheme of the previous Government, so I think that Matthew will be well placed to answer your question.”

“Clearly, I agree that school sports facilities are vital assets for pupils and local communities, not only because they offer those great facilities, but they are also quite a familiar environment for a lot of people, and there is real value in that. We have taken lessons from the three years that the scheme was in pla…”

“I am not sure that is a question for the Department for Education. I do appreciate the challenge you raise to school playing fields, for example. I think it is important that very clear criteria are followed in the case of a change of use of any sports playing facilities. We know that where they are on designated educa…”