Nigel Huddleston MP quizzed the Sports Minister, Tracey Crouch, about the performance of the British Olympic team at a session of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee this week.
Nigel asked the Minister what role lottery funding has played in Team GB’s progress from being 36th with just 1 gold medal in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta to coming 2nd place with 27 gold medals in Rio this year.
The Minister responded that while improvements in Britain’s sporting prowess were not all about money, the lottery funding certainly played a huge part. She paid tribute to Sir John Major and his government in the 1990s for bringing in the national lottery and said that the focus on promoting and encouraging elite sport, including the Olympics had worked. She said that other countries had approached her to learn how Britain had turned its sporting performance around. She also admitted that the allocation of lottery funding could be quite brutal with individual sports competing for cash, with targets for medals, and with funding per sport increasing or decreasing according to results.
Nigel Huddleston added: “More than £350million has been allocated for Olympic and Paralympic sports in the 2013-2017 funding cycle and this funding has played a key role in turning Britain’s Olympic performance around. With a recent downturn in lottery ticket sales there has been some concern that funding may be withdrawn, but the minister confirmed that the government will fill any funding shortfall as we approach the 2020 Tokyo games.”
Nigel added that Great Britain is well known for its success in ‘sit down’ sports such as dressage, rowing and cycling and suggested that these are quite expensive sports for young people to get into. Nigel pointed out to the minister that one third of all Olympic medal winners were educated at private schools compared to just 7% of the population; and asked the minister whether this statistic had implications for sports funding at state schools.
The minister said that the funding for sport at schools was a top priority for the government and we need to get people from all backgrounds involved in sport in a variety of ways. The minister highlighted that one of the funding streams of Sport England is targeted at getting children from disadvantaged backgrounds involved in sport. She also welcomed the efforts made by sports clubs themselves to widen participation and particularly highlighted rowing clubs for their recent achievements.