The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Department of National Heritage

  • Mr Major’s Speech in Millwall – 14 July 1995

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech held in Millwall on Friday 14th July 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Good Morning. Thank you for being here this morning. Some of you, I know, will have been at Downing Street earlier, but I would like to set out in slightly more detail than I did in the garden early this morning some of the plans we have for sport as a result of the document we published this morning.

    Sport, for most people in this country, is more than just a game, it is a way of life. And I think organised team sports is one of the gifts that this country has given to the world over the years. What I want to do today is outline some of the plans we have, both for the near term and the long term development of sport.

    If one looks back over really the whole of the period since the Second World War, when it has come to the big debates on policy and resources, sport has generally come out second in the race. The necessary demands of other aspects of education, of social security, of health, of defence, of welfare, have always necessarily taken a larger share of public resources.

    It was for that reason that I conceived the idea of the national lottery. The national lottery, when it is in full flow will provide something over 1.5 billion to be divided between the good causes set out in our legislation, one of which is sports. What that means, as soon as it is fully in operation, and that will be within a year or so, we can expect a continuing flow of funds of around 300 million a year for sport that will be directed through the Sports Councils for sporting facilities and sporting opportunities up and down the country.

    Against that background, we have been reviewing sports policy with the Sports Council and the result is the proposals that we have today. What I believe we are doing today is setting in train a revolution in sport, in schools, in clubs and also at the topmost level. The policy paper we published builds on a whole series of discussions with the Sports Council, with educationalists, with individual sports stars and with many other people as well. The programme is ambitious, it is a costly programme and it will use quite a few of the hundreds of millions of pounds that is going to be available to sport, year on year, as a result of the lottery.

    It is a substantial move today, but what I would like to emphasise to you is that this is but the beginning of the revolution I wish to see in sport, this is not a once and for all announcement that won’t be followed up with further changes in the future.

    Neither are our announcements today just for the favoured few, they are intended to be for everyone who loves sport, starting with children, but I don’t just [indistinct] that those who are supremely talented at sport. It is for people who are talented and less talented, able bodied and disabled. We propose to ensure that this is for everyone, adults, boys and girls, the able bodied and the disabled.

    Let me start from the grass roots upwards and say something about the plans that we have in mind, starting with sport in the schools. I believe sport is immensely important for children, it is an integral part of growing up. I think it is character building, but above all I think it is fun for children and they have a right to enjoy it.

    I also don’t accept the premise that competitive sport is bad for children. You only have to see youngsters together to realise that that frankly isn’t true. Put any group of youngsters together in any environment and they are likely to compete. So I want to redevelop skills in competitive sport.

    One of the sadnesses to me, and I think to many people in education as well, is the extent to which competitive sport has declined over the last 30 years. I know the Teacher Unions are concerned about that, some of their own surveys have indicated the depth of the problem. And it is frankly completely the wrong way round that our young people seem to spend one and a half hours on sport and beyond a full day in comparative time watching television, whether other people playing sport or other aspects of television as well. One of the aims of this White Paper is to begin to reverse that decline and to put competitive sports back where it belongs, right at the heart of weekly life in every school in the country.

    The revised curriculum that will come into schools from the autumn places a proper emphasis on traditional team and competitive sports. But I think we need to do a good deal more than that. We will be expecting all schools to offer 2 hours a week of sport, in formal lesson time. But in addition to that, we will be looking to all schools to match the practice of the best and extend sports provision at lunchtimes, evenings and weekends, and the target we will be setting is for a further 4 hours of sport available weekly to all our youngsters.

    Those schools that reach these and other standards will be eligible for a special Sportsmark Award and a special gold award for those who are most innovative. We intend to make sure that parents have information about sport in schools by ensuring that prospectuses and annual school reports include all the information on sporting provision and sporting competition between schools, and will implement that as speedily as possible.

    We intend to give schools quite a lot of help to reach the Sportsmark standards. The Chief Inspector of Schools will conduct a national survey of school sport and report annually on it so we can see how our plans are developing. The Office of Standards in Education Inspectors will focus on team games in all the schools they visit. We have plans to encourage more volunteers and coaches to come into schools and help teachers lead sport.

    Let me say at this point that the role of teachers in our plans is vitally important. I suspect that the vast majority of sportsmen can trace a large share of their interest and aptitude for sport back to the enthusiasm of a particular man or woman who taught them as a child. Teachers will still bear much of the brunt of sports leadership, schools will have powers to reward teachers who help with extra curricula sport and I hope that those powers will be used.

    But of course teachers themselves will need training to make the most of the opportunities, so we will be using some of the resources of the lottery to target extra training on schools whose sporting provision is below average.

    We also wish to take the opportunity to enhance career opportunities for teachers by giving them a great chance to win coaching qualifications. So we intend to ensure that all Physical Education Teachers are equipped to lead both major summer and winter sports, as well as their more formal PE teaching.

    And we also intend to see that every single trainee teachers is offered the opportunity to take coaching awards to enhance their own particular career prospects within education.

    The Sports Council will be looking very closely at what is done for sport in the teacher training institutions. At OFSTED we will inspect those colleges with the intention of seeing that every one of them gives students the chance to gain the qualifications in leading team games that we will need to carry

    But of course, however much you love sport, however well you may be able to teach it, you cannot teach it, and the youngsters cannot enjoy it if you haven’t the facilities. So we propose to give the Sports Councils the powers to block off the sale of school playing fields. What we will do is to keep the rules that protect school playing fields, but will monitor them to make sure they offer proper safeguards to sports like cricket which need a great deal of high quality space.

    I seek the best quality provision for every school. So we are this morning setting a target to bring every child, in every school, within reach of adequate sporting facilities by the end this decade.

    All of this would not have been possible, but is now possible as a result of the national lottery and the funds it is introducing. The Sports Council will also provide funds from its own resources, funds to deal with matters like school kit or transport to facilities for schools that lack fields of their own.

    Let me now say a little about sport beyond school. Too often what happens at the moment, youngsters in good schools have sporting facilities, they leave school, they lose their opportunity to continue their interest in sport. So sport mustn’t end with school, so the lottery will help us carry through the second feature of the strategy, and that is to ensure that fewer young people drop out of sport at 16,18 or 21.

    To do that we need far better, closer, more concise links between schools and clubs. I would like to see clubs adopting schools, and by clubs I don’t mean football clubs like Millwall, professional clubs, I mean amateur clubs as well, athletics clubs, cricket clubs, rugby clubs, sports clubs, tennis clubs, let us see them form a proper link with schools, both to help the youngsters in school and as a focus for the youngsters to go on to when they leave school. The Sports Council regional offices will have a special duty to develop those links and there will be a new challenge fund to help promote them.

    We also intend to help schools win more business sponsorships. Sports governing bodies will be asked to develop plans to develop school sport as a condition of grants from the Sports Council.

    Let me move on from immediate after-school to sport in Partner Education Colleges and universities. Some of them are superb, others frankly are not. So we will be carrying out a national audit of college and university sport, and I am delighted to say that Roger Bannister will be deeply involved in this. Those audits will be up-dated regularly. We intend to set up groups, drawn from the universities, to see how sports scholarships can be extended and obstacles to university sport removed.

    Those policies that I have described so far are going to open sport to everyone. But in addition to that we would like to see excellence in sports. Sports administrators feel the same way, they have been working towards it. The FA school at Lilleshall I think is but one example of that. But the national lottery will enable us to create something that we have never before had in this country, and that is an entirely fresh and new asset. And the asset I refer to is a new British Academy of Sport. Other countries have such centres and I believe it is time for this country to have one as well.

    The Academy of Sport will be the pinnacle of a national network of centres of excellence, some organised on a regional basis, some will be academies of individual sports. We shall be consulting on the precise form this academy will take and we have no wish to be completely prescriptive. But let me tell you broadly what it is likely to be. It is likely to be a very large greenfield site and it will involve investment of around 100 million pounds that will be financed from the lottery. The British Academy will be residential, it will offer specialist courses to our best young sportsmen and sportswomen, it will offer top-class training facilities, laboratories and expert support services in sports science and sports medicine. And I emphasise the medicine point, too often in the past some of our leading sportsmen have needed specialist treatment abroad, we propose to develop the opportunity for that treatment at the British Academy.

    Some of the athletes may just be there for days or weeks, others may be there on scholarships for 2 or 3 years, perhaps attending local schools during that period. The aim of this I think is quite straightforward. It is to help them compete with and beat the best of the rest of the world in whatever their particular discipline is. The Academy will be wholly new, it will be ambitious, it will have state of the art facilities, it will run across a whole range of our major sports, it can’t cope with every minority sport as well and we will consult to decide precisely which sports will be covered, but you may be certain all our major sports will be there. And the purpose of it is to build pride, confidence and ability right across the face of British sport.

    What I have been saying to you in the last few moments is that the beginning of the plans that we have for the future of sport, it is by no means a single one-off announcement. We now want to discuss these details further with teachers, volunteers, coaches, parents, sports administrators, sportsmen and sportswomen themselves. It is to be the start of a 10 year programme that will embrace each and every significant sport in this country.

    And to make sure that that moment is sustained, let me tell you this morning that we are starting work today on a follow-up White Paper that will be published next year. That White Paper will set out a detailed 10 year plan for the future of each and every one of our leading British sports. We will be asking the sports administrators of each main sport to set out their ideas for future development, to set out how they would enhance its place in schools, raise the level of participation, improve spectator facilities and sustain the pursuit of excellence. What I would like to do is to form an alliance between those administrators, sport generally and the government and volunteers to improve sporting provision for the future.

    So those are the outlines of what we propose. You will all have seen the press pack with further details and some initial observations from sports administrators in them.

    In essence the position is this. I believe that sport has a central place in our national heritage. I intend to cherish that central place and build it up, build it up for the fun and the enjoyment it offers, build it up for the recreational facilities that it will offer, build it up for the spectator enjoyment it will offer for those who wish to watch rather than participate, and build it up for the pride that this country has when it produces the best in sport in whatever discipline it may be.

    As a result of these plans, and as a result of the resources now released by the national lottery, I believe we can look forward to a golden future for British sport. I look forward to working together with sportsmen and women and sports administrators and schools to bring these plans forward to fruition. There are many details still to be examined with them and those discussions will continue immediately, but that is the broad outline of what we propose and I will be happy to take, with my colleagues, any questions you may have on these plans.

     

    QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    QUESTION (Sky News):

    Everybody will obviously welcome any money going into education but do you not think most parents at the moment would rather see this money going to reducing class sizes, to getting more textbooks for their children? Rather than thinking: “I want my child to run faster!” they are thinking: “I want better classes for my children!”

    PRIME MINISTER:

    They are getting better classes and they are getting better equipment in schools and they are getting better examination results and they are getting more of their youngsters going on to university. A few years ago, one in eight of our youngsters got to university, now it is one in three as a result of the changes in education but what has happened over the years is that Central Government funding has never been able to deal with matters like this.

    The issues you raise are legitimately matters for tax-paying contributions. This would never come out of tax paying funds and I don’t think we should confuse the two. This is to add to the quality of life – I mean the lottery – whether in sport, whether in the arts, whether in the Millennium Fund, whether in charities or whether in heritage and it is designed specifically to add to areas that the national tax-paying burden wouldn’t support so there are two separate points.

    As far as the improvement of education is concerned, we are committed to that and that is a matter of Central Government policy. Here, we have developed something that can operate through the Sports Council to improve sporting facilities.

    QUESTION (Robert Hardman – The Daily Telegraph):

    Firstly, in your foreword, you say that some of the problems of sport come from misguided attitudes and mistaken policies. What policies are you specifically referring to and whose were they?

    Secondly, how long do you think it will be before we win a World Cup in rugby, cricket or football?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    As a result of these plans, it will be sooner than it otherwise would have been that we win a world cup but I am making no predictions about that.

    Regarding the mistakes in attitude and policies over the last thirty or forty years, I am not particularly in the business of picking out individual policies or individual mistakes. I just take the general view that we have undervalued the importance of sport both to the quality of life of most of our youngsters and as part of the role that it plays in our national life and what I am seeking to do is to correct that and I believe this is a giant step towards doing that.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, for this initiative to be truly effective, won’t there have to be a change to the legislation surrounding the national lottery, that is to say that money can be made available not only for capital projects but also for maintenance and administration costs?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    In due course that may be so. There is a certain degree of latitude now in the interpretation as you will see and I am grateful to lain Sproat and others who have looked at that to see how we can do it.

    For example, in the definition of capital, we would include things like school sport strips so whereas many people think of capital and may think of something costing many tens of thousands of pounds, that isn’t necessarily the case in terms of the definition of capital.

    What I do want to do is to look at the general provision of mainstream facilities. I think over time you are right and it will be possible to relax some of the definitions and look at a little more of the resources going into revenue funding but I think at the moment that lies a little way ahead but I certainly don’t exclude that.

    QUESTION (Ben Preston – The Times):

    You say you are setting a target of bringing every child in every school within reach of adequate sporting facilities by the year 2000. How many don’t have those facilities now?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I can’t give you an immediate total but there is a significant number, far more than I would wish to see. I would like to have been able to say that I could guarantee an individual sports field for every individual school by the turn of the century but I can’t guarantee that; what I think we can ensure is that by the end of this decade every school will have access to these sort of sporting facilities so they won’t be inhibited from soccer, rugby, cricket, athletics because they didn’t have access to the facilities and the Department of Education and National Heritage, with the sports councils, will audit what sporting facilities we have and where the shortfall is and then we can draw up a proper programme for correcting it.

    QUESTION (Harry Smith – ITN):

    How would you characterise your own sporting education at school and what influence do you think that has had on the development of your career?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think sport was about the only part of school that I enjoyed, to be frank. Much to my distress, we didn’t play soccer but I learned to play rugby at school, we had cricket at school, we had athletics at school and we had a great deal of enthusiasm engendered by the masters who were there. I think I loved sport when I went to school but I learned a good deal more about it, I learned to have a lifelong love of sport during my years at school and I think that is true of most people of my age. What I would like to do is to ensure that the youngsters of today and tomorrow have the same opportunities.

    QUESTION (Julia Bradbury – LIVE TV):

    Do you think that this academy is going to enhance career opportunities within sport and following on from the previous question, if you had had a career in sport what would it have been?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Well it would have been over by now, that is for sure! I would have been proud to have had a career in sport but I might have had the ambition, I might have had the will but I didn’t have the talent so, alas, not. I think it will enhance career opportunities.

    There is a second matter that we are thinking about which I might broadly float though the ideas are not yet worked up. One of the problems that many sports stars face is their careers tend to end some time between 30 or 40, in some cases even earlier and one idea we are looking at is to try and see if we can develop a scheme together with business to try and arrange for a form of sponsorship so sportsmen and women can actually join companies and learn to begin to develop a career on a part-time basis whilst they pursue their sporting career and I think then we would end the difficult cut-off suddenly for many people often in sports that aren’t terribly highly paid to which they have given a tremendous amount and suddenly find that they are no longer young enough to compete at the top level and I would like to see if we can ease them properly into better career prospects than they have had in the past. That is an idea very much in its infancy, it frankly isn’t worked up yet but it is one of the things we are looking at.

    QUESTION (June Kelly – BBC Radio):

    Won’t there be resistance from teachers because of the extra demands you are placing on their time and also resistance from some children who simply don’t like sport?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    As far as the teachers are concerned, I am delighted to say that representatives of most of the teacher unions were at Downing Street this morning and they gave very strong support and backing to this.

    As far as teachers are concerned, there will be extra resources in teacher training, there will be the opportunity of extra performance payments for taking part and of course we will be bringing in other people from outside schools to help as well but I think, if I may say so, you might perhaps underestimate the extent to which many people in education – many teachers, many head teachers, many leaders of the teacher unions – will actually enthusiastically want to see education rounded-out with a better sports contribution and better sporting facilities so the initial reaction that we have had I have to say from the teacher unions and others is very positive indeed.

    GILLIAN SHEPHARD:

    The Prime Minister obviously is quite right. There has been a good reception from the teacher associations and the teacher unions and some of them have been associated with drawing up the document. There is access of course to special responsibility allowances through excellence points to reward teachers for any extra responsibilities they take on in this area. Those things already exist and they are available to heads and governors.

    As far as children not enjoying sport is concerned, I think must say that it is part of growing up to learn that just sometimes you have to do things you don’t like very much and we all had to go through that and I think it is quite a useful lesson for young people and who knows, by being obliged to take part in compulsory team games between 14-16 which they will be, some of them might even enjoy it and find themselves fitter as a result.

    QUESTION (Christine Smith – The Groundsman):

    Your reversal of policy on the sale of playing fields by schools will be very welcome to people in the industry. Do you think it is in time or do you think they have already been destroyed?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No, I think it is in time. What we are doing is setting minimum standards which will need to be kept and also giving the sports councils the right to be a statutory consultee if they object to the disposal of any playing fields so it isn’t an absolute blanket ban but what it does mean is that sports playing fields in effect will remain. There may be occasions where some schools have a huge excess of playing field facilities and they would still be able to dispose of them but that would only be if it was self-evidently an excess and the sports council themselves as a statutory consultee didn’t object.

    I would like to invite Iain Sproat to say a word or two. Iain has been in the engine room of this particular initiative right from the start.

    IAIN SPROAT:

    Thank you very much, Prime Minister. It is a marvellous day for sport and I would just like to say that we would not have been able to get what we are getting in this Sports Policy Paper had not been that we have a Prime Minister who is knowledgeable and dedicated to sport himself and without his drive it would never have come to pass. Also, perhaps I should say that the Secretary of State for National Heritage has been chivvying me in the past when she was Secretary of State for Health and I know she is extremely glad that health is one of the great benefits that is going to flow from this Paper.

    The only other thing I would like to say is that what pleases me particularly about this is that we are not just dealing with the champions, the gold medallists. That is very important and the British Academy of Sport and the other Centres of Excellence around the country will deal with it but I think that the benefit to schools, the benefit to young people, particularly perhaps those who are not particularly good at sport is enormous because I believe that sport teaches lessons at schools that many other aspects of schools cannot teach, aspects of character, of self-discipline, of commitment, of learning to work with others in a team, of learning to play within the law, good sportsmanship, all these socially valuable things are probably better taught by sport for most young people than almost any other aspect of school life.

    I am very pleased and proud today to be associated with the Sports Paper which goes all the way from the schools right the way through to the championships and I hope that we are going to see the benefit of that at every level in our country very quickly.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Thank you very much for being here. I know some of you were at Downing Street this morning so you probably know as much about the proposals as I do now. I hope all of you have got a full copy of the press pack; it has a lot of background detailed information in it; if any of you require any further detailed information, do have a word with lain, Robin, Virginia, Gillian or me as we go round and I hope you enjoy, as I shall, watching the youngsters getting some training. Thank you for being here!

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the SPARKS Children and Sport Luncheon – 5 June 1995

    Below is Mr Major’s speech at the SPARKS “Children and Sport” luncheon held on 5th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Sir Alexander, Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen. For many reasons, it’s a great privilege to be with you today.

    First, I greatly admire SPARKS and the work that it does.

    Secondly, as many of you may know, sport is a subject very close to my heart and – indeed, in the case of Chelsea and Surrey – close enough to break it from time to time.

    And thirdly, this luncheon enables me to set the stage for some sporting announcements the Government will make shortly.

    I have never believed that the quality of life should revolve simply around material success. That may be important, but it’s not all-important.

    Of equal importance to the quality of life for most people is the availability of sport, of all aspects of the Arts, and the maintenance of our built heritage. It is all too easy for these areas to be overlooked.

    Three years ago, as part of an attempt to redress the balance, I set up the Department of National Heritage. I did so to protect, enhance and develop those areas – because I believe they play an important part in the way of life in our country. Today, I wish to focus on sport.

    I don’t need to tell the supporters of Sparks about the value of organised sport. Your letterhead reads like a roll of honour of British sport. But sadly, I believe children play less sport than they should. I would like to change that because I believe sport is good for children and good for our Nation.

    Britain largely gave organised sport to the world. We invented many of the sports. And, even where we didn’t invent them, we codified and made them popular in every part of the world. We should be proud of that. Today, sport is as much part of the world’s heritage as of our own. But its genesis was with us.

    The pleasure of sport is open to all ages – but most open to those who learn to love sport when young. That is why – and you may feel the same way – I can’t readily accept a situation in which most 14 year olds are offered only an hour and a half a week of physical exercise in our schools – while surveys tell us they spend a day and a half a week watching television.

    This is a trend I intend to reverse. And, since I am where I am, with your help I can do something about it.

    Some people regard sport as frivolous. I don’t agree. It’s part of a rounded life for millions.

    A love of sport is also one of the gifts we can give to children. It’s good for both their physical and mental growth.

    It allows them to let off steam.

    It lets them enjoy the sense of growing strength and skills. It’s a binding force between generations.

    But all this is to be too dispassionate about sport. Above all, it produces pure enjoyment for those who play and those who watch. Frankly, for me, it needs no other recommendation than that.

    But competitive sport does teach something else very valuable as well. For every time it delivers both a winner and a loser. Sportsmen must learn to be both.

    Sport only works if both parties play by the rules, accept the result with good grace, and never shout at the referee. And those, too, are lessons which are valuable in later life, even if it doesn’t always look that way when you watch the proceedings of the House of Commons on television.

    And there is a wider social case for sport too; playing sport with others provides social skills. It opens doors. It offers the equipment for a more fulfilled life, both when taking part and when looking on.

    Many young people have always had good access to sport. But others have been less fortunate. Inadequate sporting provision takes something from young lives – and dangerously so, for it removes one of the best means of learning how to live alongside others and make a contribution as part of a team.

    I have an ambition to share with you all. And I’m going to need your help to deliver it. I want to put sport back at the heart of weekly life in every school. To re-establish sport as one of the great pillars of education alongside the academic, the vocational and the moral. It should never have been relegated by the educational theorists to be just one part of one subject in the curriculum. But it has and, over time, that must be reversed.

    If we are to bring about the sea change that I want to see, we in Government will need the help of men and women of goodwill everywhere, parents, teachers, coaches, sporting bodies themselves. I can tell you today that we will be publishing shortly a Policy Statement that will set out in the direction we wish to go, both in school and beyond.

    It will be a detailed programme. But it will also be the platform for further development beyond our immediate plans. It will sustain the place of minor sports that bring much enjoyment, but it will also ensure that our great traditional sports – cricket, hockey, swimming, athletics, football, netball, rugby, tennis and the like – are put firmly at the centre of the stage.

    Our policy plans will reassert our commitment to competitive and team sport in school and beyond school. They will encourage schools, governors and parents to match sporting provision in their school against the best – and help them to do so. But we know, also, that sports education is only the first step to a lifetime’s enjoyment of sport. We need to ensure that sporting opportunities continue after school.

    At present, too many teenagers find it difficult to transfer their sporting interests to the world outside school.

    So we will aim to improve links between school and club sport. To give improved access to high quality coaching and to promote sensible arrangements to share facilities and equipment.

    There is much in this for clubs as well as schools. If a club wants to see its sport grow, and the standard at which it is played improve, it will need to build up its pool of talent. Active links with local schools are clearly the best means of achieving this.

    More school sport, and better links between schools and clubs, will be two key themes of our policy. But there’s another aspect too.

    I take as much pride as anyone in seeing British sportsmen and women leading the world. That was why I was so keen to see the Olympics come to Britain. The Barcelona Games were a giant fillip for Spanish sport – and we must work to get high quality world sport here in the future.

    But the first ingredients we need to win are the men and women themselves. I don’t want to see them having to go abroad to learn how to exploit their talents to the full. We need fully developed programmes of talent spotting and talent support right here at home. And then we can see our sportsmen going out and showing the world how to do it – Cape Town, and Atlanta, and, please Heaven, Bridgetown, Barbados and Adelaide too.

    Sport in schools; sport in clubs; and a new deal for elite sport. These are not three separate themes – they will run together in our policy programme. We will soon set out in detail how the Government intends to deliver these objectives. But, as we do, I know one thing. The existence of resources from the National Lottery has transformed for ever the prospects of British sport.

    Indeed, when I decided to create the National Lottery that was among my aims. It was a way to provide the resources for sport – and indeed the Arts – that would be unlikely ever to come directly from the taxpayer.

    The £300 million a year that the Lottery in full flood will provide for sport will revolutionise it over the years ahead. So, too, will the huge and growing contribution of the corporate sector.

    Many businesses, such as the ones who provide SPARKS with sponsorship, already commit considerable time and money to sport and to charity. They do a fantastic job. We hear all too much today about the claims of corporate greed. I wish we could hear more about some of the amazing corporate generosity in this country and the tens of thousands of charities that British companies support.

    I wanted to take the opportunity today to underline the importance I attach to our forthcoming plans to improve sport in Britain – and by that I mean sport for all, girls and boys and those with disabilities too. Few people have brought more pride and honour to Britain than those superb disabled athletes who have won such a hatful of medals in the Olympic Games.

    Sport is fun. I hope it’s not old fashioned to say that. Fun, fun, fun. And we want as many people as possible to enjoy it. It’s fun to be the best. And so we also want to develop the skills to make us the best. These are our ambitions for the years ahead.

    The children who suffer from the illnesses which SPARKS is doing so much to combat will not all be able to participate in sport. But almost all can take pleasure from it. And, for these children, and for people of all ages, it is a relief from the hardships they face. They have a right to that pleasure. I hope we can increasingly provide it.

    So today, let me end by paying special tribute to the excellent work which SPARKS carries out. Their sort of voluntary generosity and concern for others stands foursquare in the British tradition.

    If by being here today we can further raise the profile of SPARKS and increase its capacity to carry on with its support for innovative medical research, then all will have been worth while. I, for my part, would like to thank you all for the excellent work which you do and to wish you every success for the future.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at English Heritage Conference – 16 September 1994

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at the English Heritage Conference, held at the QEII Conference Centre in London on Friday 16th September 1994. The speech was on the subject of the National Lottery.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    THE NATIONAL LOTTERY

    I’ve always believed it to be a virtue to think long-term – and perhaps nowhere more so than in the preservation and enhancement of our Heritage.

    There’s no mystery about why there should be: a healthy society needs a positive attitude to its own past, and its own future. We have been fortunate to have had our horizons widened by the creative legacy of the past and now we must leave our legacy for the future.

    It is especially appropriate to make this point to a conference celebrating the work of English Heritage. Their mission, of preserving the best of our historic environment and enabling us to understand and enjoy it, is vitally important. Today many traditional values which held society together are being questioned. We face ever-more rapid changes to our daily lives. At times like this the history about us is reassuring: it provides a link with the past and reinforces a sense of identity.

    This is not just nostalgia. The built environment plays a big part in creating community and pride. And the growth in the membership of English Heritage, up from 80,000 members in 1986 to over 300,000 now, demonstrates that rather clearly.

    This morning, I want to pay tribute not just to English Heritage, but also to all those individuals who devote their time, their money, and their energy to conservation. Over years, the vast majority of historic buildings and monuments have been preserved by private owners. Most of them remain in private hands. The pleasure of owning historic buildings comes with an in-built duty to care for them. Around the country thousands of families take pride in fulfilling this duty.

    English Heritage and others don’t just produce social benefits. They produce significant economic benefits too. 37 per cent of overseas visitors cited historic buildings and monuments as important factors in their decision to visit Britain. Since 1982, when we published the White Paper that led to the formation of English Heritage, visits to historic properties have increased by 24 per cent. Historic buildings provide 20,000 paid jobs in the England. When you consider that the tourist industry is worth £33 billion a year, 5 per cent of our GDP, you begin to comprehend the immense value of our built heritage.

    THE LOTTERY

    But preserving it isn’t cheap. Happily, today we are on the verge of one of the most important steps forward ever in providing resources for improving our Heritage. I refer to the National Lottery which will inject substantial extra funds into the Heritage, the Arts and Sport. It will provide also a valuable new form of support for charities. And it will unleash a wave of creativity for projects to mark the Millennium. These extra funds are now perhaps only ten months away. Anyone who has ever burned with the desire to change the face of their town, their village or the whole country will have a chance do so. And I hope and believe many people will take advantage of this opportunity with enthusiasm and originality.

    Getting this far hasn’t been easy. The history of public lotteries in this country is – to be as polite as possible – colourful. The Director-General of OFLOT would have a fit if he had to investigate the standards of probity and security that obtained in Georgian and Victorian lotteries. Thankfully, times have changed – and I believe we have set up a system that is safe, fair, honest and popular.

    The resources created by the Lottery will unlock the door to a higher quality of life for millions of people, irrespective of income and without extra taxation. This is not a peripheral matter, it is central to the continued health of our society: to the successful transmission of civilised values down the generations. I am keen to ensure – as far as possible – that far more of our citizens have access to those intangible good things of life.

    The general guidelines the Government have issued make clear that the Lottery will fund mainly capital projects carrying an element of partnership funding. We have found in other fields, notably urban regeneration, that asking bidders to find private sector partners willing to put up money injects a degree of realism into ideas which make them ultimately much more successful. I hope that the attraction of partnership funding from a wide range of sources will bring the same disciplines to Lottery projects.

    The guidelines also make the important points that projects must benefit primarily the public good rather than private gain, and must be financially viable. On the Government’s side – Treasury, please note – we will make no case-by-case reductions on conventional public spending programmes to take account of awards from the Lottery. The money raised by the Lottery will not replace existing Government spending. It will enable the funding of projects which will make a lasting contribution to various aspects of our national heritage.

    So let me set out how the Lottery will help. I am sure that our hosts today, English Heritage, are not short of ideas. Let’s take the built Heritage as an example of the transformation that will take place. I have always been acutely aware that the built heritage is one of the defining characteristics of this country; as much as our fields, rivers, and landscape, our cathedrals, castles, great houses, and even commercial and domestic buildings reveal the essence of what we are.

    I believe also that my enthusiasm for the Lottery will be shared by the British people. Millions of people will participate every week. Thousands of jobs are being created. The combination of millionaire winners and huge benefits to good causes is immensely attractive. And the projected money that will be made available to the good causes is genuinely spectacular.

    The best estimate is that between this year and 2001, around £9 billion will go to the good causes: that is, over the next 6 years, roughly an extra £1.8 billion for each of five good causes;

    – the existing heritage

    – sport and arts – the living heritage

    – charities

    -and the Millennium Fund which will be both built and living heritages. These are huge sums that dwarf existing resources. I don’t believe the scale of what is likely is yet appreciated but it soon will be. And this extra funding should revolutionise provision in areas of immense importance to our quality of life.

    DISTRIBUTION

    Each of the five areas could receive £320 million a year when the Lottery is fully up and running. Let me emphasise: that money will not be under Government control. The distributing bodies will decide where the funds are spent. Departments will not have a role in assessing the individual applications for Lottery funding. On the Millennium Commission Ministers are, quite deliberately, in a minority. This independence is vital for the success of the Lottery. Each and every one of us can take pride in the visible improvements the Lottery will bring about.

    We can be genuinely excited at the sheer size of the sums that will be made available. Many in this audience will have been affected at various times by the hard pounding of the annual public spending round. I have myself at various times worn the Chief Secretary’s black hat, the spending minister’s white hat, and more recently the umpire’s white coat – and we all know that the umpire’s decision is correct – and final.

    What I have learned in every one of these positions is that the prospect of extra hundreds of millions of pounds for heritage or the arts and sport would be sheer fantasy from mainstream public spending. Whether the public finances are in surplus or in deficit there will always be pressure from the bigger programmes: from health, social security, law and order, and defence. These pressures are immense – and they invariably swamp the demands of those areas which will benefit from the Lottery, however essential many of us regard the needs of the heritage, and culture.

    I strongly believe man cannot live by GDP alone. A rounded life involves much more than economic security. A country can only be strong, healthy, and contented if it burnishes its heritage, encourages its citizens to pursue excellence in sport, and cultivates widespread appreciation of the arts. I would like to see everyone in this country share in the opportunities that were once available only to the privileged few.

    That means not just jobs, decent healthcare, and a good education, but other less tangible advantages. The chance to appreciate great art or great music, even if it is not part of the normal background to your early life. The ability to absorb the living history of our great buildings, and the poetry of the many British landscapes. The opportunity to test your physical abilities to the limit through sport. And the chance to contribute to the wider community through voluntary and charitable work. I am determined that the Lottery will make it possible for millions more to enjoy a fuller life.

    It was in that spirit that I set up the Department of National Heritage. Its creation was a sign that Government should take such activities seriously. For millions of people, they are not optional extras, they are worth valuing in their own right. DNH is, I believe, more than a Ministry of Culture, more than a Ministry of Fun. It is a permanent statement that Government regards the activities which people choose to do as highly as those which they have to do. In as much as Government can help, and that itself is a source of fruitful debate, Government will help.

    HOW THE GOOD CAUSES WILL BE TRANSFORMED

    The arrival of the Lottery is a sign that I wish to ensure that Britain’s artists and sports men and sportswomen don’t suffer second class facilities. There will always be a place for brilliant work done on a shoe-string. But the Lottery will mean that it is less likely that this will be the only option, or even the most likely option.

    English Heritage, and many other bodies, already do a magnificent job in preserving the best of the past for future generations, and ensuring that contemporary building will also leave a positive mark. The extra funds that will flow from the Lottery will enable such bodies to extend dramatically the range and effectiveness of their work. For instance, the Brighton West Pier is entirely beyond the existing EH budget, but could be the type of project which attracts Lottery Funds. Completing the restoration of the Crescent in Buxton could be an ideal example of public/private co-operation. All these choices are not for me – how and whether to apply for funding is for English Heritage. It will be a great challenge for Jocelyn Stevens and his colleagues. But I know it is a challenge which they are delighted to meet.

    MILLENNIUM COMMISSION

    The heritage will undoubtedly have an important contribution to make to the Millennium celebrations. And so far, in discussions of the Lottery, many people have focused on the work of the Millennium Commission. Those of us who regard it as part of our job to receive helpful, if unsolicited, advice from all sides are developing a degree of sympathy with the Commissioners. Never have so many advised so few about so much. And it will get worse. But since the Commission is a fiercely independent body, and will remain so, I do not regard myself as in any way disqualified from adding to their burden.

    Marking the Millennium in an appropriate way is a difficult enough task, not least because none of us has had much practice. The ecclesiastical historians tell us that at the end of the first Millennium people all over Europe abandoned their homes in terror and ran into the fields, thinking it was the end of the world. At least the Millennium Commission has not provoked that sort of response – yet. Although, these days I suppose, anything is possible.

    What it has provoked is an enormous outpouring of ideas from all areas. Opera houses, art galleries, sports facilities, exhibition centres, computer networks; all have their advocates, and all, no doubt, have an excellent case. What I would like to do today is to appeal for a national outbreak of lateral thinking. As well as conventional ideas I hope that we can come up with some unusual and original projects which are worthy of Millennium Funding. Potential applicants should range widely in their thinking. Perhaps we should be considering engineering and construction projects, or ways to help the environment and wildlife.

    Applicants can also draw inspiration from similar projects in the past. Many have marvelled at the Eiffel Tower and the Sydney Opera House, and the pavilion created for the Seville Expo.

    In our own country, we can draw inspiration from the great cathedrals, and public buildings such as the Houses of Parliament and the Inns of Court. We created the Crystal Palace in a previous outburst of celebration. Our best architects have always found commissions across the board. The great Victorian pavilion at Lords was designed by the same architect who designed the Criterion Theatre. This summer, the new opera house at

    Glyndebourne was unveiled – designed by the same architects who gave us the Mound Stand at Lords. I can’t think why these cricketing comparisons come so easily to me.

    These combinations of the best of our built heritage with some of the best of our living heritage illustrate that heritage isn’t a backward-looking concept. We are constantly creating tomorrow’s heritage, and we must always be aware of the permanent effects of our daily decisions. Clearing a pond, creating a bird sanctuary, improving and opening up a garden: all of these will provide enjoyment for future generations.

    So for the Millennium Fund we might also consider projects with a humanitarian aim – or what about the provision of new technology in local communities? Every village hall with its own computers. There could be educational projects. Now is the time to let all our imaginations run free.

    MILLENNIUM BURSARIES

    One area where many individuals will have imaginative proposals is for bursaries. I am delighted that the Millennium Commission is considering the scope of a Millennium Bursaries Scheme. This could involve the spending of some tens of millions of pounds. I can’t emphasise too strongly how important this idea will be in spreading the benefits of the Lottery, and engaging individuals in the whole Millennium project. The bursaries will be a means of fulfilling personal aspirations for the future and broadening the body of knowledge we carry forward to the 21st century. They can be educational in the broadest sense, perhaps including research projects to act as exemplars in the scientific or environmental fields. New ideas could be developed which could act as a model for others to take forward. Chairs could be endowed at universities in subject areas which will contribute to the quality of life for everyone in the third Millennium. The bursaries could encourage voluntary activity, or could release individual talent and expertise to the benefit of the wider community.

    Perhaps some bursaries could allow training in unusual skills and crafts which could be passed on to others. They should not be restricted to any age group; I am sure the elderly will have as much to gain, and as much to contribute, as the young. I know the Commission will be considering how to reflect the millennial factor in the awards they make, and are looking to make a lasting contribution to learning, participation or enlightenment. This is one of their many vital tasks, and I wish them well in it.

    LOCAL MILLENNIUM PROJECTS

    The Commission is also thinking of spending more than £500 million, on current projections, to support projects which will be of specific local benefit. These projects will give the opportunity to develop partnership contributions in kind, with whole communities contributing time, energy and resources in support of millennium proposals.

    Some of these may be one-off capital schemes, or Millennium initiatives with a universal theme, such as the “greening of Britain”. They include aspects of urban renewal, such as proposals to transform city centres into public spaces where people can easily meet, shop, eat and drink, and participate in cultural and sporting activities. Attention could also be paid to the rural environment through projects to protect or improve different types of landscape in which wildlife can flourish.

    Again, the only limits are those imposed by our own imaginations. A new village hall or playing field can be as vital a signal of national revival as world class cultural centres in big metropolitan areas. With the Lottery, we can aspire to both.

    CONCLUSION

    I am determined, as I am sure all of you are, to eradicate the lingering feeling that we are continually falling behind. It has become part of conventional wisdom that after great and heroic efforts in the Second World War Britain was exhausted and unable to keep up. This has always been a simplistic and in some areas simply wrong-headed view. Our cultural activities in many areas are world class. London serves theatre and concert goers better than any other city in the world. No other country can aspire to the glories of our buildings. The honourable tradition of private sponsorship, made famous by Soane and Tate, has continued through the names of Clore and Sainsbury. Who else has festivals as good as the Proms, or Edinburgh? Who else has a broadcaster with the range and worldwide respect of the BBC?

    My message today is that we can make things even better. The Lottery gives us the biggest chance anyone has ever had of making a significant, permanent difference. I am sure that this is a vision which will stir the hearts of many, whatever their background, age, or interests. Every man and woman in this country can be a direct beneficiary. Not just the great and the good. There will be local transformations, as well as international prestige projects. Your own particular field of the Heritage will be just one of the good causes which will find its funding completely transformed. We are at the beginning of a period which can be uniquely exciting for all those of us who care deeply about the long-term quality of life in this country. I hope the whole British people will share in the excitement, and the ultimate benefits, which the Lottery will bring. I know that you in English Heritage will play a full part in making sure this happens.