Andy Burnham – 2010 Comments on David Cameron’s Policy on School Sports

The comments made by Andy Burnham, the then Shadow Education Secretary, on 20 December 2010.

David Cameron and Michael Gove have spent weeks seeking to justify a bad decision with dodgy statistics. Gove’s overruling by the Prime Minister is a victory for thousands of young people, teachers and athletes, and is a warning to this Tory-led Government that it cannot simply do what it likes. But this package from the Conservative-led Government, after weeks of scrabbling round for funding to save something it branded a “complete failure”, only raises one cheer at best.

So today, in conceding the success of Labour’s School Sports Partnerships, the Government has nevertheless failed to put in place a proper funding package that will allow us to capitalise on the excitement of the 2012 Games. We are still looking at the prospect of fewer children playing sport in the run up to the Olympics, and no answer on what will happen to school sport following the Games.