In my role on the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee, I questioned Sports Minister Tracey Crouch about the performance of the British Olympic team. I asked what role lottery funding has played in Team GB's progress from finishing 36th with 1 gold medal in Atlanta in 1996 to its second placed finish 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.
I did express some concerns about the entry costs for some of our most successful and well-funded sports such as rowing, cycling and dressage. One-third of our medalists in these 'sit-down' sports were privately educated despite only 7% of the population going to private schools. The Minister assured me that fairer sports funding in schools was a top Government priority, highlighting one of the funding streams of Sport England in particular, which 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.
Our full exchange can be viewed by following this link: