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I certainly try to make that link all the time. I regularly talk about sport and its benefits for physical health, mental health and social health. I think that, since the pandemic, when we were all restricted from participating in physical activity and sport and found ourselves walking outdoors to socialise because that was the safest way to do that, there has been a general, population-level recognition of the benefits of physical activity and sport for social health. I would absolutely love it if Scotland became a nation that socialises through exercise.

Andy Sinclair might want to come in on the national outcomes in particular.

At the moment, one of the Government’s core missions is tackling poverty, particularly child poverty. It is recognised that poverty impacts all of people’s life opportunities, and participation in sport and physical activity is just one of the areas on which it impacts. It is important that we do not lose sight of that whole-system approach and the fact that, instead of just thinking about ways to fix a problem—such as getting access to sports bras for young people—we must also think about the bigger picture and how on earth we can tackle poverty and make a difference on that. That is a really important thing for us to do.

There are really good programmes that provide kit libraries. Again, the young people’s sport panel came up with some brilliant work on that. That is being led by young people who have volunteered for leadership roles in sport and been supported by sportscotland to develop ideas and projects. A kit library is one of the ideas that they were working on, so that people could access and share good-quality items of kit. We need that work to happen at scale all around the country, because there is absolutely no doubt that it is a barrier to participation.

One of the challenges with regard to participation in sport is that, if you are working three jobs and struggling to keep your head above water, it is very hard to get involved in leisure and recreation activities. Therefore, it is not just about the costs but how tough people’s lives are as they battle day in, day out, with an acute cost of living crisis, which is what we are experiencing right now. That makes life very hard for people.

That is a big challenge for the Government, and we are seeing huge efforts on that across the board. Yesterday, we saw statistics about the level of poverty being experienced by children. In Scotland, 24 per cent of children are living in poverty, but the figure for the rest of the UK is 29 per cent, so we are seeing huge efforts and some benefit, but it is not good enough. We need to do more, because living in poverty is all-consuming. It is hard to think about anything else if you are struggling to access food, heat and shelter.

Absolutely and, as I said, a lot of work is already on-going in collaboration across the board with sportscotland and local government colleagues to try to ensure that the sporting estate has adequate investment, and so that we can continue to support it. Swimming is a fantastic example of a very inclusive sport that is a brilliant life skill. Learning to swim—something that is so frightening—and succeeding at it is a brilliant educational experience, and I absolutely would not argue against investment in swimming. We have a lot of work going on to ensure that children at school can experience swimming lessons, but we are in difficult financial times and we are going to have to keep working together to ensure security for the future.

Curling is spectacular. I had a marvellous visit to Inverness ice rink, where I met a group of curlers. The sport nearly finished me off—you will remember that I said that I am a bit clumsy. [Laughter.] I did not find it easy, but there was such a supportive bunch of people and so many of them had stories to tell. Some were lifelong participants in the sport, whereas others had come to it very late.

Curling seems to be easy for older women, in particular, to get involved in. A couple of women spoke about having been widowed and said that their friends had invited them to come along. It is unbelievably social. Those women were pretty competitive, too. It was also a workout—I was sore for days afterwards. The advantages are endless.

Many of the sports are doing a lot of work on that themselves, and rugby is an excellent example of that. I am pretty sure that, as a fellow participant in the Parliament rugby team, Sandesh Gulhane will be able to contribute here, but each year we play an inclusive team, which I think is called Clan Rugby. Some of that team have hidden disabilities and some have less hidden, but the roles are adapted so that everybody can play together. It is absolutely fantastic.

Wheelchair rugby is also hugely inclusive. It is a game that men and women often play together, in mixed teams. I have a Twitter pal—I do not know her in real life; I have met her in real life, but we are mainly friends on social media—who is desperately trying to get me to go along to wheelchair rugby training on a Wednesday night. It has been a revelation for her. She has very severe asthma and has been prohibited from participating in conventional sport, but wheelchair rugby has given her the opportunity to participate again. There are ways of adapting sports so that everybody can be included.

One of the people who got a coaching prize at last year’s awards ceremony was a lady from the north-east—I do not know whether you remember her name—who does inclusive swimming coaching. She was just phenomenal; she was an absolute power who reached out to people to get them involved in her sport and who made sure that they could achieve their best potential.

There are loads of challenges and barriers, but some really incredible work is going on out there. I come back to the point about default settings and inclusion: we have to ensure that everybody can experience the benefits of participating.

It has certainly been a challenge in the past. I think that we have improved our data collection over the past few years; I will let Andy Sinclair give a fuller answer on how we have gone about doing that. However, certainly from a Government perspective, we are looking for ethnicity data as well as physical activity data in our household survey.

In relation to the data that sports governing bodies collect, we are doing a little bit better than we did in the past, when there was no data; we saw that in relation to health as well as physical activity. It was not really until the pandemic that we went out and routinely collected data that gave us the level of detail that we would like about ethnicity. Although anecdotally there were a lot of concerns about particular ethnic groups participating or not participating in the vaccine programme, we did not know the details until we got the data, so data is really important.

There is a balance to be struck around data collection—I will let Andy Sinclair tell you a little bit more.

I agree that it is frustrating that it has been 10 years. However, if you think about the taboo around menstrual blood, that has been in place for millennia. The idea that we could overturn some of the taboos and the challenges that women face around participation overnight is, frankly, wrong.

We are now having some really good conversations. I have never before known a time in my life when elite athletes have talked openly about issues such as menstruation, contraception, pregnancy and sport or menopause and sport. It is really healthy that this debate is finally happening.

In the same way that we have seen women’s health understudied, we have seen women’s participation in sport understudied. Historically, there has not been an understanding of the influence that our different physiology has on performance sport, for example, because that has not been looked at. First, women have participated less in sport. Secondly, we have been studied less, as we have been studied less in medicine.

There is now a great deal more understanding of those issues. Sportscotland is doing some particular work in the elite performance athlete field, which is really helpful. There are better conversations going on and there is more understanding and tackling of the barriers. However, it would be foolish to imagine that there is just one thing that would unlock sport and physical activity for women and girls. There are multiple barriers. As I said earlier, a sports bra is a pretty essential piece of kit and the fact that it can cost £30 to £60 is a barrier that many women and girls will not be able to overcome as they hit puberty.

I will let Andrew Sinclair comment on that as well, but that tension has always existed. There is a difference between elite sport and social or recreational sport. As a Government, we want to encourage participation across the board. I could sing the praises of sport morning, noon and night, given its benefits for physical, mental and social health. We want everyone to have access to it. If it was a pill, it would be worth billions, would it not? We want to increase participation. One way to do that is to take away the barriers and another is to offer a diversity of experience, which means a diversity of sports.

Sometimes—there might be a gender difference in this regard, although I am not sure whether it is just a perception—there are different levels of appetite for competition, and there are definitely occasions when participating just for the joy of it is really important.

Scottish Gymnastics sees itself as a feeder for all other sports. Participation in gymnastics is particularly gendered, with a very high number of girls and women participating. They often go on to other sports, but gymnastics is where they gain their physical literacy. Only a small number of people go on to compete as gymnasts, but people very often use the skills that they picked up as youngsters in that sport when they take part in other sports.

We watched the Olympic games with a lot of interest last time they were on, and there were brand-new cycling events that captured the imagination of the world, such as BMX events. Exciting innovations are happening in sport, and new kinds of competition have come along. We are going to host the Union Cycliste Internationale—UCI—world championships in Scotland later this year, and I cannot wait to see football on a bike and gymnastics on a bike. There are really interesting innovations going on and I passionately believe that there is a sport out there for everyone.

I joke that I got into rugby because I was a bit clumsy. I banged into people often and fell over quite easily and I found a sport where those characteristics were an asset to me. Admittedly, I have always participated in social sports. I was never going to be an elite athlete. I trained hard and I played hard, but it was only ever going to be a social or recreational experience. Everybody should have that.

As I mentioned, on my daily mile this morning I reflected on my journey to the body confidence that I now have at the age of 50, and participating in rugby was a big part of that. I recognised that my body could do things that I never imagined it could do; it is really strong and I can knock down people who are much faster than me. We need to recognise that there are sports out there for every single body shape, because that is powerful. We need to broaden everyone’s horizons, get everyone participating and give them loads of opportunities.

A number of members of the committee were at the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Scottish Football Association that was held in Parliament last week. At that event, we heard from Sam Milne, who talked about starting a recreational football group. She talked about a lassie called Farrah Mackenzie who came along to play recreational football. She was not competitive at all but just wanted to do social sport. Sam and Farrah talked powerfully about the camaraderie and the social benefits of football, but also about the physical and mental health benefits. Farrah spoke about losing 6 stone. She had been a type 2 diabetic who was on the brink of going on to insulin, but participating in recreational football pushed that back for her.

Let us ensure that there are as many opportunities as possible for absolutely everybody to participate in sport and physical activity. We need some competitive opportunities. I am not dismissing the elite athletes among us, who need competition. Some people who play recreational football said that they have begun to enjoy competition and they gather together once a month to have football games so that there is an opportunity for that. However, I want participation. I want us to move more, to enjoy our bodies, to be fitter and stronger physically and mentally, and to get all the social benefits that those things bring.

The board has made some great contributions and there are some absolutely phenomenal leaders and glass-ceiling busters in that group. I think that Dee Bradbury is in that group, so there is a female president of a tier-1 nation in rugby, which has not been replicated in the rest of the world. Scotland has some very powerful people in leadership roles in that collective. Andrew Sinclair might want to say more about the future of that group.

That is a really difficult and challenging area. Local government is democratically accountable to the populations that it serves, and it is not the Scottish Government’s role to oversee its spending decisions. There must be locally accountable decision making.

Paul Sweeney mentioned how much of the budget is already ring fenced. I think that ring fencing more of it would not be welcome. To be honest, over the course of the pandemic, we have worked really closely with local authority partners. We rose to face an incredibly challenging time for our nation together, and we navigated the challenges together.

There is keenness on both sides—the Scottish Government and COSLA—to continue that positive working relationship. Although everybody acknowledges that challenging decisions will have to be made on both sides—local authorities might contest some of the spending decisions that we make, and we might contest some of the spending decisions that they make—there is absolutely room for respect on both sides and working together to collaboratively find a way forward in this really challenging time.