Hansard

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and to follow the enthusiasm of Sandra White. I echo the thanks to the minister. I could not have thought of a better highlight of the last weekend than the one that she was able to enjoy on all our behalf by presenting the medals after the men’s cycling road race at Glasgow Green. I thank the city council, all the partners, the organising committee and all the various officials and organisations and the media. I do not know whether our parliamentary link, Kenny Stewart, is in the gallery, but I think we will all miss his e-mail invitations to pose with a giant inflatable shoe or high-five Clyde or put our hard hats on for a venue tour.

I thank the volunteers, including Patricia Ferguson and John Mason. I think it says a lot about Patricia Ferguson that she volunteered her time in the back rooms at Glasgow after being part of the successful bid and presenting medals herself in Melbourne. Our amendment refers to the thousands of ordinary people who gave up their time to do the same. I agree that we need to think about how we follow up their superb contribution. Those I met came from all over Scotland and all over the UK and many of them had been volunteers at Manchester and London. It is clear that there is a momentum there that will keep going.

There are too many people to mention, although Sandra White gave it a good shot. I would mention the bus drivers who took us to and from the venues; the bus marshals who lost their voices trying to get us on the buses; the train and taxi drivers; the police; the men and women who brought their Scottie dogs to the opening ceremony; the woman in the George Square ticket office who helped me on the morning of the opening ceremony to get my tickets; and the city parks department, which made sure that the city looked its best and that every public space in the centre of Glasgow was decked with flowers.

Of course, the event was about athletes, and our biggest thanks must go to them and their supporting teams for putting on such a show. We should thank those who came from all over the Commonwealth, the home nations and, indeed, team Scotland, who did us proud with, as the cabinet secretary has pointed out, a record haul of medals.

The success of the games was measured against our expectations and the preparations that were made for them. I do not think that I ever doubted that Glasgow would deliver, and was therefore not surprised when it did. I am certainly not overawed by the fact that it had the best games ever; Glaswegians knew that our city would shine, whether in the sun or in the rain, and the people of Glasgow, gallus and generous as they are, made these games. Regardless of which party we belong to, those of us who have the privilege of representing the city have rightly been proud to do so this summer.

The relationship between politics and sport is a curious one, and it is right that we sought to protect the competitors from being asked for their views on the referendum at every turn. However, the games happened because political leaders got behind sporting visionaries to bring them to Glasgow, and the kind of lasting legacy that is often talked about in relation to major sporting events but which is rarely delivered will come only if we politicians back up the volunteers in our sports clubs and support our least active citizens in making their own way to healthier lives. The back-up—and, frankly, the money—comes only because of political decisions.

In short, the games might not have been about politics, but their legacy is all about politics. My constituents in the east end and across Glasgow who feared that the games would be something that happened to other people are now looking to not only the Scottish Government but all of us to deliver on the promises that were made. Those of us who supported the games and had thought through the planning knew about the cynics out there who were unconvinced that this would be money well spent or that it would be worth the disruption, and it was the vision of the legacy as much as the success of the sporting event itself that ensured such a high level of public support when the games opened. We really have a responsibility now not to let those people down. I welcome every announcement that the cabinet secretary has made and every programme that she is supporting, but the political determination to change lives and raise our eyes must be sustained beyond the athletes parade. I have no doubt that the cabinet secretary herself shares that view.

Physical activity is Scotland’s biggest public health challenge, and a huge part of the solution is to encourage participation in sport from the youngest age. Children must have the opportunity to try—and to like or dislike—as many sports as possible until they find something that might be part of their lives for ever. In that respect, physical literacy is key; skills such as running, jumping, swimming, throwing and catching are not just for games and sports but for living a fuller life. Having confidence in those basic skills will enable us to return to such activities at any time in our lives, regardless of our fitness levels or our commitment to competitive sport.

In the days following the games, I was pleased to see Scottish Swimming promoting its every child can swim campaign, which is something that I feel very strongly about. Swimming is too often missed when we talk about physical literacy; in fact, as some of the team Scotland medallists have been making clear in an online video that was released this week, it is a life skill. For a start, we live on an island, but the fact is that too many children in this country are still being seriously injured or drowned as a result of accidents in open waterways. In that respect, a fitting legacy of the games would be a long-term commitment to teaching all of our children to swim not only for enjoyment, fitness and sport but because it could get them out of danger. Like riding a bike, the ability to swim, once learned, never leaves us, and it is the perfect activity to turn to as we get older and our ability to exercise vigorously decreases.

As Patricia Ferguson has made clear, walking is also being promoted as an activity for those who are least active and who wish to improve their mobility, fitness or health—indeed, it has been described as the best prescription for a healthier life—and I hope and expect that the cabinet secretary will continue to encourage such activity in a way that promotes lifelong activity. Giving children these skills at the youngest age allows them to return to such activities later on, but we also need to provide entry-level activities that can be gateways for people who take up such activity only later in life.

I do not really have time to go into the whole issue of facilities. All I will say is that they are fantastic. Notwithstanding what Liz Smith has said about swimming pools—and I absolutely agree with her that amazing things can be achieved without facilities—there is no doubt that the increased availability of 50m pools across the country has helped the success of Scottish swimming at Tollcross.