Hansard

I thank Ruth Maguire for bringing the debate to the chamber and giving us the opportunity to discuss a topic that is, as everyone present knows, close to my heart, and about which I am extremely passionate.

I have said many times in the chamber that education is a major solution to health and welfare issues. A key element of that is the impact that physical literacy can have on health inequality and the attainment gap. I maintain that we can close neither the attainment gap nor the health inequality gap—in terms of physical health and mental health—without fully addressing the physical literacy deficit that exists in tandem with other inequalities.

From a physiology perspective—allow me to get this out of the way first—we know that the cardiovascular system, the neuromuscular system and bone density, as well as neural pathways that are important in speech, listening skills, behavioural traits and attention capacity, are all established pre-school. We all intrinsically understand that a child who is given the opportunity to be active outside the classroom is more likely to have positive behaviour traits inside the classroom, is more likely to engage in the classroom and is, therefore, more likely to achieve.

However, we seem to be obsessed increasingly with making children sit still all the time. It is unnatural. Part of the brain switches off in youngsters if they are forced to sit still for too long without any physical activity. Children are not built to sit still. Good grief, Presiding Officer—I am not built to sit still! I would be in constant trouble with you if part of your remit was to get MSPs to sit still with their arms crossed and to sit up straight. There would be a naughty step on which I lived all the time.

That brings us to the importance of active play—especially in the early years. As I have said before, youngsters want to move about a lot with their peers. In doing so, they set patterns for life and learn interaction skills, confidence, resilience, self-awareness and awareness of others—all behaviours that are much more difficult to learn sitting still in a nursery or classroom, but which have a huge influence on outcomes from the classroom. We have not got that right yet. We need to consider how we give every child the opportunity for outdoor and indoor play: climbing, jumping—in puddles, if necessary—falling down, getting back up, catching, throwing and all the other ways that they can invent to learn in their own ways.

That is the blueprint for life. That is how we tackle preventable ill health and stack the cards in our favour. It is how we give ourselves a better opportunity to tackle the obesity crisis, diabetes, musculoskeletal issues, chest, heart and lung issues, not to mention rising mental health issues, all of which disproportionately affect the most disadvantaged people in our society and which—apart from anything else—cost our national health service billions of pounds.

That is what I mean when I talk about behavioural drivers. I maintain that, if we could get our youngsters active at the earliest opportunity and give them the pathway to remain active all through their school years, the chances of their choosing not to smoke, not to take up alcohol, not to be overweight, and to eat well and to have good mental health would be hugely increased. We have to look at access to such opportunities and we have to break down the barriers to participation.

I had the powerchair footballers from the South Ayrshire Tigers in Parliament today. I have often mentioned them and the fact that they hammered an MSP football team last year. If members ever want to understand what having an opportunity to participate means and the impact that it can have on lives, they should speak to that team. They are just the most amazing group of people. Participation has taken them out of isolation and into the mainstream.

That all starts with access to active play, and with the premise that it is every child’s right to play with their friends, get dirty, be noisy and be sociable, irrespective of background or personal circumstances—all the things that we took for granted when we were kids. In my view, that is the basis of solving many of the problems that we see in our society today.

Once again, I thank Ruth Maguire for bringing the debate to the chamber and for allowing me another chance to rant about my very favourite topic.