Why Do I Hear You Talking So Much About Sport?

Some people ask why they see me speaking out so much on issues like sport, obesity and personal health. The answer is fairly simple. I take a genuine interest in this issue and once a reputation is built with journalists they tend to come to me for a comment whenever the issue arises in the national media. I also do generate a lot of interest in the issue because it is genuinely important to millions of people. I feel the need to play my part in raising this issue at a national level for fear that it will be ignored if I do not.

For a start there are about 1.5 million volunteers in sport in this country and those people need a voice.

There is a health time bomb being built up with dangerous levels of obesity and again I have been warning about this for years. It is now of course something the government and other agencies are taking up with a vengeance, but I still need to keep up the pressure.

Often in politics, as in other walks of life, one tends to end up with people thinking you have an expertise in a matter and that again has happened in this field. As a sport mad person I was not going to give up this passion just because I became an MP. Too often people change their lives and lifestyle when the demands of the job take over. I have always tried to do as much as I did before being elected and have not changed my lifestyle much in the last 7 years. This means I keep in close touch with what is happening at the grassroots of sport and again I think somebody needs to speak out.

Just because I do a lot of this does not mean that it is at the expense of other subject areas. Basically I prioritise issues arising from the constituency first. Then I take an interest in all matters relating to sport, third world debt and development and the question of society and child development. These are the national areas I concentrate on, along with hundreds of others that are neither constituency matters or within the scope of these priorities. So for example in transport issues I am concerned with cycling, walking to school, speed cameras, bus partnerships, improving rail, rail freight, airport development for example.