Major backs increase in school sport

Sports Politics

The Prime Minister will today insist on schools moving towards a minimum of two hours of physical education a week and a greater emphasis on team games, writes Stephen Goodwin.

Speaking on BBC1's Breakfast News, John Major says sporting lessons are as important to a child's upbringing as maths and English. "At school people learn to relate better one with another if they learn to take part in team games," he says.

He also reiterates his commitment - despite opposition from the Athletes' Commission of the British Olympic Association - to the plan for a single elite academy of sporting excellence, rather than the regional centres the athletes would prefer. "I've not a shadow of doubt that this national academy is the biggest single move forward in sport that we have seen for a very long time," he says, adding that special facilities to deal with sporting injuries and research could not be done at a regional level.