Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers Andy Burnham, Ivan Lewis and Tessa Jowell will this morning host a Select Committee-style hearing into the future of school sport and the London 2012 Olympic sporting legacy, where they will be joined by Olympic gold medallist Darren Campbell. 

At the top of the agenda will be the decision by the Government to cut £162 million ($260 million) worth of investment into school sport, which was announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review last month.

Andy Burnham, Labour's Shadow Education Secretary, said: "In 1997, Labour inherited a school sports system in the doldrums.

"We changed all that to ensure that every child had the opportunity to take part in high quality sport, including competitive sport.

"All this is now under threat.

"Just when we are working to inspire young people across the globe through our International Olympic and Paralympic Legacy, our own children are being let down.

"It's good that David Cameron is supporting our World Cup bid in Zurich, but he needs to pay more attention to the damage his Government is doing to the grassroots of sport here in the UK."

Jowell, the architect of London's successful bid to host the 2012 Games and now the Shadow Olympics Minister, warned that the decision to slash the school sport budget threatened the promises made during the successful bid.

She said: "Five years ago, when London won the bid for the Olympics, we made a promise to the international community and the people of this country - to transform a generation of young people through sport.

"With the eyes of the international community on London, the Coalition Government are placing this legacy in danger, in clear contradiction to everything that the Olympics should mean for our country."

Earlier today, the Shadow Ministers visited a school in Walthamstow that has seen its funding that was focused on improving sports facilities cut, its specialist sports status taken away and will now lose further support for sport as the £162 million School Sports Partnership programme disappears.

Ivan Lewis, Labour's Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, said: "At a time when we are preparing to host the Olympics and fighting an obesity crisis, this dismantling of support for school sport is perverse and short-sighted.

"Parents and young people will feel badly let down by the threat of reversing the historic progress over the past decade in levels of participation, including the resurgence of competitive sport.

"It will hit disadvantaged young people the hardest and makes a mockery of our commitment to deliver an Olympic legacy."

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