Sport gives benefits in terms of health, addressing social exclusion and in reducing crime

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

And it said only a third of children spend two or more hours a week doing PE.

Three-quarters of 11-16-year-olds watch TV for more than two hours a day.

Adults are also doing insufficient exercise, according to the committee's report.

It points to a 1990 Sports' Council and Health Education Authority report, which found seven out of 10 men and eight out of 10 women were not meeting activity levels.

Cuba praised

Countries, such as Cuba, where sport is "intimately bound up" with the public health agenda were praised by the committee.

Sport in the UK currently comes under the auspices of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

The committee said the sports minister, Kate Hoey, should have closer links with the Department of Health.

And that said sports current home with culture and media "perpetuates the notion of sport as a matter for spectators rather than participants."

It said the sports minister should figure on key health committees across government.

MPs praised the "energy and zeal" behind the government's public health policy, but said more needed to be done to help members of the public see the benefits of exercise.

The report said public health provision, at local and national levels, needed to be strengthened.

And it said there should be more co-ordination between government departments, statutory agencies, local and health authorities and the voluntary sector, so that ideas can be put into place.

More clarity is needed for the role of Health Promotion England, which took over some of the work of the Health Education Authority, says the committee, which says existing arrangements are "opaque".

An extension of the work of health visitors to care for needy groups such as the elderly is also suggested.

David Hinchcliffe, chairman of the committee, said initiatives like health action zones, from which the idea of a piece of fruit a day for schoolchildren came, was a good idea.

He added that more needed to be done to ensure that government ideas were fed down to local levels.

Recommendations

Yvette Cooper, the minister for public health, said: We will be studying the recommendations of the Select Committee and will publish a full response in the near future."

She highlighted the NHS Plan, which set out how nicotine replacement therapy would be available on prescription, and children would get free fruit in schools.

She added: "These latest measures build on a national programme of action to prevent disease and tackle health inequalities"

The department will also be publishing the Chief Medical Officer's report into the public health function on the internet today.

A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, said it was up to the Prime Minister to decide where to decide how departments were arranged.

And he added that the government's sport strategy, published last April, did look at the health benefits of sport.

And he added: "Sport gives benefits in terms of health, addressing social exclusion and in reducing crime."