BY Telegraph.co.uk,

The Government faced renewed pressure in Parliament yesterday when Hugh Robertson, Shadow Minister for Sport, questioned the veracity of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's figures on the provision of diving facilities, following Saturday's report in The Daily Telegraph.

Gerry Sutcliffe, the Minister for Sport, failed to comment on the specifics of the figures put before him but said the Government was committed to swimming provision. The minister then claimed our campaign was "inaccurate".

However, The Daily Telegraph can disclose that of the 171 diving facilities listed on Sport England's Active Places database, just under 40 per cent are inaccessible to the public and almost a third of them belong to public schools.

Robertson said: "It is completely unacceptable to massage the figures for political purposes. The Government needs to face up to the scale of the crisis, reverse the cuts to sports lottery funding that have caused it, and produce a proper action plan to rectify this issue.

"I have tabled five parliamentary written questions and I await the answers this week."

A week ago, the DCMS responded to a report in The Telegraph charting the demise of swimming facilities nationally, by stating that there were 171 diving facilities.

In October last year, the Minister for Sport had replied in written parliamentary answers that there were 64 facilities. A spokesperson for Sport England explained the anomaly, saying: "The figure 64, within the Active Places data, is an indoor only [facility] and is specifically designed for diving. The figure 171, within the Active Places data, refers to a swimming pool where a diving board is present."

However, the Great Britain Diving Federation say the number of public diving facilities has plummeted from 296 to 66 since 1977, a net loss of 78 per cent.

The Telegraph campaign drew more support yesterday from the Swimming Teachers' Association, which has 6,000 members.

Roger Millward, the STA's chief executive, said: "What is evident in this entire debate is that the swimming industry as a whole needs to work in unison to ensure the future success of this most popular sporting and leisure activity.

"There is far too much politics going on within the sport - with the focus too heavily balanced on the elite side of swimming.

"Swimming for fun, health and safety should be the Government's priority, and this requires a serious commitment and investment into grass roots and school swimming.

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