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I turn now to the basis of South Africa's return to international sport-- [Interruption.] Well, I did not wish to disappoint Opposition Members, and especially not the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), who I know has taken such a keen interest in this matter. The part of Labour's document that I applaud deals with this matter. However, as usual, the Labour party seems to be trying to take credit for the fact that South Africa is now back in the international fold. In fact, it was the initiative of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and his influence on the Commonwealth countries that has led to South Africa's return to international sport.The tragedy is that, if the Gleneagles declaration on sport, to give it its full title, had not been signed, and if Opposition Members had given more encouragement to the sports bodies in South Africa which were desperately trying to integrate and which had eradicated all forms of racism within their sport, but which were penalised by Opposition Members on the basis not of their own sins but of those of their politicians, South Africa would have returned to international sport much earlier. None the less, I welcome the Opposition's late conversion, because we all look forward to South Africa's participation in every international sport.
The Government have every reason to be proud of their record. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, we have made a substantial investment in sport, both through the Sports Council and in terms of local government expenditure. The numerous initiatives of previous Ministers, and especially that of my hon. Friend with his champion coaching scheme, have already borne fruit. The encouragement of private participation--on the basis that the Minister of Sport's job is to encourage and not necessarily to intervene directly himself--has been welcome and has led to our excellent sporting record during the past decade. With my hon. Friend in office, we can look forward to some exciting times and to some new initiatives and policies that will carry sport forward into the year 2000 in the excellent heart in which we find it today.
9.39 pm
Mr. Richard Caborn (Sheffield, Central) : Before I discuss the world student games in Sheffield, I ask the Minister to consider the terms of reference for the Foundation for Sport and the Arts as they relate to association football. There is a problem, because the terms of reference debar the foundation from supporting and financing association football. They refer association football to the Football Trust, but that deals with post-Taylor problems. The Sports Council has also expressed concern at the way in which the foundation is allocating the council's finance, which does not take cognisance of its strategic planning and the priority areas for sports development highlighted by it, after much consultation. I should be obliged if the Minister would send me a letter about that.
"There were almost as many adjectives as fireworks flying around the World Student Games closing ceremony at Don Valley
Stadium--brilliant, fantastic, super, terrific. And more. But if I were asked for a one word, stone cold sober, after the event verdict on the Games and its associated festival, my word would be : unbelievable. Did it all really happen here in stolid, workaday Sheffield? In 40 years as a Sheffield journalist I have never seen anything bring the city
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to life the way it was brought to life during the Games fortnight. Twenty years ago, ten years ago, even one year ago, I would not have believed it possibleFrom beginning to end the whole spectacle engendered some kind of magic that pulled ordinary people along with it."
That was the judgment of Peter Harvey, a reporter with the Sheffield Star , a newspaper not known for its constant support for the games. Nevertheless, it reflected the views of the vast majority of Sheffield.
We in Sheffield, with your support, Mr. Speaker, staged the world student games in July. It was the largest sporting event in the world this year and it was a huge success by any standard. It is right to put the finance behind the games into order. The Minister said that the Sports Council gave £3 million to the games. That is true. It gave that money for the purchase of equipment and that has now been dispersed to various areas in Yorkshire and throughout the United Kingdom. The construction of the new facilities had a capital cost of £147 million. It cost just over £20 million to run the games. The people of Sheffield have rightly asked why, in 1987, the city of Sheffield made a bid for the world student games. By the middle of the 1980s we had lost 40,000 jobs from the steel and engineering industries and unemployment was at 15 per cent. In parts of my constituency the level of unemployment was in excess of 40 per cent. Demoralisation was inevitable, but by that time the city had gone into partnership with the private sector. It had already developed a strategy on how we could mangage the necessary change to bring Sheffield out of decline.
That change led to diversity in the economic industrial base so that the city had a higher profile. In turn, that led to a return in civic pride. We developed centres of excellence, in which the world student games played an important part. What has been the result? Inward investment into Sheffield from 1985 to 1991 has amounted to £2.5 billion. The Government will be interested to know that the ratio of public to private investment and the leverage factor is 1 : 3.5. That compares with any of the regeneration schemes.
An independent study by the university of Sheffield on the impact of that investment on employment prospects and the economy revealed an advantage in terms of job creation--6,500 jobs were created in Sheffield and more than 11,000 within the region. The Government should also note that each job has cost £4,000 less than those created by the construction-oriented initiatives around the country. The new facilities are generating activity levels well beyond expectation. National and international events have been attracted to the new facilities at Sheffield, ranging from public cricket to international table tennis. The arena, which is part of the new complex, can house 12,000 people. It now stages sell-out concerts by top pop stars and philharmonic orchestras. The impact on the local economy, hotels, restaurants and other general services has been immense. That shows that a venue like the arena was necessary in the north of England. For example, of the 60,000 people who attended the Dire Straits concert held in the arena, 70 per cent. came from outside Sheffield, which shows the spending power now coming to Sheffield.
Sheffield is becoming one of the top sporting venues not only in Britain but in the world. The indoor arena to which I referred doubles as an ice rink. Its playing surface is
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versatile enough to be used for basketball and volleyball and this Sunday the Soviet gymnastics team will perform there. We have also developed an international standard tennis and netball centre and the Don Valley stadium is the first purpose-designed athletics stadium to be built in this country for many years. It is also the home of the Sheffield Eagles. It staged the McVities international match which attracted the largest athletics crowd in the United Kingdom since the 1950s. Again, that shows that people in the north of England enjoy their sport.The Ponds Forge international swimming complex is the only swimming complex in the United Kingdom with a 50 m, 10-lane pool. It will host the 1993 European swimming championships. In technical and design terms, the complex is said to be the best in the world and our British craftsmen can be very proud of it.
Two other centres have been built and the Lyceum theatre has been refurbished. The cost of all those facilities was £147 million, which is less than was spent on the stadium that housed the football world cup final in Italy. Although the facilities have been built to the highest standards, they have been designed to produce the most flexible and adaptable facilities so that young and old, able and disabled, people can use them.
A few weeks ago I was privileged to watch disabled sports at Ponds Forge. I watched a young wheelchair-bound lad absailing, which is one of the activities for which the complex has been adapted for disabled children. The smile on his face showed that his achievement was as great as that felt by Roger Bannister when he broke the four-minute mile. We must consider such people and ensure that sport is accessible to all.
Those facilities have lifted not only Sheffield's profile but that of the United Kingdom. However, the Government provided not a penny of assistance for the Ponds Forge swimming complex. The Government should review their position and consider where they can provide assistance, because that would have an immense impact on the world swimming and diving scene. The Public Works Loan Board should be at least one avenue of support for funding those facilities. We experienced some difficulties between 1987 and the opening ceremony in July this year. One or two people fell by the wayside, but one of our biggest problems was the lack of television coverage. Apart from Yorkshire Television and BBC North, both of which did an extremely good job, the lack of coverage cost us dearly in terms of our inability to attract sponsorship. The main television channel covering sporting events of that nature should question some of its strategic planning. In late 1990, "World in Action" wheeled out three disillusioned people to slag off and undermine the games. One of them was Mr. Peter Burns, the former chief executive of the games company, who was employed by that company in 1988-89 but sacked for incompetence. He had jointly been appointed by the private and public sectors : ordered 40 cars for the staff, and he had a flat in the City which was funded by the world student games. He then decided to decorate it at a cost of £25,000. That is why he got the sack. Those were the sort of undermining activities that television companies and programmes such as "World in Action" were conducting.
The world student games constituted the peg on which Sheffield hung the development of all the facilities. If someone had predicted the worst case scenario when Sheffield made its bid in 1987, it would have been realised
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in 1991 when the games were staged. The city had begun to build £147 million worth of facilities with no Government support, no national television coverage and a mostly hostile press, when the country was in recession and local government finances were being savagely cut. However, Sheffield is a city with a vision and the partnership of public and private interests were determined to lift the city out of depression so that it could stage the biggest multi-sporting event in the world this year.There were 6,000 participants from 110 countries and 7,000 volunteers at the games. The games were opened on 14 July by our patron, Princess Anne, who stuck with Sheffield through thick and thin and showed the way to promote sport. At the games 100 embassies were represented and seven Sports Ministers from around the world attended, with a considerable number of International Olympic Committee members and representatives of many sporting organisations from around the world.
I hope that the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) will acknowledge that, for the first, time Namibia performed on the international stage and, for the first time, a united Germany put a team into a multi-sport event. But no senior Minister was present on 14 July. Ministers of Sport from around the world were asking why there were no British Sports Ministers or senior Ministers present at the opening ceremony.
Mr. Atkins : It was the British grand prix.
Mr. Caborn : That is the answer.
Half a million people went through the turnstiles, which is surely a record for British athletics and sport. The opening and closing ceremonies were sell-outs and 10,000 people watched the athletics each day. The biggest crowds ever watched the volleyball and basketball games and 3,000 people watched the swimming and diving event. More importantly, 6,000 young athletes--tomorrow's leaders and decision makers--returned to their respective 110 countries with a feeling of good will and warmth for the city of Sheffield and Britain.
To quote just one of many such quotes, a Lebanese delegate said : "Without the World Student Games we would never have known the warmth and goodwill of the people of Britain."
That spells out the message.
The Police Federation magazine Police, has a lovely picture on its cover which shows what the games were all about : a police horse on which a young athlete is riding. The headline states "Policing the Forgotten Games". Inside, an article states :
"The 16th World Student Games took place in July and to the surprise of many people outside the City of Sheffield, which hosted the event, they were a resounding success.
It is to the shame of the British media and the Government which virtually ignored the games (only sending the Minister of Sport at the last minute to the closing ceremony because Neil Kinnock was making his second visit there) and to the commercial sponsors who cold shouldered the occasion, that an opportunity to beat the drum for British sporting interests and organisation prowess was largely missed."
The article concluded :
"Having confounded the snide critics and Jeremiahs by staging perhaps the most outstanding sporting event ever held in Britain, (that includes the 1948 Olympics, the World Cup of 1966 and two Commonwealth Games) the forward
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thinking civic leaders of Sheffield may well be wondering What do we do for an encore? ' Next time will the rest of Britain have the decency to take an interest?"9.53 pm
Mr. Richard Tracey (Surbiton) : In the few concluding minutes of the debate I give my best wishes to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell). This must be his last speech on sport in the House. In announcing his retirement he has left a long and costly demob note for one of his apprentices on the Back Benches to take over. I should be interested in hearing the comments of the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) on how the Labour party could finance what sounded like a false prospectus.
I shall speak about two issues and then give the Front-Bench spokesmen time to respond, unless of course they want to send us notes through the post. Hon. Members have spoken about school sport. About two decades ago, there was a great lack of competitive sport in schools. It was said that the Inner London education authority was one of the ringleaders in the campaign against competitive sport, but that was disputed by the right hon. Member for Small Heath. In 1988, a Mr. Desmond Nuttall, the former head of research in ILEA, summed up the Labour attitude to competition when he said : "You can't have a competitive system that condemns a large proportion to failure".
I can speak from personal experience of an outfit called the Inner-London Teachers Association. It said :
"The hidden curriculum of PE does more than its fair share to produce and reproduce the social and psychological basis necessary to sustain a system populated by ruthless captains of industry, technocrats and subservient proletarians."
That association wanted to stop all that. That was the position that Britain had reached on competitive sport.
I recently attended a major event during the health and fitness week organised by one of the emerging inner London education authorities. There were 1,000 children at the event which launched a campaign continuing throughout the year to introduce youngsters to new-image rugby, and it had the support of the Rugby Football Union. Next year, there will be swimming and sports hall athletics supported by governing bodies, and the summer term will feature cricket and field athletics. In that borough 1,000 children have been enthused. I am sure that it will not surprise the House to know that it is the London borough of Wandsworth. More power to its elbow. It is essential for children to participate in sport beyond that stage and the clubs must be prepared to welcome young people and to encourage them to continue with whatever sport they take up at school. I am surprised that neither the Opposition motion nor that of my party has mentioned the very thing that would produce facilities and money for sport- -a national lottery. That opportunity has been missed for a long time and it could produce £1.1 billion. At the moment, only England and Albania are missing the chance. If we do not introduce a lottery the 6 million letters a year coming to Britain from abroad asking us to pay for foreign lotteries will increase. It is disgraceful that we are not committed to such a lottery.
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9.58 pmMr. Atkins : We have had a good and lengthy debate on a wide range of sports issues. Labour's charter for sport has been mentioned. As I said earlier, it is full of contradictions in relation to whether there should be more or less ministerial involvement. We have heard about Labour's inaction in contributing much to the House since I have been the Minister for Sport. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) said, Labour's charter is uncosted and we do not know what the shadow Treasury Minister thinks about it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) said, it is full of prejudices in relation to Cleveland and that is indicative of the support that Labour authorities do not give to sport. Above all, it is unashamed plagiarism of ideas that are now Government policy. We have demonstrated our commitment by money, by the inclusion of physical education in the national curriculum, by champion coaching and by what the Prime Minister and I have done for international sport.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) accused me of not being present at the opening of the world student games. I was at the British grand prix, which was attended by 150,000 people--somewhat more than there were in Sheffield. I made three visits to Sheffield and I am confident that the grand prix, which earns a lot of money for the country, has just as much importance as the student games. Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question :--
The House divided : Ayes 195, Noes 329.
Division No. 20] [10 pm
AYES
Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)
Allen, Graham
Anderson, Donald
Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Armstrong, Hilary
Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Ashton, Joe
Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Barron, Kevin
Battle, John
Beckett, Margaret
Bell, Stuart
Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)
Benton, Joseph
Bermingham, Gerald
Bidwell, Sydney
Blair, Tony
Blunkett, David
Boateng, Paul
Boyes, Roland
Bradley, Keith
Bray, Dr Jeremy
Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)
Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)
Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)
Caborn, Richard
Callaghan, Jim
Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)
Campbell-Savours, D. N.
Canavan, Dennis
Cartwright, John
Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)
Clelland, David
Cohen, Harry
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Cook, Robin (Livingston)
Cox, Tom
Crowther, Stan
Cunningham, Dr John
Dalyell, Tam
Darling, Alistair
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)
Dewar, Donald
Dixon, Don
Dobson, Frank
Doran, Frank
Duffy, Sir A. E. P.
Dunnachie, Jimmy
Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth
Eadie, Alexander
Eastham, Ken
Enright, Derek
Evans, John (St Helens N)
Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)
Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)
Fatchett, Derek
Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)
Fisher, Mark
Flannery, Martin
Foster, Derek
Foulkes, George
Fraser, John
Fyfe, Maria
Galbraith, Sam
Garrett, John (Norwich South)
Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)
George, Bruce
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Godman, Dr Norman A.
Golding, Mrs Llin
Gordon, Mildred
Gould, Bryan
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