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Mr. John Bowis (Battersea) : I agree with what my hon. Friend has said about the facilities for excellence. Does he agree that the base for sport depends on the very basic availability of land, especially playing fields? In the past,
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that has been threatened by local authorities that have sold playing fields. That practice must be stopped-- [Interruption.] I was not seeking to be controversial, but now I shall be. That base for sport was also threatened by the former Greater London council and Inner London education authority, which consistently opposed any team sport. As a consequence, sport in London suffered and had to be rescued by organisations such as the London Community Cricket Association.Mr. Coombs : I am beginning to think that if I give way again, nothing in my speech will sound original as I deliver it. I agree with my hon. Friend and I intend to refer to those matters in a few moments. However, I shall try not to repeat what he said in his excellent and helpful intervention.
Before I leave the subject of Olympic sports, I want to raise two specific points with my hon. Friend the Minister. The Government promised legislation to safeguard the British Olympic Association's use of the Olympic rings symbol for sponsorship and other purposes. Can my hon. Friend say when that legislation will be ready and when the House will have a chance to consider it, because it is of great importance in the lead-up to the next Olympic games in 1996? Will my hon. Friend also listen to a special plea from the sport of ice skating? Mention of John Curry, Robin Cousins, Jayne Torville and Christopher Dean reminds us that we can compete at the highest level--but our facilities in that sport are so limited that our elite competitors must train in the middle of the night, when ice rinks are not used by casual, amateur skaters. Is my hon. Friend prepared to unfreeze the sources from the lottery to correct that situation? I appreciate that it will not be his decision, but I have no doubt that he has influence in that sphere, as in many others. I hope that he will exert it.
Ice skating is one sport which attracts enthusiastic beginners of all ages, some of whom go on to be champions. Another is swimming. We have enjoyed great success with swimming over the years. One thinks of Duncan Goodhew, Sharon Davies, and many others. However, too many children in this country never learn to swim and, appallingly, on average two children drown every week.
The efforts of the Royal Life Saving Society, the Amateur Swimming Association and the English School Sport Association have for several years been directed at a campaign for swimming in schools. In September, the Royal Life Saving Society will place definitive water safety and swimming resource materials in every school in the land. Young people must learn water safety skills in primary schools. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to endorse that campaign and to impress on the Department for Education the need to support swimming with national curriculum time and the necessary resources.
Mr. Stanley Orme (Salford, East) : I accept that swimming education is necessary and should be encouraged. Can the hon. Gentleman say why facilities are being reduced so dramatically in inner-city areas such as my own, where local authorities have no funds to provide them?
Mr. Coombs : I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman acknowledges that I am speaking up today for sport. I am not here to defend a reduction in swimming facilities ; in fact, I want to see them expanded. If the right hon.
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Gentleman is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I hope that he will take up that point, which is crucial for the safety of our young people.On 13 April, the Government published their own water sports safety review. They are aware of the issues, but I want them to be aware also that they should channel resources to ensure that water safety can be a reality for all our children in future years.
Swimming is one of the best forms of exercise. I know that many right hon. and hon. Members participate in it, yet the national picture in this country is unhappy and unhealthy. The latest national fitness survey estimated that 70 per cent. of men and 91 per cent. of women do not take sufficient exercise for a healthy life style. A recent study by Exeter university concluded that 13 per cent. of boys and 10 per cent. of girls were overweight while at school--partly through lack of exercise. Physical education is, of course, part of the national curriculum, but we need a commitment from the Department for Education to a minimum of two hours physical education a week if sufficient physical exercise is to be available to young people. Resources and facilities are vital to physical education in schools, and no sport has been more seriously affected--at the level of popular participation--by a lack of resources, than cricket. Both my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) and the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), who has now left the
Chamber--mentioned cricket, and I wish to say a little about that fine sport.
The problem is not so much the selling off of playing fields as the fact that they were under-used and not properly maintained when they still existed. That, I fear, is part of the reason why they were sold off. According to a recent report by the National Cricket Association, 97 per cent. of those asked said that the lack of cricket in schools was the main reason why the game had lost much of its appeal and its following.
Gone are the days when tens of thousands flocked to county grounds on a Saturday to watch the first day of a championship match. Now, those who bother to go will see--if they are lucky--the third day of a four-day game, played on a flat, covered wicket, in which, all too often, the bat dominates the ball to an unacceptable degree. Cricket lovers are deeply concerned about England's lack of success in India and Sri Lanka ; by the endless experiments with coloured clothing and white balls ; and by the most curious selection policies that I can remember in my 40 years as a cricket lover.
Would it be asking too much for us to be allowed to watch David Gower coming out to bat for England against Australia at Lord's one month from today, preferably--if a Hampshire supporter may be permitted to say this-- to join Robin Smith in a productive partnership of power and elegance?
Mr. John Carlisle (Luton, North) : May I help my hon. Friend to select the England side? This is relevant to both the debate and the Front Bench. Might it be an idea to adopt the Indian system whereby the selectors have two Government nominees with voting rights on the board? I would certain nominate my hon. Friend as one, and possibly the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) as the other. We might then have a more balanced side.
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Mr. Coombs : The all-party cricket group, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme), is already beginning to influence the English selection process. It recently invited Mr. Ted Dexter to one of its meetings. I am not sure whether Mr. Dexter took away all our thoughts ; we shall see when the team is chosen for the first test next month.
Let us be serious. Only if the game of cricket is enabled to flourish in our schools will we see its best aspects--the things that we all love--in future. I believe that time is running out for the recovery of the game we love.
I wish that time allowed me to do more than merely mention a range of other sports ; I hope that other hon. Members will be able to say more about them. I should like to speak in more detail of our joy at Britain's having a world heavyweight boxing champion for the first time this century--I am sure that we all congratulate Lennox Lewis on his achievement. I wish that I could say more about the dominance of world golf by a British golfer, Nick Faldo ; about the contribution of Widnes and Wigan to the game of rugby league in this country--following Saturday's game, perhaps we should mention St. Helens as well ; and about the excellent family entertainment which speedway provides in my constituency and many others.
I should also like to refer to the Government's recent rescue of the British horseracing industry, in the nick of time. Perhaps at least one hon. Member will be tempted to speak of the problems of greyhound racing, and the question of evening off-track betting shop opening.
Let me address myself instead to the question of the administration of British sport and the resources available to it. In October this year, the new Sports Commission will begin its work, and the English Sports Council will come into existence to mirror those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. To most people, that sounds a sensible arrangement, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will agree that it should not, and must not, be allowed to be the reason for more bureaucracy and, hence, for the increased use of resources that would otherwise go directly into sport.
It worries me that, in a recent parliamentary answer, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage told the House that, whereas the Arts Council spends 3.6 per cent. of its grant in aid on administration, the Sports Council spends 37 per cent. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that in his reply.
I should not want the House to be misled by my reference to those facts. I am well aware of the wide range of excellent services to sport provided by the Sports Council. Nevertheless, we should concentrate on those administration costs for a moment, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to reassure us. Clearly, we do not need more bureaucracy in sport. We need resources directed at our sportsmen and sportswomen out of the£50 million that the Government give to the Sports Council every year.
By contrast, the new Foundation for Sport and the Arts spends only 2 per cent. of its budget on administration. The foundation has already disbursed more than £100 million in donations and, with the Football Trust, is making excellent use of the money released by the reduction in the pools betting duty that the Chancellor has initiated. The pools companies deserve our congratulations, too, on the way in which they have supported the foundation.
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It is clear that the private sector as a whole has a major role to play in the funding of sports projects. It is vital, therefore that the expertise of leisure industry companies such as First Leisure is used in the planning of commercially sound joint ventures. In that context, my hon. Friend the Minister may care to note the view of the leisure companies that compulsory competitive tendering, although it is a step in the right direction, is not delivering the level of investment for which we had all hoped.Some 84 per cent. of contracts in local government are won in house. That may well mean sharper management in many cases, but it does not bring in the expertise of the private sector or the investment that is so badly needed to improve facilities owned by local authorities. The right hon. Member for Salford, East referred to swimming facilities, but there are many other instances in which more resources and investment are badly needed.
If the proceeds of the national lottery are to go to local authorities to any degree or if capital receipts are to be used for sports projects, I believe that private sector expertise will be needed to ensure that those funds are used for the benefit of council tax payers, and not at open-ended cost to them.
I mentioned the Football Trust, and I want to conclude with a look at the state of our premier spectator sport. There is much to celebrate--not least England's superb effort in the world cup, not only in reaching the semi- finals but in winning the fair play award. Thanks in large part to the legislation introduced by the Government to control the consumption of alcohol, crowd behaviour has improved so significantly that the pitch invasion at Manchester City on 7 March stands out as an unusual occurrence, and the tragedies of Hillsborough and Heysel seem a very long time ago.
The recommendation of the Taylor report that football stadiums should provide only seating accommodation has been modified in respect of the two lower divisions, some of whose clubs would probably have been bankrupted by that requirement. But that threat still hangs over some first division clubs whose average attendances are lower than the best of those in the second division. On 3 May, Burnley and Rotherham, in the second division, had larger gates than Brentford, Charlton and Oxford in the first. Is my hon. Friend prepared to think again about the possibility of keeping some standing accommodation for clubs with average attendances over the season below 10,000--provided, of course, that the Football Licensing Authority considers that a club can meet safety requirements in respect of that standing accommodation ?
My own club, Swindon Town, would very much like to keep its Stratton bank stand as standing accommodation even though it is now competing for a place in the Premier League. Without it, the ground's capacity would be reduced in 1994 from 19,000 to 14,000, even though the Football Trust has put up 60 per cent. of the cost of a new south stand.
There are many fans who still prefer to stand and who, I believe, can be trusted today to behave themselves. Yesterday's play-off game at Swindon against Tranmere Rovers was watched, without incident, by a crowd of 14,000, of whom 4,000 were standing. I hope that my hon. Friend will also be my flexible friend in this matter and
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give careful consideration to a further change in the regulations to ensure that those who wish to stand at football matches can, within reason, be allowed to do so.In the meantime, the ability of many clubs to improve their grounds depends on the ability of the Football Trust to support them. Will my hon. Friend set minds at rest and reaffirm the extension of the reduction of 2.5 per cent. of pools betting duty on which the Football Trust is obviously entirely dependent?
The passage of the National Lottery etc. Bill led to some welcome amendments, designed to ensure that the pools companies were less adversely affected than they had feared. I thank my hon. Friend for the understanding that he has shown in such matters. Perhaps he will say whether he is now prepared to consider further the possibility of allowing the pools companies equal rights to advertise on television and radio as will be afforded to the national lottery? He will appreciate that there is a risk that the Football Trust and football clubs could be the losers if the playing field is not level. The motion congratulates the Government on "its continuing recognition" of the role of sport. I should mention in particular the £3 million a year grant to Sportsmatch, the business sponsorship incentive scheme for sport, which is evidence of the Government's commitment to sport, as is the securing of international competitions such as the world gymnasium championships last month and the European football championships, which will come to England in 1996. I believe, and I hope that the House believes, that we have very much to be proud of in British sport, but there is still very much to achieve in order to enhance the nation's life and its prestige abroad.
4.37 pm
Mr. Tom Pendry (Stalybridge and Hyde) : I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) on breaking new ground by tabling a motion on sport. It is generally Labour Members who initiate such debates, and it is good to see that tradition being broken. In addition to the congratulations--with which I concur--that the hon. Gentleman passed on to individual athletes, the British Lions and many more, I was surprised that he did not congratulate his own team, Swindon Town, on winning in the play-offs yesterday. I am sure that he would wish to rectify that omission.
It is thanks to the hon. Gentleman that I am once again at the Dispatch Box and able to lock horns with the Minister to discuss the general state of sport in Britain. I cannot, however, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his wording of the motion. He clearly has a lot to learn about the state of sport in this country, and I suspect that the wording for the motion came from the Minister's own Department. Before discussing that motion in detail, I am sure that the House will realise the importance that a successful national lottery could have for sport, and we all look to the Minister to ensure that sport gets a fair and honest deal. I must refer, however, to the pathetic charade that those of us concerned with the lottery have had to endure with the secrecy surrounding the GAH group report, which the Minister commissioned to assist the Government's thinking before the National Lottery etc. Bill was drafted. The Minister is aware of last week's scandalous revelation that the GAH group is now demanding £695 plus value
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added tax for its own commercial report on the lottery--a report which any reasonable person would suspect is largely the product of work carried out at the taxpayer's expense. I received a letter from the Minister this morning informing me that in his view the GAH group commercial report"bears no direct relation to the work we commissioned." I am sure that the Minister was extremely careful in the choice of his words as he will have had the opportunity, as I have, to read a copy of the commercial report and to compare it with the terms of reference for the Government report given by his Department to the GAH group, which he set out in a parliamentary answer to me on 21 January.
I shall not dwell on the report today, but I shall be writing to the Minister in great detail to show him where I think that his assessment of the situation is wrong. However, he may wish to reflect on one aspect in advance of receiving my letter. Without using information gained as a result of its publicly funded work behind the scenes with his Department, how could the GAH group possibly produce a report providing information on the following : the criteria to be used to select the lottery contractor, the value of the contracts, the number of retailers and the work required in the preparation of the tender document?
There is one matter on which the Minister must put the House's mind at rest today. Has he made inquiries to ensure that the commercial report is the full extent to which the GAH group is seeking to profit from its access to privileged information and that the company is not working for any companies seeking to gain contracts for the lottery? I hope that the Minister will refer to that when he makes his contribution to the debate.
Before we leave the subject of the national lottery, the Minister will recall an interesting debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) about certain discriminatory practices exercised by the Rugby Football Union against the British Amateur Rugby League Association. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I am sure that he and other hon. Members will wish to use this opportunity to pursue that vital issue. Perhaps the Minister will be able to give a more forthright reply than he was able to on Report.
We are discussing not only the national lottery, but the glut of issues and challenges facing the Minister and his as yet fledgling Department in relation to sport. He will know by now that sport has had enough of being treated as a political outcast by Tory Governments and is demanding the respect that it undoubtedly deserves. Perhaps I am being unkind to the Minister, because he is without doubt an improvement on his predecessor, the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins).
However, I must inform the Minister that, if he wishes to make his mark in sport, herosper, he must do everything in his power to prevent his Department becoming a mere conduit through which vital aspects of policy are passed to other Departments. If he will allow me, I shall give an illustration of the damage that can ensue when he fails to give a lead to the Government on sport. He must bang some ministerial heads together to get results for our sportsmen and women and for spectators.
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The Minister will be aware that one of the very few concrete actions to come from the review of sports policy undertaken by his predecessor was the publication for consultation of a draft letter--not an actual letter--about school playing fields, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Swindon. The Minister's predecessor sent the draft letter for comment from local authority organisations on 19 December 1991--17 months ago.In a parliamentary written answer to me only four days ago, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools, the hon. Member for Mid -Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), informed me that within 61 days responses had been received from all but one organisation--the Tory-dominated London Boroughs Association. Much to the Minister's embarrassment, I am sure, his hon. Friend went on to tell me that the LBA was sent a further copy of the letter and then had to be chased on the telephone before it informed the Government that it was not bothering to reply.
The Minister might like to comment on the commitment to sport in the capital of his political friends in the Tory-dominated LBA or, more to the point, their lack of commitment, which knocks the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis).
Mr. John Bowis (Battersea) : I thought that the proof of the pudding was in the eating. If the hon. Gentleman were to come to the London borough of Wandsworth, he would see the "Sport for Youth" campaign which was initiated last year and which has been run by Wandsworth council. Its aim is to put back into the curriculum the sporting opportunities for young people which were woefully absent when the Inner London education authority was responsible.
Mr. Pendry : I regret giving way to the hon. Gentleman, who is merely plugging a particular borough and not the London Boroughs Association, to which I was referring.
Since the responses to the draft letter were received by the Department for Education more than 14 months ago, the Government have done nothing but sit on their hands. If the Minister is to have any credibility in sport, he must take this opportunity to apologise for the shameful lack of effort by his predecessor and promise the House that firm and decisive action will be taken without delay to halt the scandalous sale of those precious sporting assets--our school playing fields--to which the hon. Member for Swindon referred. I, and the House, look forward to that promise.
I must assure the Minister that his honeymoon period is well and truly over. We gave him an extended honeymoon, but it is now time he tackled the lack of concerted action and the unfulfilled promises which remain the hallmark of the Government's attitude to sport. For instance, I am sure that he will agree that it is high time he took a more positive approach to the problems facing our national game of football--a matter also mentioned by the hon. Member for Swindon. My views on soccer are pretty well documented and, to be fair, I must acknowledge the positive attitude to football displayed by the Minister's previous boss, the right hon. and learned Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor). Unfortunately, since the right hon. and learned Member left his post, football has seen precious little action from
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the Minister's Department or any other Department. Indeed, there has been a distinct lack of leadership exercised by the Minister towards out national game.My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), who is the chairman of the all-party football committee, has asked me to apologise for his not being here, as Sheffield Wednesday is reorganising the ticket allocation for the replay on Thursday. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) is not only chairman of the all-party cricket committee but happens also to be vice-chairman of the all-party football committee--a versatile man--and he will no doubt try to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If evidence of the lack of leadership is required, I mention the deafening silence from Ministers following the recent pitch invasions on grounds throughout the country--most recently at Exeter City, where the referee was assaulted. The pitch invasion at Manchester City last March was especially significant because nearly two thirds of the fans came from the £7 million new stand which was built in response to Lord Justice Taylor's recommendation for all-seater stadiums. I do not for one minute wish to imply that such incidents reflect badly on the recommendations of the Taylor report or that we should discourage the construction of new modern stands fit for the 21st century--far from it : I want to see more of them--but the Minister will be aware that an integral part of the strategy for football which Taylor envisaged was to balance the greater freedom afforded by the removal of fences from in front of the stands with the creation of new offences to deter those who might wish to abuse that freedom and invade the pitch.
The Minister will be further aware that, following the publication of the Taylor report, I repeatedly urged the Home Secretary to heed Lord Justice Taylor's advice and get the new offences on to the statute book. That was done, albeit belatedly, with the introduction of the Football (Offences) Act 1991. What is the use of getting those offences on to the statute book if the powers thereby given to the clubs, to the police and to magistrates are not used to the full to discourage pitch invasions? Had a mere handful of the original offenders been charged under the Act, fined up to £1,000, excluded from the team's ground and had their names published in every team's programme in the early part of the season, we would not have found too many so-called fans running on to the pitch.
The Minister must see that as lack of action on his part and tell the House today that he will speak to his colleagues in the Home Office to get them to agree to issue a circular to magistrates and the police drawing attention to the provisions of the Act and pressing them to enforce it so as to prevent any recurrence of such disturbing events next season.
As the Minister is no doubt aware, the Football (Offences) Act 1991 arose out of a recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee report, "Policing Football Hooliganism", which was published in February 1991. He must also recall that the throwing of missiles and the chanting of obscene and racist language was also outlawed in the Act. Can he tell the House how well he has monitored progress in that area?
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The Select Committee report also recommended, in line with the Taylor report, that it should be made a specific offence to sell tickets on the day of a football match without the authority of the home club. Yet the Government saw fit to leave such a provision out of the Football (Offences) Act. Since then, I have written repeatedly to Ministers urging them to introduce legislation against ticket touts and I have had two undertakings from the Prime Minister that legislation to prohibit ticket touting will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows.I know that the Football Association shares my concerns and it is a disgrace that, more than three years later, nothing has been done by the Government. It is vital that legislation he introduced as soon as possible because of the mounting evidence of the problems caused by touting, both throughout the domestic calendar and at prestigious events such as the FA cup final. If the Minister saw The Mail on Sunday yesterday, he will have read Simon Greenberg's article highlighting some of the touting problems at Wembley over the weekend.
I hope that the Minister has had a chance to read the fine report by the chief trading standards officer of Liverpool city council which shows that touting has undermined segregation arrangements between supporters at every cup final between 1988 and 1992. It was estimated that, in the 1992 cup final between Liverpool and Sunderland, a minimum of 1,200 tickets were touted, resulting in fans paying up to £138,000 in excess prices. According to the report, the level of touting was in reality much higher. Many fans were understandably reluctant to reveal how much they had paid and where they purchased their tickets.
It is not just football that has fallen victim to the universally condemned action of ticket touts. In September 1990, the authorities at Wimbledon, tired of Government inactivity, took action and introduced measures designed to safeguard the position of tennis-loving fans and to minimise the black market in Wimbledon tickets.
The problem was of sufficient concern for my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) to raise the matter last week and to ask whether the Government would consider the possibility of touting spreading to Buckingham palace, now that the decision had been taken to issue tickets in advance for the newly announced tours of the palace. The spectacle of ticket-touting spivs at the royal palace may make the Government sit up. I hope that the Minister will raise the issue with Home Office Ministers, and that they will introduce an appropriate clause, perhaps in the Criminal Justice Bill which is about to begin its Committee stage, or that he will at least support others who may wish to introduce such a clause.
The Minister's previous boss, the right hon. and learned Member for Putney, received a delegation that I took to him on the question of standing areas at football grounds--a matter touched on by his hon. Friends. I put to the then Minister the desire of football supporters organisations for safe standing areas within their grounds and, having listened to the arguments, he conceded the case for the lower divisions, but he would not go all the way with us. Some premier and first division clubs will not meet the deadline laid down for conversion of their grounds to all-seater stadiums by 1994-95 for a host of reasons--some
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have planning problems with their local authorities or with the Department of the Environment--so the present Minister will need to show some flexibility.What has also happened since the Taylor report is that the world has moved on, especially in terms of science, and even since we met the Minister's right hon. and learned Friend there have been some significant advances in safety technology as it relates to the question of standing areas at grounds. The crowd pressure monitoring system introduced by the NNC at Risley is one such example of a proven system which can be adapted to crush barriers on terracing to prevent any threat to the safety of supporters who choose to stand. The system contains a series of sensors in a barrier which are linked to a computer which monitors the amount of pressure being exerted on the barrier at the front of the crowd. The system has been so successful that it has attracted considerable interest from Italian stadium designers and from crowd safety consultants in the United States of America. It is another example of a British invention being taken up by others but not by the British themselves.
It is clear that that system, in conjunction with the Football Stadia Advisory Design Council's guidelines on safer terracing published in March, can clearly meet the highest safety standards that the Government rightly demand. In the interests of football, will the Minister give an undertaking to look at those proposals and to reconsider the whole question of safe terracing for those clubs which are expected to meet the deadlines of the Taylor report? Better still, will he also undertake to visit Risley to see for himself--as I have done--a system which, if adopted, will please millions of football supporters?
I hope that the Minister has had the chance to read a new report produced this week by the Sports Council, "New Horizons, Sport in the 90s", which sets out an agenda for its remaining period of office. The report says clearly on page 59 that Britain is lagging behind its European partners in terms of investment in new sporting development. The Sports Council in its comparison of final Government expenditure on sport, based on the 1985 prices, with the various member states of the Council of Europe, found that with the exception of Portugal, the United Kingdom Government spent one third less on sport than other member states did.
That led the Sports Council to conclude :
"Other nations have been swifter to recognise the economic benefits of sporting success, as well as its value to national prestige. They have invested heavily in new sporting developments. Overseas competitors are often surprised how relatively little financial support their sport receives in the land of its birth and how well Britain's sporting men and women perform despite this disadvantage. Other nations in Europe recognise the economic benefits of sporting success as well as its value to national prestige--indeed our overseas competitors are often surprised at how little financial support sport receives in this country".
That is why I disagree with the wording of the motion. If the hon. Member for Swindon had read that report, he might have framed the motion rather differently. I hope that the Minister will address himself to the Sports Council's comments.
The Minister's Department stands condemned as it has failed to put into practice one of the few important recommendations to come out of the review by the hon. Member for South Ribble--the proposal to reform the national structures of sport, including the creation of the United Kingdom Sports Commission and a separate
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English Sports Council. The Minister will understand our desire to press for further information about the exact date at which these bodies will be established as there is widespread concern that the Government's current plans will not come to fruition by October, as previously announced.The Minister must recognise the concerns of those who are worried about the way in which the proposals for the United Kingdom Sports Commission are turning out. The Minister must be aware that a royal charter is not the property of Government, although once it is born, it can be revoked only by Parliament. It is not a political charter and, according to my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Howell, who knows about these things, it should not be imposed on Parliament or the sporting world in controversial circumstances, as it involves Her Majesty the Queen.
Opposition parties should already have been consulted, and as Opposition spokesman for sport I have yet to receive my official copy. Not only will the Minister offend Opposition parties, but he will offend his right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland unless fuller consultation is carried out.
The bureaucratic nature of the proposals is exactly as predicted by Lord Howell when he spoke from the Opposition Front Bench at the time of the initial announcement. Because the draft charters contradict much of what the review recommended, notably the breakdown of roles between the proposed United Kingdom Sports Commission and the Sports Council for England--
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage (Mr. Robert Key) : How does the hon. Gentleman know that
Mr. Pendry : Because a charter has been leaked to me. However, it is a disgrace that I have not received a copy from the Minister. The Minister will be aware that the hon. Member for South Ribble said in his review that the United Kingdom Sports Commission should be responsible for
"promoting higher standards of performance and excellence in sport at a UK level."
However, the wording in the draft charter is not "at a UK level", but for the "UK as a whole." That could lead to the interpretation that the UKSC has a responsibility for all aspects of sport in the United Kingdom causing no end of duplication and confusion between the proposed two organisations.
In short, the UKSC should be concerned with our international dimensions and the Sports Council with our national sports. The situation as it stands cannot be allowed to continue and I look forward to playing my part in the review process when the Minister has the courtesy to send me a copy of the charter.
An integral part of ensuring the success of the United Kingdom Sports Commission and the English Sports Council, whatever arrangements are arrived at for their eventual memberships and modus operandi, is securing a decent level of resources to back their efforts. In that respect, the hon. Member for Swindon has got it all wrong. We would expect the total amount given as grant aid to be more than the level of grant aid presently given to the Sports Council for Great Britain which, expressed in 1993-94 prices, has declined from £51 million in 1991 to
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£49.9 million in 1991-92. Judging from the Chancellor's autumn statement, the Government do not intend to honour their pre-election promise to maintain their funding for sports and the arts. I have received a number of complaints from leisure departments of councils throughout the country about the current capping of their budgets, which has resulted in severe restraints on their capital programmes for sport. Figures from 1992 Sports Council survey of actual budgets and past expenditure clearly show that capital expenditure by district and borough in 1992-93 has fallen to 44 per cent. of the 1989-90 level. Those figures represent a disgraceful picture, and they should be dramatically improved.We also want the Minister to clarify his commitment given during the Committee stage of the National Lottery etc. Bill and guarantee not just the funding of capital projects for sport, to which reference has been made, but also the revenue expenditure necessary for those projects to operate effectively. The Minister must be more positive about revenue spend as it goes hand in hand with capital projects.
Already up and down the country, as a result of Government policy, we see sport being denied to thousands of people because of the lack of funding. Indeed, the situation would be much worse if local authorities had not exercised considerable ingenuity in finding ways of keeping facilities open. However, some of the means employed to do that have the effect of restricting access through reductions in opening hours, reducing quality of service or increasing prices. I will give the Minister some graphic illustrations of that. Manchester city council, the Olympic city, has closed Victoria baths in Hathersage road. The London borough of Greenwich is in the process of transferring its leisure facilities to workers' co- operatives or trusts. Langbaurgh-on-Tees has reduced opening hours and transferred full-time jobs to casual staff. The London borough of Haringey has reduced opening hours and there have been reductions in access to its dual use centres. Dudley metropolitan borough council has had to close a demonstration project called "The Fitness Factor" which it was running in co-operation with the Sports Council.
There are many more examples, in Peterborough, Basildon, Brentwood, Braintree and Castle Point. This has nothing to do with Government action in relation to local authorities which is forcing those sports facilities to become if not white elephants, then at least part-time working facilities.
Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) : The hon. Gentleman may not be aware that only two years ago I was a councillor in Hammersmith and Fulham. We had exactly the same problem of a shortage of funds and an inability to keep the swimming pools open. I went to see the pools and I spoke to the staff, who were very pleasant. They explained that the pools could not be opened, purely because of the inefficiency of the local administration, and that it had nothing to do with the amount of funding provided.
Mr. Pendry : The hon. Gentleman could not have listened to his hon. Friend the Member for Swindon, who
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referred to local authorities which had won the in-house tendering for those facilities. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) has clearly got it all wrong.Not only does the lack of funding prevent the necessary refurbishment of aging, worn-out buildings and facilities ; it also means that preventive maintenance is skimped. As a result, we are storing up grave problems for the future. Perhaps the Minister can give local authorities and others the assurances that they seek in that important area.
I referred a little while ago to Manchester as the Olympic city, and we all hope that that will be the case in the year 2000. Perhaps the Minister will comment on reports--a point to which the hon. Member for Swindon referred-- that in a recent speech to Manchester business men the Prime Minister withdrew a vital paragraph from his proposed text in which he was going to give his clear commitment to attending this autumn's Olympic committee meeting in Monte Carlo to lead Britain's efforts.
The Minister must give some reassurance today about that because there are those--including, perhaps, the hon. Member for Swindon--who believe that the Prime Minister withdrew that commitment because he has realised too late that he cannot honour the spending promises that he made towards the Olympic bid and is desperately trying to get away from those commitments.
Mr. Key indicated dissent.
Mr. Pendry : If that is not the case, the Minister can tell us today, but that is the view widely held in the sporting world.
Mr. Gyles Brandreth (City of Chester) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
If the Minister moved in the circles of the sporting world, he might be aware of that view. He can end that worry once and for all by telling the House that the Government's financial commitment to the games will be honoured in full from existing spending programmes and without recourse to a raid on the millennium fund, which would fall foul of the additionality pledges made by the Secretary of State on Second Reading of the National Lottery etc. Bill.
I have given the Minister a shopping list of tasks on which I believe he should be taking action, and I do not wish to overburden him, but there is one area in which I believe he is duty bound to notch up a victory. I refer to one of the country's most popular participatory sports--angling.
The Minister may not be aware that the Foundation for Sports and the Arts, established in the 1991 Budget by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has refused to give a single penny to angling and has constantly chopped and changed its reason for that. On 13 January, the secretary of the foundation, Mr. Grattan Endicott, wrote to Ken Ball, the president of the National Federation of Anglers, telling him that the foundation would not give money to angling because the trustees' policy is
"not to grant-aid activities that directly inflict pain or harm on members of the animal world."
Once the NFA had written to the foundation conclusively demonstrating that angling does no such thing, the foundation accepted those arguments. However, in a further letter on 24 February, the foundation came up
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