House of Commons Hansard Debates for 27 Oct 1995

Column 1237

simply so that players could be paid, although that was important, but to make the game an enjoyable spectacle to watch.

Although I love rugby union dearly, many aspects of it are boring. The scrummages can last too long, and line-outs are boring to people who do not understand what is going on. If one really wants open rugby all the time, as one sees in rugby league, there are too many people on the field in rugby union. What will happen eventually when the whole game goes professional? Rucking and mauling will be too fierce and too boring, while line-outs will be too complicated and will slow the game down. There will not be 15 players on each side, as that would be far too many for an open game. How many players could we have on each side? Let us say that we would have 13 on each side. We would simply have recreated rugby league all over again. That game already exists and those who want to play it and get paid for doing so should go and do so, rather than staying in rugby union and trying to change the game that so many of us care so much about. An interesting point is the question of who owns Twickenham, which is steeped in the amateur tradition. Twickenham belongs to all clubs, not to the Rugby Football Union. I do not believe that it can be right to turn such a famous stadium into a professional stadium. I am a great believer in democracy and, occasionally, referendums, and I believe that all clubs and members of the RFU should have been consulted before the decision was taken. The Minister said today that some things happen in our lives which set us alight, and this is something that has set me alight. I had a letter published in The Daily Telegraph on the subject a little while ago and I received a lot of correspondence as a result, urging me to do something and perhaps to take a lead.

In response, I have organised my own referendum. I am writing to every club in England, asking the following five questions: "Do you think the RFU was right to make rugby union a professional game? Do you think that all clubs in the RFU should have been consulted before the decision was taken? Would you support the re-establishment of an amateur rugby union for all clubs that do not wish to pay players? Do you think that rugby players who want to be paid should play rugby league? You may not be aware that Twickenham belongs not to the RFU but to all clubs--including yours. Should professional players be allowed to play at Twickenham?" I will await the responses with interest, and I shall publish the results. I sincerely hope that most clubs, including the senior ones, will want to remain amateur. If they do, we must see what can be done about setting up an appropriate framework.

I hope that we are not too late. A huge onus has been placed on my generation, who have enjoyed rugby union and who know what it means to us, and it is important that we show responsibility in passing the game on to future generations. Rugby union is the last great sport in this country that is played for fun and nothing else. If it goes professional, the game will become sleazier and sleazier. A great tradition will be lost for ever, and money and television will have won. If we could save the game, what a feat that would be, and how future generations of amateur rugby players would thank us.

Column 1238

11.22 am

Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw): I intend to confine my remarks to one sport--professional football. It is probably known that I am a director of Sheffield Wednesday from the premiership, and that I am the chairman of the all-party football group. I am also a member of the Select Committee on National Heritage.

I do not agree with what the hon. Member for Suffolk, Central (Mr. Lord) has just said about football. There is no doubt that football commands a tremendous amount of coverage in the tabloid newspapers--probably more than Parliament or politicians--because of massive public interest. Anything which is scrutinised in such a way every day will obviously have any sort of misdemeanour splashed all over television, and intensely concentrated criticism is something that football has to bear.

The way that the game has responded to incidents shows that it takes a hard line on self-regulation. When Eric Cantona attacked a member of the public, the Football Association increased the penalty that his own club had given him. The FA punished Tottenham Hotspur by deducting 12 points from it and preventing it from entering the FA cup. The manager of Arsenal was banned for one year, while a Millwall fan who foolishly went on to the pitch the other night has been banned for life.

One of the problems that the FA has is when people in the game persist in going to court. Many politicians know that a rule book is simply a guide for friends, and a rule book being challenged in court prolongs divisions and makes it difficult to punish people. I hope that those in football, and all other games, will refrain from going to lawyers when they dispute the rules.

There has been a phenomenal difference in football in the past five or six years. It is said that it is an ill wind which blows no one any good, and the ill wind of the Hillsborough disaster, which occurred at my club and in which 95 people were accidentally killed, was one of the traumatic events of this century. But the disaster resulted in the decision of Lord Chief Justice Taylor that all top clubs had to have all-seater grounds.

Fortunately, that decision coincided with Sky doing a television deal with the clubs, and that deal has made a fantastic difference. Football in this country is now rich enough to allow foreign players such as Ginola and Bergkamp to come and play here for very high wages. In the past, our best players went abroad to Italy and Spain. The fans are paying more to come to games, but the standard of football has increased massively, and that is why the game is in such demand by television companies.

The sponsorship that has resulted from that demand has meant that our stadiums are now without exception the best league stadiums in the world, although we do not have the best international stadiums. Gate money taken at the turnstiles--while high--nevertheless just pays for the wages of the players, some of whom at the very top are earning £10,000 a week. The average wage in the premiership is about £2,000 a week. Those wages are paid for by money at the gate, while sponsorship and television cash pay for ground improvements and transfer fees.

The system is working very well, and the Government should thank God for the all-seater stadiums, which are the most massive and impressive pieces of construction in this country for some time. The unemployment figures

Column 1239

would have been a great deal higher were it not for the £400 million that football clubs have spent on their all- seater stadiums. There is no doubt that our thanks should go to the Football Trust, which--with money from the pools--has put £136 million into ground improvements. That money has come from the pools, not the national lottery, and it is appalling that while the lottery pays only 12 per cent. in tax, the football pools companies are still paying 32 per cent. with VAT at 17 per cent. The football pools industry has been penalised in this country following the introduction of the national lottery, and many hundreds of jobs have been lost. The pools industry was handicapped right at the beginning, as the lottery was permitted roll-overs and television advertising. The industry was also unable to allow people aged 16 to play the pools. Yet despite all of the burdens placed on it by the Government, the pools industry has still managed to hand over £136 million via the Football Trust to assist in the building of the all-seater stadiums insisted upon by Parliament. The industry has an unfair burden placed on it, and something should be done about that in the Budget.

Football is criticised for other things, including club shirts. We all sell shirts, kits, tee-shirts and even after-shave in our club shops. We do not apologise for that, as the average premiership club shop can take £1 million in a season. An average club can sell 15,000 to 20,000 shirts to its supporters. People say that clubs charge too much for shirts, but it should be realised that a football shirt--manufactured in a batch of 15,000 to 20,000--will be more expensive than a shirt from C and A, which will be making 250,000 at a time.

The club shirt must also have a complicated design. If it did not, somebody down the street would copy it and within three months would be selling it from a barrow outside the ground. The first time the buyer put such a shirt on, he would stain his neck blue or red. He would have been ripped off.

Mr. Lord: People do not object too much to clubs selling shirts. What they object to--I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman's club does this--is when the clubs change their shirts every five minutes. All the young lads want to buy the latest model, and it costs a fortune.

Mr. Ashton: I was just coming to that. Most clubs do not change their shirt designs every five minutes--although Manchester United, which has a lot of supporters abroad, does change its shirts too frequently in my opinion. The average club changes its shirt design every two years, for reasons of fashion. Buyers of football shirts are predominantly young people. They want the club to change its shirt and to have a different away strip--my club has used yellow, green and hoops.

It is no coincidence that the shirts are marketed in June and July, because supporters will be taking their holidays and want to show off their club shirts on the Costa Brava. They have become a big fashion item. Football shirt manufacture provides 700 or 800 jobs and is keeping three factories open. The likes of Puma and Umbro and the textile industry would go down on their knees to thank football fashion. In the same way that jeans or anoraks go in and out of fashion, football shirts change their style and colour.

Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington): In fact, the majority of people who purchase

Column 1240

football shirts are the mothers of young supporters, and it is mothers who complain about the inordinate cost of those shirts.

Mr. Ashton: My hon. Friend makes a justifiable complaint, but the lad who used to deliver my newspapers--he is at college now--wore the same Sheffield Wednesday shirt every day for two years. His mother probably washed it on Sunday, but she could not have received better value in her life than that £30 shirt that her lad wore every day for two years. Compared with how much is spent on Christmas toys such as Nintendo--which are chucked aside after two or three years because the youngsters get fed up with them--football shirts, which are probably worn every day of the year, represent good value for money. There are wide variations between local authority licensing committees. The hon. Member for Suffolk, Central talked about going to a rugby match and having a pint. I wish that one could do the same at football matches. All too often, the local justices seem to be living in the days of the riots and hooliganism of 10 years ago, which do not occur now that there is better segregation in all-seater stadiums. The justices are adamant in refusing to allow the average fan to have a pint with his pie. It is okay if the fan can afford to use the hospitality lounge and pay for a £25 meal, but all too often the average fan is unfairly denied the chance to have a pint. There are also massively wide variations in the cost of policing. Hourly costs differ from town to town and from one police force to another. Some forces charge for just the two hours of the game; others charge for four or five hours. A club such as Lincoln might be allowed just one policeman in case of arrests; other forces think football matches are a milch cow and that they can make a lot of money out of their local clubs. I have seen the Home Secretary about that. Why can the Home Office not direct that the charge should be a percentage of the gate? No club would mind paying 2.5 per cent. or 5 per cent. of its gate, because the amount would be decided on the size of the crowd, which would result in a much fairer and more realistic charge, but for some reason the police and the Home Office will not agree to clubs being charged in that way.

An important development in sport is the construction of a new national stadium. Indeed, I understand that the owners of Wembley are meeting the Sports Council today. We all have fond and nostalgic memories of Wembley. It cost just £750,000 to build in 1926 and a crowd of 120,000 used to turn up in those days. We all remember the 1966 World cup. Wembley is a magical place, and probably every one of us has been to it, but it is a poor stadium by 1995 standards. It is nowhere near as good as Old Trafford, Arsenal or any other Premier league grounds. The sight lines are bad because it was designed for standing crowds. Now that there are seats, the crowd are constantly up and down because they cannot see above the heads of the people in front. The catering facilities are poor and the general atmosphere is one of drabness and decay. There is a feeling throughout sport that the country needs a new national stadium.

There are arguments as to where the new national stadium should be located and what sort of stadium it should be. The Sports Council and the Premier league clubs have banded together to bring about a new stadium, and they have a national lottery grant of £130 million. As to the design, the athletics authorities want a stadium like

Column 1241

Wembley, incorporating a running track. The football authorities do not. They argue that a running track destroys the atmosphere because the crowd is too far from the game, which players do not like. Many other countries have track stadiums, which is why foreign players often do well at Wembley--far better than they would at Old Trafford, Villa Park or Hillsborough. Grounds without a running track are more compact and have a much better atmosphere. A running track also adds considerably to the cost of a football ground. Wembley has talked about shifting seats and moving grass, but a track would put at least £20 million or £30 million on the cost and would satisfy no one.

Mr. Anthony Coombs: The hon. Gentleman presents a false dichotomy. Most modern stadium designs--including that suggested for Birmingham, which I commend--incorporate retractable seating, which allows the capacity to be extended for football matches, but for the running track to be reinstated for athletics meetings.

Mr. Ashton: It is possible to do as the hon. Gentleman says, but it is much more costly. I understand that Birmingham cannot get planning permission for its bid because it would use a green-field site. Of the five locations that are bidding, Birmingham is probably at the bottom of the list.

Wembley has since its inception been run by a private company. One argument made by the football authorities is that they pay too much to that company. My information--Wembley may challenge this, but I do not think that it is too far out--is that for every £1 paid for a cup final, each team gets 19p but Wembley takes 38p--a total of 76p. The rest goes on value added tax, the Football Association's share, policing and other running costs. Wembley gets as much as both teams. Wembley also gets the revenue from television rights and programme sales. If Wembley sells 100,000 cup final programmes--a large number are sold by mail--at £6 each, that generates £600,000, which is more than the winning team receives. Teams playing in a cup final probably each get £450,000 and Wembley gets about £1.25 million.

I am not blaming Wembley or accusing it of making excessive profits. There are probably 40 or 50 events a year at Wembley, but the stadium has to be maintained 365 days a year. It was better a few years ago, when occasions such as the pop concert for Nelson Mandela increased the number to around 80 events. It is obviously extremely costly for a private company to maintain a huge stadium, even though events are profitable on the days when they are held.

The Sports Council, athletics interests and football authorities understandably say, "Why don't we build a stadium instead of Wembley?" The hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) mentioned Birmingham. There are also bids from Manchester, Bradford and Sheffield. Wembley's bid involves pulling down the existing stadium and building a new one on the same site. That would be about £50 million more expensive than using a derelict site in the north. Wembley would offer parking for perhaps 7,500 cars, whereas sites in the north could provide parking for 25,000 cars--a phenomenal difference. Sheffield has also made a bid. Geographically, Sheffield is at the centre of the country and can offer a

Column 1242

site right next to the M1 with three accesses to that motorway. The M18 is about four miles away, and there are good links with the A1 and the M62. The vast majority of the football clubs that pull in big crowds are in the north of England. There are about 9 million people within an hour's drive of this site. To put that in context, I should point out that it can take an hour to get from Trafalgar square to Wembley.

Hon. Members may know that there used to be seven miles of steelworks between Sheffield and Rotherham. As happened with the London docklands, when the steel industry collapsed all the works were pulled down flat--that is why such a huge site is available. Wembley has about 40 acres, and the site offered by Manchester is 140 acres, but the site in Sheffield is nearer 300 acres. Sheffield came in for a lot of criticism about the student games, but I will not go into that now.

Most of the new development is being managed by the Sheffield development corporation, not the city council. By the side of the M1 the corporation has built the biggest shopping mall in

Europe--Meadowhall hypermarket. Department stores' rents are 50 per cent. higher in Meadowhall than in Oxford street. It has 100,000 visitors on a Saturday, and 35 million people went there last year. People drive long distances to visit this shopping area. A huge entertainment centre is being built, including night clubs, along what was once going to be called Bourbon street. In any event, it will be a massive attraction.

Within a few hundred yards of the Meadowhall development is the planned site for the new stadium, which will be an enormous complex. I have referred to the row about whether an athletics track should be included. I should perhaps mention that Sheffield already has the best athletics arena in Britain. It is so good that the Rolling Stones played to 55,000 fans there this summer. They also played at Wembley, a concert which got massive coverage while the one at Sheffield got none. The new football stadium could be built alongside the athletics stadium at considerably lower cost and on an enormous site with first-class parking and access.

Last week the Select Committee on National Heritage went to see those sites in Sheffield and was impressed by what it saw. A supertram runs along the Don valley, straight from Meadowhall. The next stop up the line is the indoor arena, which Pavarotti regularly fills with 12,000 spectators. Incidentally, the Jehovah's Witnesses also manage to fill it with that many people. All sorts of international stars such as Whitney Houston play there. London never knows or understands what is happening in the north of England: it has become complacent, imagining that it has the best of everything, simply because Londoners never bother to go and see what is happening in the rest of the country.

The indoor arena, linked to the athletics stadium and the international Olympic swimming pool, with its amazing diving facilities, are all run under the auspices of the Sheffield development corporation. The Minister talked about an academy of sport. Hallam university has already produced plans for one at which 2,000 pupils would be accommodated. What the Minister did not mention, however, was the need for a sports injuries expertise centre in this country. Every club these days has a physiotherapist, and certain consultants specialise in cartilage injuries or hernias, but we need to bring together all the best know-how in one place. After all, these sports stars are valuable.

Column 1243

The UEFA championships are coming to Sheffield in 1996, to be held at our ground where we are building a £6.8 million stand. The new site is reachable from the City airport in about 85 minutes. Wembley cannot possibly compete with such facilities. The reason why the English football team gets poor attendances for Wednesday night games at Wembley is that people have given up trying to get there. It is possible by tube from Baker street, but for anyone coming down the M1 or around the M25 it is quite hopeless. So people go and watch the game on Sky television in a pub, or at home. London football attendances are pathetic, with the exception of a few big clubs such as Arsenal. Sheffield's two big clubs, Wednesday and United, pulled in 55,000 spectators when they were both in the Premier league--more than 10 per cent. of the population, or the equivalent of 1 million people in London.

I hope that the decision on where to build the new stadium will be taken without prejudice, and that the Government and the national media will not say that it must be built at Wembley for reasons of nostalgia. When that stadium was built, it was at the end of a metro line. Since then other cities have overtaken London, which has not undergone massive site clearance in the way that some northern cities have because their industries have collapsed. Even the Manchester site is far too near the centre of Manchester. What is needed for a new stadium is good motorway access so that people can get away quickly. Leaving Wembley the minute the whistle blows, it can still take an hour to get to the tube. With a good car park and motorway access, people can be away in much less time.

If all the national lottery money and football league money paid by the fans is to be spent, the stadium should be put where the fans and the public want it and not necessarily where the London establishment wants it.

11.46 am

Mr. Tim Devlin (Stockton, South): I was interested to hear what the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) had to say about Sheffield. It would certainly suit me down to the ground if the new national stadium was built there. It is not far from my constituency, and it would be an easy drive down the motorway. The facilities there might lend themselves well to such a venture.

I was recently in the United States to see the Seattle Seahawks play at their home ground, the Kingdome, and it brought home to me the fact that we are woefully under-provided with really big facilities compared with what the Americans have. It is an all-weather pitch where 60,000 people can pack in easily under cover. The entire pitch and arena can be covered with a retractable roof, so that a variety of games can be played in all weathers- -even when there is deep snow outside. We do not often get deep snow in our part of Yorkshire--perhaps even less than the north York moors--but the weather in the north can be inclement at times and, to give those soft southerners a chance if they ever reach a final in the national stadium, perhaps we ought to be able to keep the rain off them. I want to talk about the historical sporting perspective today. I read with some disappointment lately that the Army is having trouble recruiting people of sufficient physical capacity to serve. The last time that happened was in 1903, when a report was submitted to the Minister

Column 1244

of War, as he then was, about the state of young recruits. It said that seven out of 10 were being rejected. We have not quite got to that point yet, but it does show that times have changed considerably--not always very attractively, either.

The problem in 1903 was malnourishment and poor housing. There was real poverty in the inner cities, and it was not uncommon for officers in the British Army to be more than a foot taller than the men whom they commanded. We have got past those problems of poverty now; our young people's problems these days are to do with affluence. Nearly every home has a television and a video recorder, and young people watch about 25 hours of television a week. They take less than one hour's physical exercise at school, and many of them take part in no physical activities outside school. At the same time we have an alarming rise in juvenile crime. Members receive complaints about it all the time.

In that respect, I took an initiative during the summer. A large group of young people from a school in my constituency visited me in the House. I gave them an hour's talk in one of the Committee Rooms. I was concerned to stress that young people should not feel that politics is a remote activity that has nothing to do with them. I explained to them that politics is about the apportionment of scarce resources among competing demands. We started to talk about real needs that were not being met in the area where they lived. They all agreed that leisure facilities in their town were virtually non-existent and that something had to be done.

The young people returned to their homes and thereafter undertook a survey of all the young people in Yarm in my constituency. They then reported on what those young people would like to see provided in their town. Two items that came way ahead of everything else were the provision of a leisure centre of some description and a cinema. There is a problem because groups of policemen are so often moving in on young people who are sitting on benches, for example, and loitering in a way that causes distress to other residents who have homes nearby. Those other residents want to know why young people are hanging around outside their houses and looking quite menacing. The problem is that the young people have little to do. That is why I asked a question about swimming pools earlier in the debate. When I was a young person--I suppose that I still am; in any event, when I was a very young person at school I used to take a job during school holidays teaching swimming and life saving at the local swimming pool. The pool was frequently jammed with young people during the holidays because they had little else to do. At least there was a pool. I am talking of Thornaby, which is also in my constituency.

At Yarm, which is a much more prosperous area than Thornaby, there is no swimming pool. If anyone wants to take part in leisure activity, it is necessary to travel to Stockton or Thornaby. There is a fundamental problem. We do not have a proper set of leisure facilities in larger communities throughout the country. Local authorities, which have had to carve up the cake in different ways, have been left to make provision. Many Labour-controlled authorities, such as the one in the area that I represent, have taken the view that the more prosperous suburban

Column 1245

areas have the financial resources to make provision for their own children. Those areas are low priorities when it comes to providing swimming pools and other facilities.

One of my friends on the Opposition Benches has once again become a shadow Front-Bench spokesman. He told me that during the summer recess he learnt to swim. As secretary of the all-party hockey club--my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) is the chairman and a great captain --I know that it is necessary to explain the rules of the game to Members who wish to join the club. Sometimes they do not understand the rules because they have not played the game for so long. Some have not played it at all. That demonstrates that there is a twofold problem: people are not playing enough sport in schools and they do not participate in a sufficiently wide range of sports. Many are not aware of the rules. In many instances, they have not followed up the introduction to sporting activities that they had when they were very young because there have not been the necessary facilities or opportunities to do so. It is crucial that in schools we encourage team games. That is because they help to build social skills and because work itself these days is team based. We see, for example, how members of the Opposition assemble themselves. They call themselves the environment team, the Treasury team or the national heritage team, for example. Conservative Members do the same. None of us works alone. We, too, work in environment teams and education teams, for example. I work in the Department of Trade and Industry team. Outside, whether we work in the law, from which I come, or in industry, perhaps especially in industry, in manufacturing or in marketing--this applies in any aspect of life that anyone cares to mention--everything is moving to much less structured hierarchical arrangements. Indeed, we are adopting team-playing arrangements.

It is crucial that people learn to play in team sports. It was on our sporting team ability that we built our military team ability. We are involved now not in military but in economic warfare, and that involves teams playing together.

Mr. Pendry: We are saying that certainly we should have competitive team games. We have always been in favour of them. The element of compulsory competitive team games is another matter. I take a little further the hon. Gentleman's analogy of team play in the House. It is not necessary to be a member of a team. A Member can be a Back Bencher. Those who wish, similarly, to play solo sports can do so in a school environment. We are talking about a healthy mix. It seems that the Government are proceeding down the pretty narrow road of compulsory competitive games.

Mr. Devlin: Individuals should have a healthy mix. I had to play rugby twice a week when I was at school. I played cricket in the summer. I swam every day, or twice a day, with the school swimming team. At the same time I indulged in other sports such as squash, tennis and fencing, which are individualist sports. We must encourage the well-rounded man or woman coming through a sporting environment. As the individual becomes a well- rounded man or woman in terms of participating in a wide range of sporting activities, in other areas of life we all have to co-operate with others while

Column 1246

playing in teams. At the same time, there are other activities that we pursue on our own. There must be that mix for every individual. I would encourage an element of competitive and compulsory team sports throughout school. Life is about compulsory team sports these days. I hear what the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) says, but we must seek to provide a full range of opportunity. We should ensure that people do not give up team games too early. As I have said, they will have to play team games later in life.

I wish to draw attention to the much larger and wider sports clubs that are to be found on the continent. Those clubs engage in football and a complete range of other sports. A family may go to a large sports club, perhaps privately run, to play hockey, football, squash or tennis, for example. If they take granny along, the family can even play bowls. In that way, attendance at the sports club becomes a family activity.

If anyone is interested in that approach, I point them to two examples. Two years ago we took the House hockey club to play at an excellent hockey and sports club in Brussels. That club, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North will recall, provided everything. It had all- weather pitches as well as grass pitches. It had tennis courts, bowling greens and a swimming pool. It had a complete range of facilities. There were fixtures throughout a Saturday. If a family went there, one member could play basketball, another tennis and another hockey, or whatever. There was something for everybody. It often turned out to be the Belgian mum who was not involved in a sport. She could watch the children playing or go to an aerobics class. We do not have such facilities in this country, and we should and are looking at that. My colleague and friend, Sir John Hall, who built the Metro centre and is now the chairman of Newcastle football club, is looking at that at the moment. He is looking at using the football club as a vehicle for widening out into the whole range of sports and having a whole family, whole sport experience.

Mr. Anthony Coombs: My hon. Friend makes a good point. Statistics have shown that the average size of sports clubs in Britain is half the size of those in France, and one seventh the size of those in Germany. Significantly, the size is about one seventh less, possibly, than Spanish clubs. Does not that bring into play the fact that the division between professional and amateur sports in this country has persisted for too long, and that what one needs if one is to produce the critical mass that my hon. Friend has been talking about is professional and amateur sports coming together, as they are in Sir John Hall's Newcastle concept, to the benefit of both?

Mr. Devlin: That is right. There are opportunities for people to consider, at 16 or 18, whether they want to go into professional or amateur sport. If they decide not to go into professional sport, but perhaps decide to stay in amateur sport, or, indeed, just intend to put sport on the back burner and go off into their careers and do whatever else they are going to do, there are opportunities for them to come back and play for leisure in their spare time and to support their local team. The concept of the critical mass superclub that Sir John Hall is talking about in Newcastle is an important development and one that I hope the Minister will go and see. I hope that he will consider it carefully and encourage the country at large,

Column 1247

because what I saw in the "Raising the Game" White Paper, which, in fact, turns out to be green, is a marvellous proposal for links from schools into clubs. That is a very important feature of sports provision.

I well recall, having played rugby and hockey to a reasonable level at school, going on to university, to find that the one that I had chosen, mainly because of its political dimension--the London School of Economics-- had virtually no facilities whatever. Word had it that there was a pitch at somewhere called New Malden, but I have never been there to find out whether that was true. Sports clubs can play a vital role in developing people after their school sporting activities. I am glad to see that 585 sports projects have already received £104.7 million from the national lottery. I understand that, eventually, there will be some £300 million for British sport from the lottery. That will be very valuable.

I also take on board what the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said about sport for disabled people, because on Saturday I had the opportunity, indeed, the honour, to present a cheque for £3,000 to the disabled tennis association in Cleveland. I watched those people, some of whom were deaf or in wheelchairs, indeed some of whom had no hands, playing tennis and thoroughly enjoying themselves and really getting a great deal out of it. Almost as important, the tennis players who came down from the local tennis club to teach them, help them, play with them, collect the balls and so on were enjoying themselves as well. There was a wonderful crossover and linkage. It was a wonderful social occasion for the able-bodied and the disabled to play together. For hon. Members who do not know how to play disabled tennis, it is exactly the same as ordinary tennis except one is allowed two bounces. Some of the guys in wheelchairs are as good as some able-bodied people I know who can play tennis. In fact, one of them is probably better than me, but I was not going to play him and let on. It was a wonderful day, and it shows how disabled people can be integrated into the community so well. That should be very much part of what we do in the future.

We have to get back into medals. It is really important to this country's feeling of national self-esteem that we go to the Olympic games, the European games, to all the different contests, and come home with a decent collection of gold, silver and bronze medals. It is good for national morale. It is good for our own sporting community and it encourages sport all the way through the system. I remember when Chris Boardman won his gold medal. The whole street was full of people on bicycles, because they suddenly realised that cycling was a sport that was going to be taken seriously. That was great. As the Prime Minister says, we need more national heroes. We need more of our own brothers and sisters to excel in the various fields of life. We need more people we can look up to, not just footballers, but athletes, cyclists and swimmers--the whole range. I am pleased to see that people such as Duncan Goodhew and others--prominent sportsmen and women--have welcomed the document. It is important. The House will do well to take it seriously. The only comment that I would make to my hon. Friend the Minister is that it will not always be possible, certainly not in my constituency, to match the resources that come from the national lottery. We desperately need two more swimming pools. We desperately need a lot of all-weather

Column 1248

pitches and other sporting facilities, but we shall not always be able to raise the 50 per cent. that is needed for those projects. I warmly welcome the White Paper and look forward to seeing it as it translates into new facilities and encouragement on the ground in my constituency.

12.5 pm

Mr. Menzies Campbell (Fife, North-East): I am sorry that the hon. Member for Suffolk, Central (Mr. Lord) is not with us for the moment, because I wish to suggest to him an additional question for his referendum: do the rugby clubs and the membership of the Rugby Football Union agree with Mr. Will Carling's description of the committee of the RFU? I suspect that the hon. Gentleman might have a better chance of predicting the response to that question than some of the others that he asked.

With justification, one could say that the hon. Member for Suffolk, Central sought to bring to our attention what are now called traditional values. I think that he is wrong when he describes track and field athletics as having become a travelling circus. He fails to recognise that the nature of the sport has changed in such a fundamental way that although people still run and jump just as they did before, they are competing in an atmosphere and to a level beyond the comprehension of those of us who practised that particular sport some 30 years ago. If that is true of track and field athletics, it is certainly true of rugby football, because the standards of fitness and the nature of competition are much different from what they were when the hon. Gentleman won the rugby blue at Cambridge, which is signified by the fact that today he is wearing the tie of the Hawkes club.

The hon. Gentleman also omitted, although he made a passing reference to it, to understand as fully as he might the influence, so far as rugby union is concerned, of the intervention in the southern hemisphere of large-scale media interests. The reason why the South Africans, New Zealanders and Australians are able to pay their players at the proposed levels is the interest expressed by two of the greatest media organisations in the world, which have effectively been willing, in return for exclusivity of broadcasting rights, to put very substantial sums of money into rugby union. We have seen the same here in rugby league. There is a question that he might have asked, and which I certainly pose to myself from time to time, although I have not yet arrived at a satisfactory answer to it. What will be the effect on these sports of the extraordinary control and influence that the large media organisations now have? That may have much more to do with the ultimate shaping of the nature of those sports than the fact that people take them more seriously now than the hon. Gentleman might have preferred.

As the Minister rightly set out in his full opening speech, today's debate is designed to try to bring some focus on the Government's plans that were published in July this year. I give a cautious welcome to the plans, which are rich in good intentions. They are susceptible to some criticism: they are less obviously rich in the new financial provisions than they suggest.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) was right to say that the absence of a comprehensive reference to the role of local authorities in the provision of facilities for sport is a defect in the document. However, on this occasion I will try to take a

Column 1249

more positive view than he felt able to take. Criticisms can be made--to rely substantially on the support of private sponsors is a precarious base on which to build long-term security for the financial provision of sport.

I have some minor experience of that fact myself--not directly in sports, but in the arts. I was chairman of a repertory theatre company in Edinburgh, where for a time we enjoyed substantial sponsorship from one company. But the company's policy changed, the managing director changed and the interests of the new managing director were not so much in theatre as in some other form of the arts. Therefore, the sponsorship on which we had come to rely was no longer available. Private sponsorship, while entirely desirable, should always be regarded as--if I may borrow an expression from another debate that we have from time to time in the House- -an issue of additionality. Economic conditions change and companies are no longer so willing to put up money by way of private sponsorship. There can be radical changes in company policy.

I approve of the notion of centres of excellence, some of which already exist in this country. Reference has already been made to Lilleshall, and we know of Plas-y-Brenin, Glenmore Lodge in Scotland and the outdoor sports centre at Inverclyde. I hope that as part of their approach to centres of excellence, the Government will consider the best way in which to enforce and enhance the contribution that existing centres make to the development of sport in this country. A British academy of sport seems an entirely sensible idea, but we must recognise that not every athlete and not every sport will fit into whatever scheme finally emerges. I understood that the Sports Council was due to bring forward its proposals by the end of September 1995. That date appears to have slipped; I hope that the Minister will be assiduous in holding the Sports Council to its commitment and will ensure that it produces its proposals as soon as possible. If my recollection is correct, according to the terms of the document that we have been discussing, bids are expected by the end of March 1996. I hope that that time limit will be adhered to as far as possible.

The terms of the document are rather general in relation to precisely what the Government envisaged as an academy of sport. The Minister sought to fill in some of the gaps with his personal description, but he was careful to state that he was offering it in a personal capacity. The House would certainly want some opportunity, not to direct how the academy of sport should be developed, but to express a view on the nature of the proposals as they finally emerge through the process of, first, the Sports Council's publication of its ideas and, ultimately, the approval of the bids. I emphasise that we should not try to impose conformity on every sport and every sportsman and sportswoman. There will be sport-by-sport variations, regional and geographical variations and individual variations. The document refers to the desirability of a network of facilities. As I said in an earlier intervention, I am concerned about the fact that we already have extensive facilities that are not always effectively used. I have in mind those facilities in schools, colleges and universities. Accepting that they are primarily provided for schoolchildren and students, and that during term time those for whom they are primarily provided have first

Column 1250

right and entitlement to use them, it cannot be right that such extraordinary investment--almost certainly public investment--should be made in facilities that often lie vacant and unused for large portions of the year. That does not make sense. It is not quite that one sees children with their noses pressed against the window pane, but on occasion I have driven past sports facilities belonging to a university--not in my constituency--and seen children playing football in the street outside the facilities because they have been denied the opportunity to use them.

There is no doubt that there are problems of management and vandalism. I am reminded of something that I said in a debate in 1991. When I was first appointed to the British Sports Council by the now Lord Howe in 1965, my first meeting concerned dual community use of facilities. The great stumbling block was who would pay the janitor's wages if he had to stay on after 4 pm. About 10 or 12 years later I found myself on the Scottish Sports Council, and the first meeting that I attended involved a discussion on the community use of sports facilities. Once again, the stumbling block was who would pay the janitor's wages after 4 pm. I expect that that discussion is still being mirrored up and down the country in regional sports councils and elsewhere.

Mr. Harry Greenway: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that there has been a movement forward in dual use? Under the system of the local management of schools, schools are now able to recoup hiring charges from letting out pitches, which is happening quite a lot in my constituency, much to everyone's benefit.

Mr. Campbell: I have some reservations about that. If, as a result of what the hon. Gentleman tells us, better and more economic use is being made of facilities that might otherwise lie fallow, clearly, as a matter of principle, that is obviously highly desirable. Excellence comes about only as a consequence of mass participation. An analogy frequently used in sporting discussions is that of the pyramid. Sufficient numbers of people reach the top of the pyramid only if the pyramid's base is sufficiently broad. If we are genuinely anxious--as is the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin)--to achieve medals, we can do so only when there is a substantial base of mass participation. It is right that we should achieve medals, not only because of the achievement of those who are able to win them, but because their achievement helps to create what is sometimes called the feel-good factor. As I think most people recognise, and as some of today's debate has certainly acknowledged, such success is best achieved through the educational system.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde mentioned the national fitness study carried out by the Sports Council and the Health Education Authority. He mentioned that the number of physical education teachers had fallen from 41,800 in 1977 to 24,000 in 1992. There were just two other pieces of information from that study that I wish to mention. The first involves what is, in a sense, a value judgment. Young people have surprisingly low levels of physical activity, and boys are much more active than girls. A survey in 1993 by the European Physical Education Association found that we spend less time on physical education in England and Wales than any other European countries.

One cannot change that sort of emphasis by berating the Government. If there had been sufficient political will generally on such issues, many of the advances would

Column 1251

have been achieved before now. It would be in the long-term interests of sport in this country--I shall say a little about structure later--if we could arrive at some consensus so that sports organisations, sports councils, the academy of sport and the centres of excellence know that they can plan over a long period and are not likely to find themselves subject to change for the sake of political change on the termination of one Government and the accession of another. There is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence that teachers do not devote as much time to extra-curricular weekend activities as they once did, and the problem is how to arrest the decline in sport in schools. The document makes some sensible suggestions and I hope that the Government will put every ounce of political effort into trying to bring those to fruition.

In this general discussion on school sport I invite hon. Members to consider that many schoolteachers still put a quite remarkable amount of effort into not only their own schools but schools associations. I have the good fortune to be the honorary president of the Scottish Schools Athletic Association, a voluntary organisation that is run by a number of extremely dedicated schoolteachers. I think that I have said before that the secretary of that organisation must do about 20 to 25 hours of unpaid work a week in addition to his other commitments as a schoolteacher. I am sure that that is true of the rugby football associations and the swimming associations. In discussing the provision of sport in schools one is inclined from time to time, because of anxiety about the reduction, to concentrate on what seem to be the adverse elements of sport in schools. We must recognise the tremendous amount of good and dedicated work that is still being carried out.

As I said informally to the Minister earlier in the week, I have a constituency case which illustrates some of the difficulties that are faced by individual athletes. I have already communicated with the Prime Minister about it. Quite by chance a constituent visited my surgery on the evening of 14 July and she has given me her permission to refer to her circumstances in detail. Her name is Caroline Innes. She is an outstanding competitor and in September 1994 in recognition of her sporting achievements she was invited, along with others, to a reception at 10 Downing street. She has just successfully completed her second year at university and therefore combines sporting and academic excellence.

Miss Innes is a highly motivated, confident young adult. She is a complete athlete who is a candidate for Atlanta next year and it is her burning ambition to go there. But the difference between Miss Innes and others is that she hopes to compete in the Paralympics, not the Olympics.

In the summer Miss Innes received a letter from the British Paralympic Association containing a request by the BPA itself. I shall read the terms of that request because they illustrate the kind of difficulties that are faced by British sportsmen and sportswomen. The letter states:

"We would like each athlete/staff to try to raise £1,000 each. This is not the cost of a place in the team or a guaranteed ticket to the games. This is an appeal to each sport, not individuals, to try and help BPA's cash flow situation when it comes to paying for flights and entry fees. As reinforcement of the integrity of this request, records will be kept in terms of each sport's collective contribution, so that should the funds not be required or only part required because of success in other areas, those funds will be returned to

Column 1252

that sport for their own elite development. Please accept that this is a difficult thing to ask but it is an essential fall-back situation at this stage. The BPA will take a dim view of any athlete who makes an appeal for funding on the basis that if they do not get it they will not be able to go to Atlanta. Rather if they make such an appeal in that way they may end up not being selected.

The deadline to achieve this target per sport is the end of 1995 and should be based on the anticipated team size including staff. This appeal also includes the core management group, including myself, and the medical team: in the case of the core group the funds would stay within BPA."

Miss Innes is an extremely talented young athlete. I look upon her as an athlete with a disability, not as a disabled person who is an athlete, and that is an important distinction. Her burning ambition is to go to Atlanta to compete in the Paralympics but she is being invited, not as a precondition but to ensure that the team can go, to try to raise £1,000 by the end of 1995. It cannot be right that she should be asked to do that and it certainly cannot be right that the British Paralympic Association has to ask her to do it. We must find a way to release lottery funds for top athletes--both those who are able-bodied and those who are disabled.

In preparation for the debate I consulted a number of sports officials, not all of whom were anxious to be quoted directly. A senior sports official whose anonymity I shall preserve told me that he believed that, on average, anyone who competes as a British internationalist in amateur sport needs to find about £10,000 per annum. I do not want to reopen the debate about the lottery because we had a debate about it this week. However, large sums are being generated and we must find a way to ensure not only that we build splendid stadiums and provide outstanding facilities but that we find the sportsmen and sportswomen who will take maximum advantage of those facilities. What better way to pursue the excellence that is central to the document than to ensure that our sportsmen and sportswomen at the highest level are properly catered for. I should like to return to the point that I made earlier, which is that we must not assume conformity in these matters. For a variety of reasons, for some internationalists an academy of sport will simply not be an option. If for good reasons they choose not to take up what is offered there must be financial support from another source that will allow them the independence to achieve as much as they possibly can in their chosen sport.

Mr. Lord: I am sorry that I was not in the Chamber when the hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about me. Is he suggesting that these people should be full-time athletes and that they should be subsidised to train? Secondly, would they have alternative careers and if so how would they find the time to qualify for them?

Mr. Campbell: The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point which, to some extent, he foreshadowed in his contribution. For those who want to compete at the same level as Linford Christie it is not possible to carry on in parallel a professional career. I said earlier and I am happy to repeat because the hon. Gentleman was not here, that although track and field athletics are essentially the same as they were 30 years ago when I was a competitor and although people still run and jump, it is now a different sport. The generation of which I was a member was almost all students. We were in a sense subsidised because the nature of student life allowed us--I suspect

Column 1253

that the hon. Member for Suffolk, Central was in the same position when he was a distinguished rugby player for his university--to combine training with professional career development.

At the highest level, the nature of sport is such that it is virtually impossible to do that. Some distinguished people do so. I think of Mr. Jonathan Webb, who played full-back for England for some time and who combined being a doctor with playing at the highest level, and of Rory Underwood, who is a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force, although from time to time he finds it difficult to combine the exacting nature of that occupation with the requirements of full-time sport. If the hon. Gentleman wants more Linford Christies--and if he does not, some Conservative Members certainly do--he cannot expect such sportsmen to compete at the highest level and, at the same time, be concerned about how they will find the money for board and lodging.

I have no difficulty with accepting the fact that, at a certain stage in an athlete's development and achievement, full-time sport, supported by funds from the lottery, is an appropriate way to proceed.

Mr. Lord: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for clarifying that point. He raises two important points. The first involves the question of subsidisation from somewhere for these people. Secondly and more important, in athletics and in my own sport of rugby union, if it goes the way that I fear it may, all children of parents who would formerly have had careers and studied during the years when they were perhaps at their athletic best, will now have to make that choice. Many will choose careers and so Roger Bannister and Chris Chataway will never happen again. The only people who will pursue athletics will be those who do not care whether they have a long-term career. That will cut many people out of it.

Mr. Campbell: It is a question of choice in the sense not of either- or, but of how much emphasis one puts on one as opposed to the other. It will still be possible for people to play rugby for recreational purposes, even if only for the beer, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned in his speech, and for people to use track and field athletics to keep fit, rather than to compete at the highest level, but they will have to make that choice.

The intensity of the sport is in some respects mirrored by the intensity of professional requirements. I do not think that it would be possible for me to do what I did when I was a student, not only because of the intensity of sporting competition, but because of the intensity of academic requirement. People will be forced to make that choice.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): How is it possible to turn an intervention into a speech? [ Hon. Members:-- "It is a speech."] I beg your pardon. I am so sorry. I offer grovelling apologies to the hon. and learned Gentleman.

Mr. Campbell: Can I have that in writing?

Column 1254

Madam Deputy Speaker: It will be in Hansard .

Next Section

Home Page