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Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) indicated dissent.
Mr. Pendry: If the hon. Gentleman cannot see that, he should not be sitting where he is.
That is a terrible advertisement for Britain. I was equally concerned to learn that the operating companies have no plans to put on late trains to transport people between major cities after late-night matches. One of the most enticing fixtures in the first stage is the evening game between Italy and Germany at Old Trafford, which is already a 55,000 sell-out. But fans travelling to Manchester from London to watch the match would have to leave the ground as soon as they arrived to catch the last train home. I telephoned British Rail yesterday, and was told that the last train back to London would leave Manchester at 8 pm.
The Government have been begrudging in their financial support to promote the championships. They have guaranteed just £100,000 in direct grants to share among the eight cities, all of which are Labour controlled. Mathematics was not my strong point at school, but I can work out that that amounts to a paltry £12,500 for each city--barely enough to promote a local five-a-side competition, let alone the largest sporting event to be held on these shores for 30 years.
The Minister states that he has met the demands of the cities, but he has not. When representatives of the cities met the Secretary of State's predecessor, they requested £1.5 million, which would have produced a real festival to celebrate the championships. They were turned down, but came back with a more modest proposal for £400,000
with no strings attached, but they were given £100,000 in direct aid. It is true that other money has been made available, but it comes with strings attached, requiring host cities to jump through hoops backwards. Local authorities have had to be careful in their selection of sponsors so that they do not conflict with the FA's main sponsorship partners. The Government's stinginess contrasts with the last time we hosted a comparable major event--the 1966 World cup. At that time, Harold Wilson's Labour Government provided £500,000 for hospitality and other measures--the equivalent of£5 million at today's prices.
Despite the lack of central support, the cities have been getting on with it and involving the private sector to organise an exciting cultural and social programme for visiting supporters. The highlights include Newcastle's EuroFest, a specially constructed welcome village close to St. James's park, with bars, bistros and eateries with a European flavour. Liverpool's comedy festival will include some well-known comics from all over the country. Manchester's united clubs of Manchester scheme is based on the city's internationally renowned nightclub scene, and Leeds has the music, fire and masks festival. Some of my hon. Friends will talk about Sheffield and other cities if they catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I am sure that the Minister would wish to join with me in congratulating the cities on their inventiveness, despite the inappropriate lead from the Department. The host cities have dug deep into their own pockets to fund this social extravaganza. It is estimated that the entire cultural and social programme put on by the cities will cost some £2.5 million. The Government have funded less than2.5 per cent. of that directly.
As there are more hon. Members here than I had envisaged--bearing in mind attendance at some Friday debates in the past--I shall conclude by telling the Minister that we all realise that he has been active in trying to persuade some of his colleagues to have a more enlightened policy for sport. He knows that, when I criticise him, it is because he leads for the Government as a whole on sport. There is scope for improvement in the Government's approach, but the Opposition will assist constructively wherever we can.
Mr. David Mellor (Putney):
I, too, am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate. It is timely that we have a debate on sport on the eve of the European championships, with the Olympic games coming up, and the day after we learn of television companies being willing to pay three quarters of a billion pounds for the rights to cover the premier league. It is also timely, because a number of key sports are in a state of flux--
There is a tremendous interest in sport nationwide--even the broadsheets are devoting many more pages to sport than they do to the coverage of other topics. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I leave others to decide, but it is clearly a testimony to the tremendous national interest in sport. Although this will be a good-quality debate because several of those present are committed to sport, it is regrettable that we cannot attract more than 20 Members to debate a subject that lots of people in the country regard as extremely important.
In relation to Euro 96, we should be proud of the fact that the championships are here, whether we love football or not. We should be ambitious for sport in Britain. We should want to host great championships. What is the point of thinking about having a great new national stadium, upgrading our facilities and having the vision if we do not want other people to come and share it with us?
We should be aware of the interest in the championships--400 million people were supposed to have tuned in merely to watch the draw for the event. It is a great shop window for Britain and a way of showing ourselves off. In some senses, we come to the championships quite strongly because as a result of legislation, money being available from the Football Trust, and a great sense of leadership from several key people in football, including a number of club chairmen who embraced the Taylor report and did not allow their fans to drive them from it, we now have some of the finest stadiums. In fact, the chairman of the UEFA grounds committee said that British stadiums are now the best in Europe. We can be proud of that.
I hope that we can be proud of a lot of the other arrangements for the championships. I do not want to get involved in partisanship, but I would like to have seen a bit more vision about some of the things that could have been done around the championships. I would like to have seen some effort made to bring local authorities, national Government and others together to try to give people a good time.
I am not seeking to make a party point, but if there is any element of embarrassment that the championships are going on, that is foolish. We should be proud of the fact that we are hosting them. That is not to say that there will not be some problems, but we must remember that although we think that we have exclusive ownership of football hooliganism, we do not. At one of the European club finals this year, 200 people were arrested and someone was severely injured. Many of the fans who are coming from other countries have never in their adult lives observed a game where there have not been cages between them and the pitch. There could be problems, but I hope not.
It is right that the police have taken pre-emptive action. One of the most impressive things about policing recently has been the way in which the police have worked together with the clubs. The use of closed circuit television, which takes shots of hooligans, means that no one can feel that he can get away with it any more. It is a fundamental proof of the basic rule of law and order that the greatest deterrent is the certainty of being caught. What the police did up in Northumbria was worth while.
I cannot pretend to be all that optimistic about what will happen on the pitch. We shall travel hopefully, whether we arrive or not. The key thing is that by the end of the championships, I want people to see Britain not as a country beset by mad cow disease and all manner of problems--a country that people can have a laugh at--but as one where people can see that we are capable of organising something. I want us to be seen as a warm, friendly and successful country, which can be trusted with handling other great sporting events. I hope in my lifetime to see an Olympic games back in this country. Everyone should have that ambition, because there is no point in being successful in world sport unless one has the ambition to play such a role.
My hon. Friend the Minister focused on two issues in his speech, and although it could be open to the criticism that there was a great deal more that he could have said, I understand why he focused on those two things. He has a deep, personal commitment to them, for which I commend him, and which I share.
How can we expect to be a major cricketing nation when all the evidence suggests that just a third of United Kingdom schoolboys can actually play cricket at school? It is devastating that that should be the case. I do not want to apportion blame for that, but it is self-evident that, if people are not introduced to the game, how can they be expected to play it well?
Sometimes an anecdote tells the story a great deal more effectively than a lot of statistics. I was speaking at one of the big football grounds in the north of England, and one of the managerial staff came to collect me from the airport. He was one of those people, and we produce them, who was equally as good at football as at cricket. It was a marginal call for him whether he went into professional football or professional cricket. He chose professional football because the pay and conditions were better. We talked about sport and he said, "You know, my kids are equally as good at football as at cricket, but they can play only football at school. I discovered that they were good at cricket only because I play it with them in our back garden."
We must do something about that, because we shall not win test matches on the playing fields of Eton; we shall win them on the playing fields of Brixton. There are not many playing fields in Brixton, but we must organise that and do something about it. My hon. Friend's determination to ride over objections from wherever they come, whether they are problems with the teaching unions or whatever, is welcome. We have a national interest in making sure that youngsters play sport at school.
That aim goes beyond producing those who will be world beaters, although we must aim to produce such people, because it is humiliating when we fail after we all get worked up for an event such as the cricket World cup. We sent down a team and they were the only group of men who ever went to India and did not get the runs. It is deeply depressing and disappointing when we do that. The whole country, even those who do not care about cricket, wants to share in successes. Perhaps the team is getting something back on that at the moment.
The question not only of producing world beaters but of giving youngsters the stimulus and inspiration to get involved in sport is so important because it has other social consequences. I am chairman of the Sports Aid Foundation, which grant-aids athletes from sports that do
not pay them a living, even if they are highly successful. One of my governors, Jeff Thompson, from Manchester, is a formidable black athlete who became world karate champion. He said to me, "If I hadn't had sport, I could have ended up in prison like a lot of my classmates did." Jeff is a real role model and he got the MBE for the work that he is doing among youth in the cities of the north.
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