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Mr. Lord: My hon. Friend knows that I share his concern about this matter and I agree with every word he has said. Is not the great tragedy the fact that, although the Rugby Football Union says that the money it is getting is for the benefit of the sport as a whole, by turning it into a professional sport, which has meant that every senior club wants £1 million a year just to run the club and pay the players, the RFU has driven the deals with television companies? That is not to the long-term benefit of the sport--particularly that of the junior clubs--but is all to do with money grabbing at the highest possible level.
Sir Peter Fry: That was a good intervention and I agree with my hon. Friend, but I would go further. We have already seen the rift that has developed between the big clubs and the rest of the people who play rugby. I deplore that rift. The inevitable question is, as the Rugby Football Union picks the English team and the big clubs need the union, who is going to play for England in home internationals?
I must make it clear that I do not object to the best players in the sport receiving some remuneration. We have to accept that and move with the times. What I do object to is the Rugby Football Union saying, "Regardless of what anyone thinks, you're going to have to pay £24 a month to whoever it is to see home internationals at the time of the kick-off." That is a form of blackmail to a great many members of the public and it is a blow to the prestige of rugby union football. That is why I have sympathy with the new clauses and amendments.
I do not think that the measures go far enough, however. I would have liked the new schedule tabled by my friend the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes)--I call him my friend because we have paired in the House for many years--to be accepted. For many years, people felt certain that the five nations championship was safe, and that we could not find ourselves in the position in which we find ourselves today. Now, unfortunately, we are being told that it will be difficult to turn the clock back. It is not just a question of whether the championship will be televised; it is a question of whether it will ever be played again after the next season. Like many others, I thought that the august members of the rugby union committee would be able to compromise and find common ground with the other home unions. I was astonished that, following the agreement that was reached, there was a danger that the championship could well end.
I hope that the message that tonight's debate will send is that what has happened is not in the best interests of rugby union football, and that the House wants the
championship to continue. If the threat of considerable future inconvenience for any union that does a deal with the television company that will take the sport off the screen causes the rugby unions to compromise and decide that the five nations championship is more important than one individual union in this country, I believe that our debate will have been worth while. I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able at least to persuade me not to vote for the new clauses and amendments; at present, I would find it very difficult to vote against them.
Mr. Roy Hughes (Newport, East):
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Sir P. Fry), some of whose sentiments I echo.
I find the term "listed events" rather too innocuous: I prefer to think of events such as the World cup, the FA cup final, the Scottish cup final, the Derby, the Grand National, test cricket in this country and, of course, Wimbledon as the jewels of sport.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) pointed out that, if my new schedule were passed, the Bill would be in danger of becoming a hybrid. Let me emphasise that what we are asking for, as rugby enthusiasts, is parity. We want the five nations championship to continue to be seen by millions of people throughout the country. I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis) proposes to amend the new schedule to include the Welsh rugby union cup final, and I do not disagree with that.
Dr. John Cunningham:
We share my hon. Friend's objectives; that is not the problem. The problem is that, if the new schedule is added to the Bill, we are advised that it will put the whole legislation in jeopardy. If that happened, my hon. Friend would not get what he wanted. Our amendments do what he wants, while retaining the Bill intact. That is why it is advisable to support our amendments and not press the new schedule to a vote.
Mr. Hughes:
I cannot for the life of me understand why the five nations championship was not included in the Bill in the other place.
I declare an interest. Two or three years ago, several hon. Members got together and formed an all-party rugby union group. I am not exactly declaring an interest, because there is certainly no financial remuneration in the arrangement, but I have followed the sport closely for the past 50 years.
Rugby union has become very much a national sport. Indeed, it has developed into an international sport. Let us consider some of the issues. The tickets for an international match could normally be sold many times over. Unfortunately, many tickets are still sucked into the black market and sold at exorbitant prices.
It is expensive to go to an international today. According to the official statistics which I was reading only last week, Wales is now just about the most deprived region of the United Kingdom. Therefore, many people such as redundant mineworkers and steelworkers who would normally wish to go to internationals simply cannot afford to go.
Other people--some elderly, some infirm--who have great love for the game feel that going to an international match, with a big crowd, is just too physically exacting.
All those categories of people--those who cannot get tickets, those who find internationals too expensive and those who find that they are past going to internationals--watch the match on their television screen in the cosiness of their own parlour. That has been the case up to now.
I have no wish to interfere with the administration of rugby. That is a matter for the responsible officials of the game. However, as Members of Parliament we cannot help but be concerned if our constituents will be deprived of an amenity that they have enjoyed for so long. The so-called highlights of the match two hours afterwards are a very poor substitute for the real thing. Nevertheless, I appreciate the difficulties in which the rugby authorities find themselves, particularly with the advent of professionalism. Personally, I regret the fact that the game has gone that way, but there it is. As the hon. Member for Central Suffolk (Mr. Lord) said, each major club says that it needs £1 million to run its team for just one season.
Of course the rugby unions have to be concerned about the future development of the game. Naturally, therefore, they must consider the moneys coming into it, but they need to consider also what effect Mr. Murdoch might have on the game. How much control would he want to exercise? We have already seen what has happened with rugby league. It has been transferred arbitrarily manner to the summer. I understand that attendances at matches have dropped substantially.
Today, of course, the running of various sports is all to do with sponsorship. We have seen the ridiculous outfits that our cricketers wear on a Sunday. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] How daft they look.
The Broadcasting Bill is seen as a measure that will prevent ordinary people from enjoying the sport that they love. So many families just cannot afford a satellite dish outside their home. One of my constituents, Mr. Ron Stewart of Caldicot, wrote a letter to the Western Mail a couple of weeks ago in which he said that an "ordinary Joe", as he called himself, could not afford a satellite dish, but he was still very keen on rugby. Mr. Stewart loves to see the internationals and he is afraid that he will be deprived of that particular pleasure.
Sir Hector Monro:
I agree very much with the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes), who indirectly moved his amendments to the new clause.
I should declare an interest as one who was a member of the Scottish Rugby Union committee for some 20 years. I therefore know a little about the discussions that have gone on every few years on the renewal of the television franchise. That is why I am particularly disappointed at what the Rugby Football Union has done this year by giving a monopoly to Sky Television. It is no use to say, "Well, that is fine. You can see the highlights or even a recording of the match two hours later". Once
one knows the result of a game, half the pleasure of watching it has gone. That is a very poor answer to the attitude of the RFU.
I know that the RFU feels that it is up to it to obtain the most money possible from television to put back into the game. One appreciates that the four home unions have spent huge amounts of money developing their stadiums. We now have fine grounds in the four home countries, and in Paris as well. At the same time, however, the game has had to face a huge increase in the payments to players, and, of course, the cost of seats to the public has gone up dramatically. That makes it all the more important for the man in the street to have the opportunity to see rugby on terrestrial as well as Sky Television.
I am quite a believer in Sky. I enjoy watching golf at the weekends and rugby football from the southern hemisphere and South Africa. That is all good and we have to take our hats off to the Sky producers for the way in which they have enhanced the programmes over the years to an extremely high standard. That still does not remove from the argument the point made so strongly by the hon. Member for Newport, East and my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Sir P. Fry) that those who pay their television licences--it is a pretty high sum now--are entitled to see some top sport some of the time. Were they to lose live coverage of the entire five nations championship, they would feel seriously disadvantaged.
Most of the governing bodies of the international sports that are on the preferred list accept that and behave extremely competently and fairly to their viewers, and, of course, that is absolutely right. To me it is extremely serious that the RFU is prepared to put the five nations championship at grave risk.
The Scottish Rugby Union, the Welsh Rugby Union--as a result of a decision yesterday--and the Irish RFU are serious. They will not play England in the so-called five nations championship if the Sky Television franchise as proposed by England goes ahead. They will look forward to playing a four nations championship, probably of an extremely high standard, bringing excitement and enjoyment to all concerned but there will not be television broadcasts from Twickenham of England playing against Scotland, Wales or Ireland. That would be a sad loss to everyone in the country.
We must try to persuade the RFU that money is not everything and we must try to find a compromise. It is very sad, when the four home unions and France have been the closest of colleagues for at least 100 years, that one country wishes to opt out and be particularly difficult when it comes to giving the viewers of this country what they want to see, while ploughing a huge amount of money back into the game, whether the money comes from the BBC or elsewhere.
We must try to help the RFU off a hook that it has put itself on, and to get back to running a five nations championship. It is no use England thinking that it can have fun and games playing Italy or Romania in show games at Twickenham and perhaps playing a touring side. We must look at the touring sides too. Those from the southern hemisphere--the three main countries that we wish to see are New Zealand, Australia and South Africa--will need to negotiate television arrangements with the four home unions. If England carries on as it is, it will have great difficulty in reaching a favourable agreement with the other countries. Sadly, we are reaching an impasse.
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