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Mr. Gale: May I ask my hon. Friend the Minister briefly to concentrate his mind on amendment No. 130 and to comment on its legality? It seeks to make certain specific provisions retrospective to the Bill's publication on 19 March. Following publication of the Bill, Back-Bench organisations, sporting bodies and other groups made representations to my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. On the back of those representations, the Central Council of Physical Recreation put in an enormous amount of hard work with the governing bodies of many sports in an attempt to produce what everyone believed might work--the voluntary code to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) referred.
The voluntary code was published while we were debating the Bill in Committee. It covered live transmission rights, repeat rights and radio rights and it was hailed as a great achievement. Everyone believed it to be a fair deal for sports, for sporting bodies that needed television and media money, and for spectators. However, before the ink was dry, a deal was struck between BSkyB and the Rugby Football Union. To be fair to BSkyB and to the RFU, that deal, which separates highlights and radio rights from live transmission rights, honoured the letter of the agreement, but that deal was struck in the knowledge that the other four of the five nations championship were already negotiating a deal with the fifth nation--England--to provide coverage for the whole of the five nations championship. In other words, two organisations--BSkyB and the RFU--sought deliberately to drive a coach and horses through the voluntary code. I believe that the RFU has undermined all the work by the CCPR and my hon. Friend the Minister to establish that voluntary code.
We now know that the five nations championship is at risk and could well become the four nations championship. That will deprive an enormous number of tomorrow's rugby players--the young players--of the opportunity to watch the stars of today. They will no longer have the opportunity to see those games live on television. That is important.
It is important to note that only 10 per cent. of the massive fee will go into developing the game. The other 90 per cent. will be used to pay off the mortgage on Twickenham. I do not believe that 10 per cent. is sufficient to pay for the training and development of young players. Is it legally possible to make the Bill retrospective?
Although I do not like retrospective legislation, the deal was struck in the knowledge that the House was debating the Bill and my hon. Friend and the Central Council of Physical Recreation were negotiating a voluntary code. Action was taken to pre-empt those negotiations. Is it legally possible for the House to make that part of the Bill retrospective so that the deal can be overturned?
Mr. Grocott:
It is ironic that in the week after Euro 96 we are debating whether major national sporting events should be broadcast on the main television channels that everyone can watch. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) said, the semi-finals attracted an audience of around 27 million. That must be close to a record television audience for a sporting event. Had England reached the final, which was played yesterday, there is no doubt that the audience watching would have broken all records for any televised sporting event.
We know what happens to audiences when events are transferred from terrestrial channels to cable and satellite. Throughout the European championships, we were constantly reminded about the World cup 30 years ago. This is a Department of National Heritage Bill, and we are talking about our national heritage. To those of us who watched that game 30 years ago, England winning the World cup is part of our national heritage--but it would not have been if it had been available only to a tiny minority on a subscription channel. The immortal words, "They think it's all over--it is now," would not even have been remembered; they would certainly not have become part of the country's language.
That loss of heritage applies to many other events too. What would have happened to the interest in athletics if the Coe and Ovett duels of the early 1980s had been available only on a narrowly subscribed channel? Those are the questions that hon. Members should ask themselves before more and more of our major events are lost.
Some of us have been saying these things for years and the Government have basically done nothing. I could cite a great string of events that have already been lost, but I will mention just one or two. The hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir A. Haselhurst) talked about the cricket deal. One-day cricket internationals have been lost from terrestrial channels. Although they never attract anything like the viewing figures that football attracts, it is worth looking at what happened to the figures. The last time the one-day internationals in England were available on the terrestrial channels--England against New Zealand in 1994--the audience was 2 million, which I accept is not huge. For the first one-day international match this year, between England and India, shown on satellite, the audience was 170,000. If that is in the long-term interests of cricket, the cricket authorities must have a different view of those interests than common sense dictates.
Those people who say, as the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) did--the fallacy is frequently quoted in the House--that somehow the sporting authorities would be in dire need of money and would not get the cash without the generosity of Sky Television should be reminded of the most damaging deal which resulted in the loss of a major event from the main channels: the Premier league football deal, which is currently in operation. In that deal--we know that the money offered has gone up dramatically since then--Sky offered £300 million, while ITV offered about £260 million, which is not peanuts; it is not exactly asking the sporting authorities to accept sackcloth and ashes.
The notion that the chairman of the Premier league, who sat down to negotiate the current deal or the one that has most recently been negotiated for an astronomical sum, was thinking of the long-term interests of the sport and the desperate concern that young people should see it is foolish. I do not particularly blame such people for not sharing that interest, because running a football club is not necessarily the most lucrative way to pass one's time. Their interest is in next year's balance sheet. That is why they want the deal with Sky. They are not concerned about the most crucial element of sport--that young people should see it at its best.
Anyone who thinks that the Government can be trusted to secure the national events for the nation has only to look at the record. This matter has been raised repeatedly in the past five years. As recently as last December, Ministers were saying that there was no case whatever for intervening in any way, shape or form to try to protect more events. It was only when they lost the vote in the House of Lords that they had a Damascus road conversion.
It is important that the major sports of our nation are available to the people whom we represent and, my word, there is no doubt about what they are saying. We have a responsibility to them, and to the long-term interests of sport which I am afraid that the sporting authorities are simply not taking into account in the way they should. It is our duty to see that the list is regularly reviewed and, I believe, extended to respond to what the public want.
Mr. Sproat:
I will try to speak at no great length. I start by saying that this is certainly a serious issue, but the Labour party's proposals are not the answer. The right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) explained that new clause 12 would require the Secretary of State to review the list of events in clause 91 within 12 months, and annually thereafter. Following the review, the Secretary of State would be required to present an order in Parliament, specifying events to be listed for the following year. This would be subject to negative resolution, or to affirmative resolution if an event were taken off the previous year's list.
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