Examination of Witnesses (Questions 39
- 59)
THURSDAY 14 MAY 1998
MR TONY
BANKS, MR
NIGEL PITTMANAND
MR SIMON
BROADLEY
Chairman
39. Mr Banks, we very much welcome you. We are
delighted you have been able to come to see us. If you have a
brief opening statement, we would be delighted to hear it, and
then we will swing into the questioning.
(Mr Banks) Thank you, Mr Chairman. I think perhaps
it would help if I made a personal statement at the beginning.
You are noted, after all, for being something of a hard tackler
and I have got to try and get my retaliation in first, Sir. I
had a most enjoyable couple of days in Stockholm watching Chelsea
win the European Cup Winners Cup, and arrived back home at half
past four this morning, so if I look bad—
40. You look terrific! Let us put it another
way—as good as you usually do!
(Mr Banks) Thank you. I can assure you I feel much
worse than I normally do! However, Sir, just on a serious point
about that victory, it was a great night for English sport. The
media has this obsession with always looking for crowd trouble—we
must be the only country in the world which sends news crews to
cover our crowd as well as sport crews to cover the football—but
the exemplary behaviour (well, that is probably putting it a little
high, but the good behaviour) of some 15,000 Chelsea fans was
a credit to English football, and I would like to have that placed
on the record. Can I quickly talk about the objectives of the
Department in terms of my responsibilities involving sport and
heritage. I suppose it is an odd combination, in local government
terms, I suppose, the equivalent would be being chairman of the
tramways and fine arts committee. Contrary to vulgar opinion,
as expressed in a number of newspapers, most recently in the Sunday
Telegraph, I actually take my heritage responsibilities very
seriously and I find them most enjoyable, but sport is the issue
today, I expect. We want to deliver sport for all. It is an old
strap-line, one which was, as it were, coined by the late great
Lord Howell, but it is something that we still see as being highly
relevant to our Department and indeed what we are trying to encourage
within that, and we focus on access, is encouraging active recreation,
removing as many barriers to participation as possible, education,
particularly obviously through schools and clubs to get young
people into sport, excellence as well, creating the means for
top performers to achieve their best and for the country because
the country actually wants to see our sportsmen and women excelling
at the international level, it makes us feel good, and that is
one of the great psychological assets, I suppose, and attributes
that sport possesses, and of course jobs and prosperity, encouraging
sport to deliver more of both while respecting its wider obligations
to society. May I just again briefly say, Chairman, that it is
an interesting fact that the budget of my Department for sport
is small at about £50 million, and that would not be that
bad of course if the £50 million was totally at my disposal,
but of course about £49 million of that £50 million
goes straight out to other bodies like the English Sports Council
and the UK Sports Council, so in terms of money that is available,
as it were, to me as a Minister and to our Department directly,
it is a very, very small amount and that is why the constant stream
of Members who come to me and put great projects to me and ask
how we can possibly fund them should realise that, I am afraid,
as a Minister, I tend to have to try to influence rather than
to take executive action in terms of sports decisions. Lastly,
I asked for a list because someone said, "What does the Sports
Minister do?" and it is an exceedingly good question and
I think really I would see my function more as an advocate for
sport within government because I have been contacting my colleague
Ministers who appear to have some element of responsibility for
sport within their Departments and so far I have been talking
to Education Ministers, Employment, Home Affairs, Defence, the
Foreign Office and International Development as all of them have
a sport element somewhere within their Department. I also noticed
of course from this list that I asked for that the Sports Minister
is rather a lonely figure that wanders around the great departments
of state and I noticed that my predecessors have been in Education
and Science, Housing and Local Government, the Environment, back
in Education and Science, and now in Culture, Media and Sport.
It is perhaps a fact, and I was picking it up in some earlier
questions, that this Department and indeed the job of Sports Minister
is still not one that we have fully sorted out in terms of where
the best departmental responsibility lies and where the Sports
Minister would, therefore, best serve his functions. I am not
seeking a transfer to Education at the moment, but I would actually
think that that is probably one of the areas where there is most
sport at the level we are concerned about, the grassroots involvement.
That is my, I hope, reasonably coherent opening statement and
I am just amazed that I have not collapsed already!
Chairman: Probably this is the best time
to question you!
Mr Fabricant
41. Well, Minister, I hardly know whether there
is any point in questioning you as you have already said you have
little responsibility for anything, but, nevertheless, we will
go on anyway. Very shortly after you became a Minister, you said
in the House, "I want to be spared the hordes of old buffers
in blazers and caps who purport to run so many of our sports".
Twelve months on, are there any fewer Colonels Tufton and Bufton
there or are there more?
(Mr Banks) I do not actually monitor them, as it were.
I suspect, well, in fact I know that there are less. There is
certainly a growing professional attitude within sports organisations,
but I have got to tell you, sir, that we have a problem in this
country and the problem, I think, is best summed up in this way:
as a small country, or a collection of countries, I suppose, we
have 112, I think, recognised sports by the Sports Councils and
they have 413 governing bodies covering those sports and we have
no less than five Sports Councils and four Sports Ministers. Now,
I think that is an extravagance that this country in many ways,
you could argue, can ill afford, but of course that is the historical
legacy that we have of having a country that splits itself politically
at times and certainly in sporting terms at times. It does make
for great difficulty in terms of sports organisation and devolution,
which of course I support as a loyal Member of the Government
with great enthusiasm, is actually making the organisation of
sport, or will make the organisation of sport in this country
more difficult, not less difficult. The last point of course is
that if one had said maybe four years ago to sport, "If you
could have nearly an extra £1 billion a year across the country
to spend on sport, what would your attitude be?" people would
of course have been delighted. In England I think we have spent
the last 3½ years through the Lottery some £700 million
or committed £700 million worth of expenditure. That is the
nature of it. We are then dealing with organisations that in the
past have been arguing around what is the equivalent of a few
bob, though it runs into greater sums than that, and I think in
many ways the structures that were in place, with the sort of
fairly amateurish way that it was approached, have not moved easily
into the area where there are now large amounts of money, never
enough of course, as you know, but large amounts of money with
sport becoming a bigger and bigger business as we go through.
That is changing now in terms of the personnel. Governing bodies
are realising that they have to be professional and we require
them of course to make themselves very accountable for what is
still public monies, because it is not government money that is
going through the Lottery, but it is public money, and if anything
were to go wrong, the responsibility undoubtedly would be visited
back on us here in the House of Commons.
42. It does seem to me, though, that your evidence,
and I can understand this, is characterised by some degree of
impotence and frustration because of all the points that you made
earlier in your introduction about your £50 million and that
£49 million of it goes through Sports Councils, so you do
not have direct control. Perhaps one area where you do have control
is that over listed events because one of the points that strikes
me is that if a sporting event is not listed and, therefore, it
can negotiate with Sky or whomever for contract deals, it means
that they have got to be business-like in the way they deal with
Sky, or one hopes so. Have you a view on this and whether they
should be maintained as they are or should listed event numbers
reduce?
(Mr Banks) As you probably know, Mr Fabricant, I have
a view on most everything, but then opinions are fairly cheap.
I do not, as a matter of fact, have power in the area that you
have just described over listed events.
43. Would you like power over that?
(Mr Banks) Well, I would like to have an awful lot
more power.
44. It is in your Department.
(Mr Banks) It is within the Department, yes, but from
an individual point of view—
Chairman
45. It is laid down by statute.
(Mr Banks) Well, as you know, there has been a Review
Committee and the Review Committee report is still with the Secretary
of State. As luck would have it, there is a meeting at four o'clock
this afternoon where we will be discussing this and I hope the
Secretary of State, and he hopes, will be making an announcement
shortly about the recommendations of the Review Committee.
Mr Fabricant
46. Let me move on now to something that I know
you are quite keen on and that is to try and attract the World
Cup to the UK in 2006. Now, in our past life where we were the
Select Committee for National Heritage, we had a series of rather
sad individuals coming before us who were going for the Olympic
Games bid for Manchester and we know how effective that was and
how costly it was, although Manchester, incidentally, is hosting
the Commonwealth Games in 2002, and it appears that that is going
to cost in public funds £114 million. Firstly, what can you
do, as the Minister, to attract the World Cup in 2006 and what
sort of ramifications have you assessed to the Exchequer?
(Mr Banks) This is one area where it has been possible
for the Government to get very much involved and to assist in
a significant way. First of all, it was my Party's Manifesto commitment
to attract international sporting festivals to this country and
I specifically mention the 2006 World Cup. I am very much involved
in this campaign which is a bid from the English Football Association.
It is a campaign that was funded a third by the Football Association
itself, a third by the Premier League and a third by the English
Sports Council through the Lottery. A war chest of nearly £10
million has been assembled and is available. I do not think we
will necessarily use that full amount but it is an expensive process.
Just the bid process itself is an expensive one. The campaign
is going very well, which is my judgment. The media, again, were
very cynical about this but they are gradually appreciating the
fact that, if I may say so, we are doing rather well. Our main
competitors in Europe are the Germans and, without wishing to
sound ungracious, I think on this occasion we have undoubtedly
got our towels down at the swimming pool before our competitors.
We are undoubtedly leading the race at the moment, but that is
not based on complacency, it is based on the extensive lobbying
we are doing. It is a very focused campaign, because we have to
gain the majority of votes of the 24 members of the FIFA executive.
What is happening at the moment is that we are making presentations
to them, and in fact we have made presentations to the all-party
football group, members have been written to individually, we
are encouraging all members—Select Committee members who
are travelling, ministers as well—to advocate our case.
The Government involvement is a significant one because Government
involvement on these trips does open significant doors, both with
the movers and shakers in the countries we are going to and of
course we are able to use our embassies and high commissions.
I can tell you our diplomatic staff throw themselves into this
campaign with enormous enthusiasm; perhaps it is a refreshing
change from the sort of things they perhaps have to do normally.
So we are doing well. We have some way to go because the decision
will not be taken until June 2000. There are many other points
I could make about our campaign, but I would not want to detain
the Committee. I suspect the members who are interested in this
have already had the briefing material and will know the arguments
as well as I do.
47. Finally, are there any plans to try and
attract the Olympic Games here at any stage?
(Mr Banks) This, of course, is a matter for the British
Olympic Association. As you know, it is not a country, it is a
city which makes the bid, although of course we all understand
that unless the Government of the country of the city is actually
on-side there will be no Olympic Games because it is an expensive
operation. We were unable to gain acceptance for Manchester. I
have had discussions with President Samaranch, the International
Olympic Committee president, and he wants to see a bid from us,
he wants to see a bid from London. We have in mind—and this
is not a matter for me yet again but we have an influence here—that
2012 would perhaps be an appropriate year to host the Olympic
Games. The last time we hosted it in this country was 1948, and
indeed we did not put in a bid for that, we were asked to host
it on the grounds that of course we were the only country in Europe
at that time which had any sporting infrastructure in any state
of repair. So 2012 but, as I said, it is not our decision, it
is the decision of the British Olympic Association, but they certainly
would want London; they would put in a bid for no other city.
I am afraid this is because it is the capital, and this is not
to say anything about the excellent bid that Manchester put in.
We also, of course, now would be able to do it because London
was not able to put in a bid before because at the last round
we did not have city-wide government, it was regrettably abolished
in 1986 by the then Conservative Government, fortunately we will
now be returning to city-wide government in London with a directly
elected mayor, and no doubt she will play a significant part in
that!
Mr Fearn
48. Could I ask about the Sheffield Institute?
I have been involved with Sport For All for quite a while now
through local government and the Sheffield one was a great initiative.
What is the timetable for that? What will it comprise? How do
you think it will fare from the time it gets off the ground?
(Mr Banks) For the benefit of others, the hon. member
is referring to the UK Sports Institute which started off as the
Academy for Sport. It was a decision that we inherited and supported
from the previous administration, but we felt it needed more shaping
when we took over Government. Having visited the sites again,
there were excellent bids from three short listed sites but we
went for Sheffield in the end as the headquarters for the UK Sports
Institute. The situation at the moment is that we have much of
the management structure in place. This is being done, incidentally,
through the UK Sports Council, they are taking the lead with English
Sports Council involvement. They have committed a budget of £160
million in total, between £40 and £60 million of that
is available for the headquarters. The idea, of course, is that
the regional structure will plug into the headquarters from around
the country, and centres of excellence for various sports will,
as it were, be franchised and approved by the headquarters. It
is again not a very graceful expression, but I have described
it as a medals factory. It is for excellence, but unless we have
a thriving grassroots, unless we have a regional structure, it
is pointless talking about excellence. It will essentially be
for Olympic sports. It will not involve football, cricket and
rugby because we think as team sports they require their own centres,
although a very important and integral part of the Institute will
of course be the sports science and sports medicine, and that
expertise will of course be available to all sports. That is the
way it is going. I am assured by Sir Rodney Walker, who is our
man out there, as it were, that contracts are on the point of
being signed, but perhaps Mr Broadley could give you more specific
detail—he was not with me in Stockholm.
49. So how long is it going to take, Mr Broadley?
(Mr Broadley) I am the head of sport in the Department
and I am Simon Broadley. On the dates—opening in the year
2000 but, as the Minister says, the services are really starting
this year. They will be built up from the World Class Performance
Programme, which is already in place, and the senior appointments
we expect to be made this year. On the franchises, the sites around
the country, we expect an announcement on those probably in a
couple of months.
50. So it could take some years?
(Mr Broadley) For the buildings to be put up, yes,
inevitably it will take some time.
51. There is a gap, which is what I am after.
(Mr Banks) Yes, there is a gap. We have survived without
such an institute, a centre, but we have seen, as it were, the
time lag between setting up an institute and it actually producing
real results, and we can see that from the Australian Institute
which was in many ways used by the previous Government as a model.
We would like to think, given the fact it will be operating, there
will be an improvement in our Olympic chances and performances
in Sydney in 2000 over that of Atlanta, but there is a delay.
To be honest, I would think we are still looking at five years
before we really see that medals factory working in the way it
does in terms of turning out the worldclass performers. Although,
of course, we have many fine sports men and women in this country
already, and this hopefully will enhance their performance, but
the idea is to have a constant stream coming through in five years'
time.
52. On Sport For All, in the last couple of
years I have had to go round to play badminton and bowl and play
football for the over-50s. Are we looking to the other end of
the spectrum as well, because that is very important now with
so many people retiring early?
(Mr Banks) Yes, we make it quite clear that "sport
for all" means precisely that. We are not just talking excellence,
but we are talking about sport for people whatever their age,
whatever their abilities or their other talents, I might add.
I have taken a very, very close interest in disability sports
in this country where, I might add, we excel at the international
level and I want people, as it were, to take as much pride, to
glory in the achievements of our para-Olympians as we do in our
able-bodied Olympians and they will have a significant element,
I might add, in the Institute, but yes, "sport for all"
means exactly that. We want to encourage sports participation
amongst the entire population. One of the departments that I talk
to is the Department of Health because clearly an active and sport-conscious
nation will be a healthy nation and it will live longer.
Mr Green
53. It is interesting when you reflect on the
different sports which many people in this country care a lot
about that football is unarguably in better shape than it was
ten years ago, however you measure it, cricket is unarguably in
a worse state, athletics is unarguably in a worse state and none
of these transformations has got very much to do with anything
that any Sports Minister does. Does it sometimes occur to you
that the job of the Sports Minister is in some ways, to a large
degree, a sham, that it is an enormously publicised post and you
get a lot of attention, but actually your effect on British sport
is not very great?
(Mr Banks) That is quite unkind, but probably reasonably
accurate.
Chairman
54. He was not meaning it personally; it was
a generic question.
(Mr Banks) I understand of course. I would not think
it quite as impotent as that. In fact I even said it in my opening
statement, that so many of the decisions are actually taken by
other bodies, but it is not as if ministers are wholly without
influence. If that were not to be the case, I cannot really understand
why so many people want to come and have meetings from so many
different sports. They do recognise that there is an influence
factor in being the Sports Minister, in being, as it were, as
I said, an advocate within government and outside of it for sport
and for different sports. The legislation, as you know, sir, that
is going through the House at the moment with regards to the Lottery
will enable perhaps greater influence to be involved through requiring
strategic plans to be drawn up by the Lottery distributors, and
we talk specifically about sport in that respect. This is not
to say that we are looking around, and we have had this argument
in the Committee, for direct government, ministerial control of
the levers of power, though some of us would like to see that
and I must be honest and say that I happen to be one of them,
but we will be using, as it were, the requirements for strategic
plans to be drawn up to make sure that we can see a plan developing
for sports and for different sports in this country, so I think
influence rather than executive decision-making is the role of
any Sports Minister.
Mr Green
55. It is a slightly terrifying prospect that
you hold out. I think the only thing which would be worse than
hordes of old buffers would be government ministers, and I am
not personalising it any further, but there is a serious point
there as to how much—"influence" is the wrong
word—how much control politicians should have over people's
recreation.
(Mr Banks) I detect that I am probably getting into
difficult areas and I must call on my well-known fund and pool
of diplomatic ability at this point. I do not see why ministers
or politicians should not trust themselves. For heaven's sake,
if we do not trust ourselves to make decisions as ministers and
as politicians, why on earth should we expect people to trust
us when it comes round to an election. I have never been one of
those who feels that somehow, and this is a personal opinion,
Mr Chairman, this is not government policy, but I have never been
one of those who feels that there is something inferior about
the decisions taken by ministers or elected politicians. I might
consider that I disagree with the decisions, particularly if they
are taken by ministers not of my own Party, but that is democracy,
but the fact is why on earth should we assume that somehow, as
hopefully intelligent lay people who have an understanding of
issues, who do actually mix with people, that under those circumstances
we cannot trust our own judgment. I understand the philosophy
of the arm's length principle and I think, listening to the Permanent
Secretary, that there is much to commend it, but this idea that
somehow political decisions or decisions taken by politicians
in areas like recreation and sport and the arts are somehow inferior
decisions is not one that I am even going to accept.
56. Well, that is the end of the arm's length
principle then.
(Mr Banks) No, it is not.
57. It is.
(Mr Banks) No, it is not because I did make it quite
clear, Mr Chairman, that I was expressing a personal opinion and
Mr Green will be delighted to know of course that my personal
opinion does not carry very much weight in this area.
Mr Green: Except that you are the Minister
in the Department that is responsible for controlling its own
instincts to abolish the arm's length principle and it is interesting,
I put it no higher, to know that you do not believe in it at all.
I think the serious underlying point is whether politicians should
take so many decisions for people in their lives that they should
try and control their recreation and all that, but I think that
is probably a philosophical dispute that is not necessarily for
this Committee and that is probably the point at issue between
us. In practical terms, and I return to the original point, that,
as you say, sports come beating a path to your door and not even
necessarily for money, which is why most people go and visit ministers
and public officials normally, I wonder if you are almost setting
up an expectation which you cannot meet and that because the post
of Sports Minister is so important in this country, when two or
three of our major national sports have a bad period at the same
time, actually it is nothing to do with the Sports Minister today,
but people will then start looking for politicians to solve their
problems in this area and they would be foolish to do so.
Chairman: You, with your great experience,
are discounting the fact that most people in this country for
good or ill, probably for good, have not the faintest idea what
ministers actually do, and I am being quite serious.
Mr Green
58. So am I. I guess if you had a list of the
ten best-known government ministers over quite a lot of periods,
the Sports Minister would be one of those, even though it is always
a junior ministerial post.
(Mr Banks) I agree it is a high-profile position,
but then I do not think this is necessarily a factor of the incumbent.
Sport is highly controversial. The coverage that we have for sport
in this country is extensive. Every single newspaper now, broadsheet
as well as tabloid, brings out a special sports supplement. We
have just had a new Sunday newspaper, Sport First, launched,
and there are regional sports newspapers. It really is a very,
very important area, but the trouble is, Mr Green, as you well
know, that the other philosophy in this country is, "What
is the Government doing about it?" Everyone has this feeling
that the Government somehow can always do things and it is nice
to be able to do things as well if you happen to be a government
minister. The fact is that I do not create expectation, but since
it is about influence, since it is about publicity, I suspect
that is why the sports actually make their way to my Department
and ask for my opinion or ask for support or whatever. They also
are thinking, and this may or may not be correct, that if I have
expressed an opinion that X sport is very good and ought to be
more heavily funded or better funded, that somehow will carry
weight when they then go to the English Sports Council or to the
UK Sports Council or to the Lottery. It is those sort of things
that they believe, as indeed when our constituents come and ask
us for supporting letters for visas or whatever and it is no good
saying, "This isn't going to make any difference whatsoever
to the entry clearance officer" because people just simply
do not believe that and who knows, perhaps they are right and
we are wrong and perhaps it does have some influence.
Mr Keen
59. Minister, before we get on to the serious
aspect of this same theme, you were kind enough to kick off at
West Ham on Tuesday at the English MPs versus Scottish MPs match.
Having seen at least part of the game we played, I wondered whether
we still remained on Mr Broadley's desk or whether we had moved
over to Mr Pittman's and his monuments and sites!
(Mr Banks) I greatly envied those who were able to
put on a kit and go out there. I greatly welcomed the result,
of course, and I speak now as the English Sports Minister. It
was a good result. One point which emerges from the question,
if I may just twist it slightly, seeing English MPs playing Scottish
MPs and hoping that is going to be an annual event, it would be
rather nice I think if we get back to having the England v Scotland,
Scotland v England domestic match in this country. We had reasons
why that was finished, but I think we have so improved our stadia,
so improved our safety regimes within this country and in Scotland,
that I think the time is now right for the oldest international
fixture in the world to be restored—Scotland v England and
England v Scotland.
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