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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. We must now turn to the next debate.
Soccer Grounds (Northern Ireland)
12.30 pm
Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry): It is a pleasure to be able to raise this issue today. I hope that the Minister will recognise that, if some of my hon. Friends leave before he finishes speaking, it is not intended as a discourtesy to him. A past leader of our party is preaching at a service in honour of St. Patrick today, and the hon. Gentleman will no doubt appreciate that that, too, is a draw.
I welcome the opportunity to raise the issue of health and safety at Northern Ireland soccer grounds. I do so in an optimistic frame of mind, given the Minister's recognition, during last night's debate on the national stadium for Northern Ireland, that there is now a demand that the Province should have sporting facilities at least on a par with those in other regions of the United Kingdom. That matter concerns a great many people in Northern Ireland--in particular, my constituents in Coleraine, where the showgrounds were recently threatened with closure following the serving on the local football club of three health and safety improvement orders. Those orders were the inevitable consequence of the current legislation. As I am sure that the Minister will appreciate that, if council officials had not acted, they would have been held culpable in the event of a disaster, on the ground that they were not enforcing the necessary health and safety regulations.
Those orders were served last October. At the time, Coleraine football club was given six months to come up with £250,000 to pay for the necessary improvements. That was never a realistic time scale or, indeed, a realistic prospect, given the low attendance and the consequential general lack of finance in the Irish league at present. Thankfully, it appears that the club will now be given a little breathing space to sort itself out, but the problem remains and is certain to spread to other senior soccer clubs in Northern Ireland if the Government do not act soon and come up with a coherent plan and appropriate funding to create a way forward for the Irish league soccer grounds in the Province.
The Minister is well aware of the problems to which I refer. For example, he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) have received several hundred postcards from ordinary fans in the Province, who have been supporting the call of the Northern Ireland Football Supporters Association for Government assistance to fund the improvement of spectator and safety facilities at all senior Irish league clubs.
I am also aware that the Minister recently met my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Mr. Forsythe), together with a number of other hon. Members, to discuss many of these problems. My hon. Friend came away from that meeting encouraged by the Minister's helpful attitude. I hope that the Minister departed feeling equally contented, given that he had just been in the company of a man who, to my knowledge, is the only serving Member of Parliament to have won an Irish cup winner's medal--[Hon. Members: "Oh!"] Oh, yes.
It appears that many of the problems that senior football clubs in Northern Ireland now face are a direct result of the imbalance of grant aid that they receive in comparison with their mainland counterparts. As I understand it,
the principal source of funding that is currently available to Irish league clubs is the lottery sports fund, administered by the Sports Council for Northern Ireland. That initiative offers up to 50 per cent. of costs, but only up to a maximum award of £50,000 towards safety work at identified spectator venues, including Irish league grounds--but there are other calls on the funds.
According to the Sports Council for Northern Ireland, the lottery sports fund in the Province has an allocation of only £4 million available each year, and applications for that money--mainly from soccer, rugby and Gaelic Athletic Association clubs--are running in excess of £21 million. Clearly, the solution to the problems faced by Irish league clubs will not be found from that source.
In theory, the Football Trust is another potentially useful source. The reality, I fear, is another matter. The trust is empowered to fund ground improvements in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland. However, as the Football Trust money has traditionally been reserved almost exclusively for improvements demanded as a result of the Taylor report, soccer clubs from the Province have not fared well. One exception is our national football stadium, Windsor Park, which has received a reasonable amount because, I am given to understand, it is the sole soccer ground in Northern Ireland that must abide by the Taylor recommendations.
Until recently, the Football Trust also operated an improvement scheme for clubs in the Irish league, which allocated a number of grants for local projects. However, only yesterday I discovered that the trust no longer has any money available for clubs in Northern Ireland; indeed, I am informed that there appears to be no prospect of its having any money for our clubs in the foreseeable future.
I look forward to hearing from the Minister where on earth our clubs are supposed to turn for the necessary funding. We hear rumours that new legislation on the matter is being developed for consideration by the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Minister will be aware that I am somewhat pessimistic that the Assembly will ever be in a position to act on that or any other issue, given the situation that we now have at Stormont and in the Province in general. That being the case, will our local soccer clubs be left swinging in the wind, with the current state of uncertainty continuing indefinitely? I do not think that that would be allowed: owing to the safety regulations, they have to do something to correct matters.
As I explained, Coleraine football club does not appear to have much time left. The situation is made all the more serious by the fact that the Coleraine showgrounds, which belong to an agricultural society, are also home every July to the Northern Ireland Milk cup, which is the largest and most prestigious youth football tournament in Europe. That competition, which involves matches played in various parts of the Province and in the north-west generally, is a vital component of the Northern Ireland tourist industry. The Coleraine triangle is an important tourist area. In the past, the tournament has attracted to the area teams from as far afield as Brazil, Russia, China, Algeria, the United States and Australia. It is a very popular competition. That showpiece tournament also helps the Province to develop its own home-grown players and--most important, as I am sure the Minister will agree--to convey a positive image of itself across the world, even in the most difficult and trying of circumstances. If the showgrounds were to close forany reason, what would happen to the Milk cup? I am
sure that the Minister will agree that the repercussions would deal a disastrous blow not only to football but to the image of the Province.
A number of other senior clubs have been watching developments in Coleraine and awaiting with trepidation their own health and safety improvement orders, and the arrival of officials on their doorstep. That is inevitable. I should explain that the Coleraine ground is not the worst football ground in Northern Ireland; it is generally recognised as one of the most finely equipped stadiums in the Irish league--even so, it is not up to standard.
A recent spate of crowd trouble at some high-profile matches in the Province has not helped the overall situation. We all deplore such activities, which do no one any good and do great damage. As well as highlighting the problems caused by the fact that segregation is needed at some grounds, those incidents put the spotlight on the stewarding of matches. Again, it appears that money is the problem.
Mr. Clifford Forsythe (South Antrim):
Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that some clubs are suggesting changes in the Irish league might cause even greater problems in future?
Mr. Ross:
My hon. Friend speaks with an intimate knowledge of such matters that I do not possess. He was a professional player for many years, and we can take it for granted that his comments are an accurate reflection of the matter and that he expresses a concern that is current in Northern Ireland football circles.
In the old days, the Royal Ulster Constabulary took the leading role in stewarding Irish league matches, but stewarding is now largely the responsibility of the clubs, and that causes them difficulties. In most cases, the individuals who carry out such tasks are unpaid volunteers, but a far more professional approach is needed for the more high-profile matches and that means employing qualified stewards. Many local clubs survive on gates of barely 100, so where are they supposed to find the money for that?
I sometimes have the impression that people in Northern Ireland prefer to play football than to watch it. That is always healthy. Every young boy in the Province sees himself as a future George Best, and I hope that there are a few such players out there, because that would do us all the world of good.
Funding is obviously required to train club stewards. I am informed that Coleraine football club has pledged that all its stewards will be trained to the required standard, and we all welcome that. The Government should acknowledge such a move by giving some form of subsidy, especially bearing in mind the long-term savings to the public purse through the reduction in policing costs at such matches.
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