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Mr. Tom Pendry (Stalybridge and Hyde): I congratulate the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) on his good luck in introducing the Bill, and I shall comment later on how much good luck he has had.
The Bill is welcome as a further step in the continuing fight against football hooliganism. I join those who have said that, in debating a football-related Bill today, our minds must turn to the families and friends of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster 10 years ago. That goes without saying, but I should like to place my sympathy on record.
In declaring various of my interests, I hope to demonstrate to the House why I have a keen and long-standing interest in the issues that we are debating. I am chairman of the Football Trust, patron of the National Federation of Football Supporters Clubs, chairman of the all-party sports group, author of "Labour's Charter for Football" and a member of Liberty. I am, of course, speaking in my own capacity today.
After many years of campaigning for action on these important issues, I should, under normal circumstances, be jumping for joy to see the Bill introduced today. It draws on much of the thinking set out in "Labour's Charter for Football", Labour's policy document on football, published before the last election. It will go a long way towards stamping out hooligan behaviour among a minority of so-called football supporters.
The charter was the result of extensive consultation with interested parties. It received the endorsement of the Football Association, the Premier league, the Football League, the Professional Footballers Association, the National Federation of Football Supporters, the Football Supporters Association, the Football Trust and many others. It highlighted the need for greater use of restriction orders for those convicted of football-related offences and encouraged co-operation with other European Governments in stamping out hooliganism.
The charter was the first document to highlight the inadequacy of the law on racist chanting, and it pledged that the new Labour Government would tighten the law on the chanting of obscene and racist remarks to cover individual transgressions and provocations of players and supporters. That proposal was later endorsed by the football task force, and it is in clause 9 of the Bill.
In common with the Bill, the charter recommended an increase in football-related offences and powers to allow the police to deal adequately with ticket touts. The charter also recommended the setting up of a task force, and one was established immediately after the Government came to power, albeit in a different form from that envisaged in the charter.
I have no intention of being churlish this morning, but it is important that the House should not forget those historical facts. It goes without saying that I believe the Bill to be a huge step in the right direction. It rightly seeks to redress serious imbalances and to close loopholes in the law on hooliganism, racist chanting and ticket touting, all of which were spelled out in our promises to the nation before the general election.
I must, however, chide my Front-Bench colleagues by registering disappointment, even disbelief, that such a valuable piece of legislation, developed and promoted by
Labour, has been handed on a plate to the hon. Member for West Chelmsford. In my 29 years in the House, I cannot recollect an occasion on which such a popular Bill drawn up by a Government has been passed over to the Opposition.
Mr. Burns:
May I explain matters? I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I have not sought to make any cheap party political capital out of the Bill. I fully acknowledge the help and support given me by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), on a Bill that the hon. Gentleman is right to say has arisen from Government consultation.
I was fortunate enough to come sixth in the ballot. Although Labour Members were ahead of me, they decided, rightly--I do not criticise them at all--to introduce Bills closer to their personal interests. It would have been terrible if a Bill of this importance had not had a chance to get on to the statute book this year because we could not find an hon. Member high enough in the ballot to give it a speedy passage through the House.
Mr. Pendry:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I do not blame him at all. He is extremely lucky. I was merely trying to say that the Bill is so important that the Government should have found time for it in their legislative programme. Far from blaming the hon. Gentleman for picking up the Bill, I think he should go down on bended knee to my hon. Friend the Minister for giving him his opportunity.
The hon. Gentleman is popular on both sides of the House, and no one doubts his motives. However, I am surprised that he has taken up the issue, particularly because, to my knowledge, he has raised football only twice in the House. One was to attack one of my ministerial colleagues on a football-related matter. The other was to criticise the pools companies on the eve of the introduction of the national lottery, stating:
While I am on the subject, I am also concerned at the tone of the press release that the hon. Member for West Chelmsford issued on 31 March, on Conservative central office paper. As the House knows, the contents of the Bill are the result of a wide-ranging public consultation exercise carried out by the Labour party and the Home Office. I was greatly perturbed to read the press release, which talked of the purpose of "my Bill", as though the hon. Gentleman and the Conservative party had made a real and meaningful contribution to its composition--
Mr. Fabricant:
The hon. Gentleman's comments sound to me like sour grapes. Also, it sounds as though he is making them because he would rather be sitting where the Minister for Sport is sitting and he feels bitter about it.
Mr. Pendry:
I am not directing this at the Minister anyway and it is not sour grapes because I am sure that
Mr. Maclean:
I do not criticise the hon. Gentleman, but the difficulty is the convention that we all believe, say or pretend that every private Member's Bill is invented exclusively by the Member concerned. Perhaps it may help the hon. Gentleman if I remind him that two or three weeks ago, a Minister issued a press release in which the Government tried to take credit for a private Member's Bill on the day on which it was considered in the House. There was a row in the Chamber.
If we are to continue with the convention, although the Government may have a large part to play in assisting such Bills, we must continue to give private Members all the credit for them. If the Government start to take credit, some of us will think it legitimate to block the Bills because they are Government business.
Mr. Pendry:
That point is well taken.
Mr. Burns:
I must clear up two matters. First, my press release of 31 March is on Conservative party paper, but that is because I happen to be an Opposition spokesman, so I am entitled to use our press office to put out my comments. Secondly, the press release mentions the purpose of my Bill and continues,
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I have given the hon. Gentleman some leeway, but interventions should be brief. He will have an opportunity to rebut any case made against him later.
Mr. Pendry:
I think that the hon. Member for West Chelmsford made his point, but may I settle the matter? He said that he had made no political capital out of the Bill. I have spoken to two sponsors of the Bill, who were not aware of the press release, nor were they aware that the hon. Gentleman was seeking to extend the Bill in Committee in a way with which they may not have agreed. The hon. Gentleman may wish to take that argument on board.
Clearly, the Bill draws widely on other legislation since 1975. There have been more than 40 separate primary and secondary legislative measures on football--some have already been mentioned--including the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975, the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol Etc.) Act 1985, the Fire Safety and Safety of Places of Sport Act 1987, the Football Spectators Act 1989, the Football (Offences) Act 1991 and the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.
Therefore it is unfortunate that we require further primary legislation to back our efforts to eradicate the hooligan problem, but the fact remains that violence inside domestic football grounds has largely been eliminated--certainly from the higher levels of the sport. There are various reasons for that success and the introduction of all-seater stadiums and closed circuit television have been key developments.
There has been a dramatic transformation of the game, thanks in large part to the dedicated work of the Football Trust following the Taylor report. We now have the finest stadiums in Europe, if not the world. Every division of football has grounds of which we can be proud and I am sure that the Minister for Sport will find that an ace card in his determined efforts to bring the 2006 world cup competition to these shores.
While much in the Bill is to be welcomed, I must voice a note of caution about the possible implications. I never thought that I would share my worries with the right hon. Members for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), and the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant). However, I am sure that we all share the common goal of making football a safer pastime for the genuine supporter--some of the measures are disproportionately severe given the size and nature of the problem and could affect the innocent supporter as much as the persistent hooligan.
Several areas of the Bill are of particular concern. Clause 1(2) proposes the lowering of the burden of proof for the issue of banning orders. The courts will be asked to issue orders if they are
Potentially more troublesome are the proposed requirements set out in clause 3 to surrender passports prior to international matches. Clearly, I am not alone in harbouring doubts about the legality of such a proposal. The hon. Member for West Chelmsford said that he had taken legal advice, but perhaps he should take further advice on whether that measure would contravene article 12 of the international convention on civil and political rights.
Finally, the proposals detailed in clause 4 on increasing the duration of banning orders, to between six and 10 years for someone who has served a custodial sentence and three to five years for convictions without such a sentence, would clearly restrict the discretion of the courts to decide on the appropriate length of a banning order. Also, their legality in the face of freedom of movement, expression and association as guaranteed by the European convention on human rights and EU law is questionable.
The additional proposal that no application for a reconsideration of the duration of the order could be considered before the minimum period had passed seems mean spirited considering the various changes in personal circumstances that are likely to occur--illness or bereavement spring to mind.
I would also welcome a ministerial response on ticket touting. While I very much welcome the provision in clause 10 to prevent touting for matches outside the
United Kingdom, which would clearly add to segregation and policing problems at international matches, we still need to do more to tackle touting at domestic football matches.
"They are organising a self-motivated, self-interested special pleading to defend their special interests and privileged position."--[Official Report, 25 January 1993; Vol. 217, c. 699.]
In the light of the financial contribution that the pools companies have made--channelling money into football and transforming our stadiums and therefore, almost by definition, combating the problems that we are discussing--many people would think that that was a disgraceful remark.
"on which I have worked closely with Kate Hoey MP, the parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office."
Perhaps I may reassure the hon. Gentleman that I do not want to make party political gain out of this matter. When discussing the Bill with the media or anyone else, I have always made it plain that the hon. Lady--
"satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe"
that issuing the orders would be likely to prevent violence or disorder. That proposal would clearly diminish the normal criminal standard of proof. It is also worrying that, under clause 1(3)(b) an international banning order can still be made when an absolute discharge has been ordered.
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