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11.45 am
Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike). As president of York City football club, I hope that we are still playing Burnley in the second division next season, and at the moment I think that that is more doubtful from our perspective than from his. I am pleased to be wearing our club tie for this debate.
During the debate on the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Bill yesterday, I was able to comment in memory of all those youngsters who died at Hillsborough 10 years ago, and I am glad to have the chance to do so again today.
Like one or two other hon. Members, I was not entirely happy with the outcome of proceedings at Villa Park on Wednesday night. I should perhaps try on the Under-Secretary the joke that I tried on her right hon. Friend the Home Secretary yesterday--although it did not seem to work on him. I think it was a pity that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry could not have had as much influence on the outcome of the Arsenal-Manchester United result as he had on other matters affecting Manchester United--which, for the record, I personally welcome.
Other hon. Members spoke of a pitch invasion at Villa Park after the FA cup semi-final on Wednesday night; I agree with them that the fans were celebrating victory, not looking to cause trouble. However, it is not always that way, and I recall one black day at York City football club when, in a promotion season for Sunderland, York beat Sunderland 2:1. If I remember rightly, we were relegated that year as well, and the Sunderland fans invaded the pitch, destroyed the goals and caused mayhem. It is therefore important, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) said, that whatever legislation we bring to the statute book not only is proportionate but provides for the discretion that is obviously needed in such circumstances.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) on his success in the ballot. I believe that he has made a wise choice in promoting the
Bill--however it came to attract considerable Government support and input. I say that because I believe such issues are best addressed not when we are reacting in anger to recent incidents, but when they are no longer headline news and we have the chance for sober reflection on what has gone wrong. The time is right for us to consider this subject now, when we are not reflecting in anger on the violent conduct of soccer fans such as that which we saw last year.
Hooliganism has plagued football for many years, but it has been hooliganism by a minority. I believe that for the vast majority of fans it has spoiled the enjoyment of the game and of attending football matches. It has created difficulty for residents and businesses in the vicinity of football grounds, as well as--this is the unfortunate trend again at the moment--from time to time on motorways or as people travel to and from matches.
Over time, successive measures have been introduced in Parliament, with varying success. I am glad to have played a role in some of them. On the debit side--I say this particularly to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant)--I have not always accepted the Government or Opposition line. I voted against the Football Spectators Act 1989 on Second Reading, not because I did not agree with the measures that we are seeking to strengthen in the Bill today, but because I thought that the membership scheme was a recipe for disaster. Hopefully, the record shows that those of us who took that view have been proved right.
Mr. Forth
: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend has just said, and I admire him enormously for it. He will therefore blame no one for the fact that he will get no support from his own Back Benchers today--other than from the Bill's promoter.
Mr. Greenway:
I suspect that the silent majority who would support the Bill are elsewhere doing other things, but that remains to be seen.
In 1990-91, the Select Committee on Home Affairs undertook a detailed inquiry into football hooliganism following the 1990 world cup in Italy. Some of the measures that my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford is looking to strengthen were introduced following that report in a private Member's Bill which, at the time, was given Government support--particularly measures on racist chanting.
Within the game, it is now generally accepted that violence within grounds has been significantly diminished--the statistics mentioned in the debate support that--but that problems outside grounds still exist. I would say that the measures have contained hooliganism, rather than eliminated it. The work of the police through the NCIS and the national crime squad has played a significant role in ensuring that that success has been achieved.
It has long been recognised that there are several weaknesses within the legislative framework. Equally, the problems that remain are not easily solved. The most important outstanding problem in football is the violent conduct of a few supporters attending international matches abroad. More often than not, that concerns the England team, rather than clubs, whose fans by and large behave themselves impeccably when they go abroad. This
year, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea have travelled abroad frequently, and I cannot recall much news of trouble. When the England team goes abroad, it always seems that trouble follows not far behind.
Concern has been expressed at the authorities' inability to prevent known hooligans and those who have a clear intent of violent conduct from travelling abroad. The Bill's proposal for international football banning orders seems to be a sensible extension of existing legislation. The Bill seeks to address that major difficulty.
We must consider the wording of clause 1. If we are to impose a duty on a court to make a banning order, we must establish clearly the reasonable grounds on which that duty will be based. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford will recognise that that is a key question for the Committee.
The difficulty of preventing some of those people from travelling to matches often arises because those identified by police intelligence as hellbent on causing trouble have no previous convictions for violent behaviour. If they do, the offences have not been described as football-related on the charge sheet. Often, the offences have not been football-related because the provision of the relevant legislation which prescribed what could be a football-related offence may have been too narrowly drawn.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) rightly referred to statistics that point to about 250 violent offences that were football-related, as opposed to 250,000 assaults--to use his description--generally. The point that he misses is that a number of those assaults would have been classified as football-related had the definition been wider; none of us knows how many, but there will have been quite a few. Because those offences were not designated as football-related, we face the problem that the orders that would have restricted people's ability to travel to matches and to cause trouble somewhere else on another occasion have been limited. That is a key issue that my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford is seeking to address in the Bill.
Mr. Maclean:
I realise that detailed Home Office research would be required to prove my hon. Friend's point, but I do not think that he is entirely correct. I believe that the NCIS, in its collation of criminal statistics, has taken the widest possible view of football-related offences permitted within the existing definitions, which are fairly extensive. Those 258 offences are contained within the 256,000 other violent offences.
Mr. Greenway:
My right hon. Friend answers his own point when he says, "within the existing definitions". The case that my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford has made--which, on balance, I support--is that the definition needs to be extended somewhat. That matter can be discussed in Committee.
As I have said, travel to international matches abroad is the major outstanding problem, but there is still difficulty in respect of travel to some domestic matches. Clause 6 attempts to deal with that.
Mr. Maclean:
If my hon. Friend is suggesting that the figure of 258 violent offences at football matches is
Mr. Greenway:
That strengthens my argument, not my right hon. Friend's, because the violent yobbery that is still sadly associated with football clubs and may happen on the Friday night before a game or in the early hours of Sunday afterwards does not get reported, but if it were reported it would be right to class it as football-related. The Bill proposes a cut-off point of 24 hours before or after the game. If violence involves people who have been to football matches, there is a good argument for restricting their ability to go to other football matches and cause mayhem on the streets of somebody else's town. That is the central purpose of that part of the Bill.
If we are to have restriction orders, it goes without saying that the courts should impose the restrictions. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) will remember that, when he was chairman of the all-party group on football a few years ago, we often debated the problem of the fact that the courts do not use the powers that they have, and there is still evidence of that.
The idea in clause 3 of imposing a duty on the courts to try to attach conditions such as restriction orders makes sense. We will have to discuss in Committee how that will work in practice, but it is entirely valid for us to attempt to ensure through legislation that restriction orders, be they domestic or international, are imposed more regularly. There has been consultation on that.
There is a problem concerning the Government's proposal in clause 1 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Bill to have a mandatory referral order for first-time young offenders who plead guilty. My understanding is that that would mean that, if a 17-year-old had been involved in a fight outside a football ground and pleaded guilty, the magistrates would have to impose a referral order if they did not impose a custodial sentence and that, because the offender was under 18--the reason for the referral order--they could not impose a restriction order.
When that Bill is in Committee I shall table an amendment designed to ensure that restriction orders as well as referral orders can be imposed. I suspect that Ministers will agree that that will be a sensible outcome; but that is a problem for that Bill, not this one.
The Bill proposes some changes to the offence of racist chanting. The fact that it is an offence arose from a proposal in a 1991 Home Affairs Committee report. The current law applies when two or more people are involved in the chanting and the Bill proposes that that should be reduced to only one person. I have no problem with that.
Some think that there is something to be said for the enterprise involved in ticket touting, as tickets can be a valuable currency, especially for high-profile matches; but touting can create problems with the segregation of supporters. It was Arsenal football club's experience with those problems that prompted the current legislation.
I agree that it behoves the football authorities to be rather more adept at distributing tickets sensibly. There has been general condemnation of the arrangements made for last year's world cup in France; they were pretty
chaotic. We need to deal with ticket touts in the criminal law, but it is also up to the football authorities to get their ticket sales arrangements absolutely straight.
The original consultation document proposed further restrictions on the sale of alcohol. My understanding is that that has not been welcomed during the consultation, and I am glad about that, because although that is a nice idea, it is far less straightforward than some may think. If a ban were widely drawn it would create serious disruption for local communities, often unnecessarily.
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