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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1506-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE Science and Technology
HUMAN ENHANCEMENT TECHNOLOGIES IN SPORT
Wednesday 19 July 2006 MR MATTHEW READER, MR JOHN SCOTT and MS ALLISON HOLLOWAY Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 105
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Science and Technology Committee on Wednesday 19 July 2006 Members present Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair Adam Afriyie Mr Robert Flello Dr Evan Harris Dr Brian Iddon Dr Desmond Turner ________________
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Matthew Reader, Head of Elite Sports Team, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Mr John Scott, Director of Drug Free Sport, and Ms Allison Holloway, Education Manager for Drug Free Sport, UK Sport, gave evidence. Q1 Chairman: I welcome you all to the first formal evidence session of our inquiry into the human enhancement technologies in sport, and welcome particularly this morning Ms Allison Holloway, the education manager for Drug Free Sport UK, Mr John Scott, the director of Drug Free Sport UK, and Mr Matthew Reader, the head of the Elite Sports Team the Department for Culture Media and Sport. This session is being televised and beamed all around the world as we speak, so if we could be aware of that if things get heated. The purpose of this inquiry, because we have the Olympics here in 2012, is to look forward and say is this an Olympics that is going to be noted for its level of sport or, in fact, are the drug cheats or gene cheats going to dominate the agenda in 2012? What are we doing about it given we put so much store in having the Olympics in the UK? That is really the background. I have to say that one or two of the Committee and our science adviser were out in Lausanne at a conference a couple of weeks ago looking at sports science and what is happening in this area. Clearly this is an issue that everybody across Europe is concerned about. It is a very friendly session this morning and we hope you will enjoy it. Perhaps you could chair your panel, John. If you feel you can deflect the questions, then you are in charge. How much input does DCMS have into the drugs free sports programme in the UK and is there enough being done? Mr Reader: The short answer is yes. There are probably three broad areas where government has a very important role to play in this area. Firstly, government clearly is responsible for setting the public funding landscape for sport. As you probably know, government does not run sport but we do direct, in terms of our public funding, to where we best think it has most effect. The second area, quite typical in DCMS, is that we sponsor a whole range of non-departmental public bodies, NDPBs, and UK Sport is an example of that. Where the government sets the overarching national policy for drug free sport, we look to our NDPBs, in this instance UK Sport, to actually deliver that policy. They are responsible ultimately for delivery of that. The third area in which the government has an important role to play concerns the things that government can do that effectively an agency is not able to do. If I can give you an example, you probably will have heard of the UNESCO International Convention Against Doping in Sport, which I am pleased to say the UK has adopted and ratified. We are one of only 14 countries to have done so. Clearly that is something that governments can do, and a role we play, but something that a public agency would not be able to do. There are a whole host of other things that our department and our ministers do. Another example, the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, is made up of 50 per cent financial contributions from sports and 50 financial contributions from government. That is replicated in terms of the structure of the executive committee and the foundation board. As holders of the EU presidency last year, our Minister was one of the EU representatives on the WADA foundation board so he attended two meetings. At international level, and through a whole host of other international and European ministers meetings, we can influence in a way that probably UK Sport, whilst it is very much involved in international committees and forums, does not have. Q2 Chairman: You see UK Sport as the delivery arm of government policy. How much interface is there between your ministers and UK Sport? Mr Reader: On a formal basis we monitor the performance of UK Sport through our funding agreement. We have regular quality review meetings which are formal meetings to look at what UK Sport is doing against its funding agreement, and there are a number of measures and targets in that. Having said that, I would also like to say that we have a very good working relationship, and John will back me up on this. We are in regular contact about a whole host of issues in the drug free sport area. If there are certain issues that the government can do, whether it is across government with other government departments or on the international level, to support UK Sport's delivery of the national programme then we are very happy and willing to do that. Q3 Chairman: It is often claimed, and you have claimed yourself, that UK Sport is a world class resource. How effective is UK Sport in drug testing? Would you say that is world class? Mr Scott: Yes, I believe UK Sport is one of the world's leading National Anti-Doping Organisations. If you look at the speed with which we were able to respond to the new World Anti-Doping Code and receive the endorsement of WADA for our approach to its application, we were one of the first NADOs to receive that. That indicates that we have had a good system and, more importantly, we have been prepared to adapt and improve that system. I am certainly confident that we are certainly, in terms of comparison with our peers, one of the best. What struck me with your first question, is enough being done, I think the answer would have to be no but we are doing more. If you look at the increased investment that the Government has put into this area, but also that the board of UK Sport has chosen to direct more resources internally towards the issue of anti-doping, shows that we are taking this seriously. One area I would like to highlight where enough was not being done historically was in the whole area of education. Since I took over I have quadrupled the budget in education so there is a lot to be done. Q4 Chairman: I want to come back to that because it is a big issue. Can I challenge you on this issue of world class? You say that but where is the evidence you are world class, just because you get their quickly in signing up to the code? Mr Scott: That is one measure, but do not underestimate the difficulty of being code compliant. Underpinning code compliance is a whole raft of operational challenges, not least getting your sports on side, having your sports in a position where the rules and regulations will enable to you undertake doping, and if you catch someone that you are able to effectively prosecute them. It will involve things like quality assured doping control officers in a system whereby the entire chain of custody can be guaranteed and there are no loopholes that can be exploited by clever lawyers in breaking down a case. There is a whole raft of stuff. Do not underestimate being code compliant as simple; it is not. Q5 Chairman: I apologise. That is a crucial measure. What are the other criteria by which you judge yourself as world class? Mr Scott: We judge ourselves as world class in a number of areas, there is the technical competence of how we operate the programme. We are one of the few National Anti-Doping Organisations that has an ISO accreditation for our process. We are independently audited against an international standard. Secondly, we have one of the best accredited processes for training our DCOs. The doping control officers are absolutely critical in that interface with the athletes. They are the ones that are at the sharp end of this whole process. If they make a mistake, the whole thing falls apart. We put a huge amount of effort into recruiting, training and re-registering our DCOs. We are one of the few countries that has an annual re-registration process for all our DCOs where they are obliged to come to a two-day seminar to go through a complete re-registration. Q6 Chairman: What other countries would you regard as world class? Mr Scott: A number of the European countries are world class. A number of the Scandinavian countries, where we have very good working relationships, are world class. Australia is another country that is world class. Q7 Chairman: What about China? Mr Scott: We do not know a huge amount about China. This is one of the areas where we are trying to get more information. Another responsibility within UK Sport is our international relations and we do have a memorandum with the Chinese. One of the areas we are trying to exploit through that memorandum is greater understanding of what they are doing in doping. They are not on the international scene. They do not participate in an open way with so much of this dialogue so it is difficult to assess, I have to be honest, the sophistication of their system. Q8 Mr Flello: How many people and what resources are you giving over to support the UK anti-doping policy, and specifically what more could be done? You mentioned about education but what more could be done with more resources? Mr Reader: Do you mean in terms of internally in DCMS? Q9 Mr Flello: Yes. Mr Reader: The Elite Sports Team is made up of five people, and we have a responsibility across the whole of elite sport from performance to anti-doping. Effectively I have one member of staff working on anti-doping in sport. Q10 Mr Flello: Do you feel that is enough? What is the rationale behind that? Mr Reader: The rationale behind that is, as I set out at the beginning, we look at delivery of the policy to UK Sport, therefore the active delivery and active operation is delivered through John and his team. I am probably not in a position to start speculating as to whether more staff would be needed. Clearly it would be foolish of me to say no, that more staff would not be helpful, but if you took a broad look over what we in the UK are achieving, and harking a little bit to what John said about our world class delivery of the anti-doping policy, then I cannot think of anything, off the top of my head, in terms of additional work we could do with additional staff. Probably at the moment it is about right. Perhaps I should add that in the run-up to 2012 clearly there are going to be additional issues that we are going to have to consider as part of hosting the 2012 Games. There is in DCMS what was a government office of the Olympics hosted within DCMS. We are in regular contact with them and doping is an issue that we discuss as an agenda item from time to time. Q11 Mr Flello: I would like to address a similar question to John in terms of the number of people you have working in support of the anti-doping policy working with one person within DCMS. Do you think you have sufficient resources? Mr Scott: We have seen an increase in our staffing in the last 18 months or two years. We are now 18 people in the Drug Free Sport Directorate. Of course, one of the services we provide to the department is we are the advisor to government on these matters. A lot of the information they require we are providing, and obviously the individual responsibility for doping is our primary conduit for that. As Matthew has explained, we also have these dialogues at both the monthly meetings that our management team has with DCMS and then our quarterly reviews. Doping is always an agenda item on those meetings so there is also that flow. The latter part of your question, is there enough resource, certainly for the time being. Where we have been increasing our resources has been on the information, science and education side. We are going through a major review of the programme application. In our submission you have seen us talk about intelligent testing. One of the agendas that is very much being debated internationally now is that it is not just about doping numbers, the test numbers that you do, it is about the effectiveness of those testing numbers. I think it would be fair to say there are a large number of tests internationally that are basically wasted because they are never going to catch someone who is doping in the way they are applied. What we have to do is use the 7,000 missions that we have got much more effectively, and we are working on that with what we call the intelligent testing model. That does not necessarily mean you need more staff but you need smarter systems. Q12 Mr Flello: One of the roles of UK Sport is to promote sport, but do you feel there is any conflict of interest between that role and in detecting doping? Mr Scott: This is an issue that has been debated long and hard and there have been a number of inquiries and investigations into this. It is one of those probably that will always be on the table because there are some people that have very firm views one way or the other. What I know, as the director of Drug Free Sport, is within UK Sport there is a culture of total commitment to the highest possible ethical standards and that is manifested in the application of a unique approach to funding. We are now the only country internationally that will not allow any continuation of funding for an athlete caught with a serious doping offence. Other countries are following the formal sanctions process of WADA, whereas we do not believe it is acceptable at all for anyone who has chosen to take drugs to receive public funding. That is an example of the severity with which UK Sport addresses the problem. Some of the operational benefits of being within a high performance agency like UK Sport is a better understanding of the environment in which athletes operate. If we are to have a much more effective testing system, we have to understand that. We have to get close to the athletes, you have to understand what makes them tick, what are the sort of pressures they are under and what are the programmes they are pursuing. It is very beneficial for us to have knowledge of that leading edge of technology Q13 Chairman: In this section can I finally ask you about the boundaries between different sports. There is an assumption, when one looks at the Olympics, that we are looking particularly at athletics, but your brief, and the other Olympic sports, is much wider than that. I wonder how you exert influence over the difference sports? A sport like cycling seems a law unto itself. Professional soccer is definitely a law unto itself. What influence do you have? How do you try to stop them falling through the cracks between the different sports? Ms Holloway: We are very lucky with our education programme. We have very good partnerships with all of our governing bodies, and it is one of the areas where governing bodies are all working towards the same objectives. To begin with we are very fortunate, whether or not individual sports want to promote the same programme that we promote, for example with the 100% Me programme, is another matter, but the same principles are being promoted through education to all athletes. The Football Association is a very good example because they have a very good education programme, one they have been running for many years. They deliver education right down to grass roots level in football. Cycling is also a sport very supportive of promoting the consequences of doping in the sport. From a governing body perspective, they are very committed to promoting those issues. Q14 Chairman: In terms of applying the sanctions that you are talking about, does that apply across all sports? Mr Scott: The means of achieving that has been through what we call the National Governing Body Anti-Doping Agreement. That is a legally binding agreement between the sports councils, because it is a tripartite agreement, and the national governing body. That sets out the basis under which public funding or services will flow to a governing body. For example, to belong to the national anti-doping programme, in other words for testing to take place, you have to abide by the conditions of the agreement. We have been negotiating those for the last year to ensure that the governing body in signing up to that is code compliant. You will not be surprised to learn that one of the last to sign up has been football but that has been because of the lack of clarity from FIFA in terms of its rules being code compliant. I am sure you have read about the dispute that FIFA had with WADA which ended up in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. That has been resolved and those rules are coming down. We are confident that within the next few weeks we will have a formal agreement with football as well. We have that in place with all the other professional sports, rugby league, tennis, cricket; the agreement is in place. There is now a tight frame work, rules and regulations, under which they operate. Q15 Adam Afriyie: Only a small percentage of UK athletes are found to have been using illegal human enhancement technologies. Do you agree that that is an accurate reflection of the reality of the situation, or do you think it might be something to do with the reporting and detection? Mr Scott: That is an extremely difficult question. Of course, a lot of the time you are dealing with supposition rather than fact. If you look at the facts of the current testing regime around the world, the average positive rate around the world is somewhere between 1.5 and 2 per cent of the total number of tests undertaken. In the UK we are below that. Clearly there are certain sports where doping is a greater risk, where doping is probably more culturally acceptable or where the benefits of doping are more obvious. What we have to do is be very strategic in targeting how we apply our testing. We have done a lot of attitude testing with athletes, with young people, and it is interesting that there is clearly a resistance to doping in those young people but there are certain individuals quite clearly who will employ any technique if it means they are going to win. Uncovering who those individuals is the big challenge. We talk about the ABC types in UK Sport. A are the ones who will not cross the line. They are the ones who play by the rules. They are quite prepared obviously to seek the best possible advantage they can have through legitimate support, be it sports medicine, nutrition, all the scientific support that now underpins top level sport. Type B are those that have crossed the line once and seen the benefits, maybe have not been caught and are therefore tempted to continue. Then you have type C who are basically the more psychotic type that genuinely believe there is nothing wrong in cheating or perhaps they have every right to cheat. Q16 Adam Afriyie: Refresh my memory as to what is your own explanation of the difference between the incidence reported in the UK and the figures reported to WADA? Mr Scott: The global figures are an average across all countries. Our figures would be in line with a country like Norway or Sweden. I think Australia were slightly higher than us. If you look at comparable countries, we are actually remarkably similar. You are absolutely right to ask the question because it was the first question I asked when I took this on. If we are doing so many tests and we are apparently catching so few athletes, is the system not effective enough or are there far less drugs in the system than we thought? It is probably a bit of both, and that is why we have to continue to ensure that there is an effective deterrent in the number of tests you do. More importantly, we are continuing to gather the right kind of information and intelligence to get closer to the athletes and find out what is coming now. Q17 Chairman: When you talk about the 2005/2006 1.3 per cent of tests being positive compared with roughly 2.3 per cent from WADA across the global network, for that 1.3 per cent are they UK athletes or were they at least tested in the UK? If it is the latter, how many of them were UK athletes? Mr Scott: Those are UK athletes because the result for an international athlete would be handled by the international federation, so those are reports of our athletes. Q18 Dr Harris: Do you think all performance enhancing substances and methods should be considered cheating? Mr Scott: Obviously the determination of what goes on to the prohibited list, and it is both substances and methods, is a long and exhaustive process. The final criteria that any addition has to meet are two of the three principles of the code. I think you understand that it is either performance enhancing, a danger to health or against the spirit of sport. Clearly there are a number of experts that are involved in that from across the world. There is a fairly exhaustive consultation process that goes on each year in terms of review and upgrading of the prohibited list, and there will also be differences of opinion. From a UK perspective, we have a number of concerns over the sorts of challenges that the inclusion of social drugs has had to the code, a number of individuals being caught there and whether that is the appropriate sanctioning mechanism, whether it should not be through a code of conduct mechanism with some opportunity for rehabilitation. Q19 Dr Harris: That is an interesting point. Your evidence said, and I quote from paragraph 4.2 "The government believes that the use of performance enhancing substances and methods is cheating, contrary to the spirit of fair competition and damages the value and image of sport." Did you mean illegal or prohibited performance enhancing substances, or was that your genuine view not an error but a Freudian slip? Do you think that all performance enhancing substances should be prohibited? Mr Scott: It is in reference to the code. The link is directly to those substances that are deemed to be prohibited. Q20 Dr Harris: It is a bit awkward because if something is deemed prohibited, and everything said in your education programme is that this is terrible, you must not do it, as soon as it is de-prohibited, like caffeine, it rather undermines your credibility for other countries as well. Would it not be better to always make the point that it is cheating because it is prohibited not just because it is performance enhancing? Mr Scott: You have to have criteria under which you would deem it is prohibited. Q21 Dr Harris: If you do not make the point that what you are objecting to is the use of prohibited substances not just substances, then you are rather undermined when they legalise something that you have condemned previously because you have condemned it in broad terms. Mr Reader: Certainly I accept your point. It is worth noting that the adoption of the code and the establishment of WADA is a huge leap forward in terms of fighting doping in sport. John will know better than I that ten years ago when all sports were doing what they wanted it made it so much more difficult to have a harmonised set of rules and procedures in place. I want to emphasise that the code is a huge step forward. If your question is, is the prohibited list and the code a perfect document in every shape and form, then the answer would be no. Q22 Dr Harris: That was not my question. What about hypoxic chambers? You do not know whether, from education point of view, to say do not go there or to say let us go for it and Britain should have its share. Mr Scott: If that question is specifically on hypoxic chambers, of course what it gets to is in all these areas there is no absolute black and white; there are shades of grey here. When you are looking at the kind of stresses, strains and expectations placed on modern high performance athletes they clearly need all the appropriate support they can get to perform at those highest levels. This whole debate around hypoxic chambers is one that is being undertaken, as we sit here, through a consultation document WADA has put out. It is looking at it through those three criteria, the ethical base, the medical base and performance enhancing. We are still coming to our view but have not yet achieved a view. We have to submit a view later this year. So far I would say we have some concerns because at the heart of their argument is an issue about passive engagement in the exercise. If you start going down that route, that can open up a number of other areas: for example, is the application of physiotherapy a passive engagement; is the use of an ice bath a passive application. Q23 Chairman: Such as sleeping at attitude. Mr Scott: Absolutely. It is an extremely difficult debate but it is appropriate that the debate happen. Q24 Dr Harris: You said you had concerns. Are you saying you have concerns because they are thinking because it is passive engagement it might be legal, or you are having concerns that they might actually not legalise it formally? I am not sure which way you are heading. Mr Scott: At the moment we are tending to say that we are not ready for this. Firstly, it is extremely difficult to enforce this. How would you enforce it? Secondly, there is this issue about is it genuinely fulfilling the criteria that you are applying. That is why I got into the passivity debate. Of course, there is this issue of the degree of performance enhancement that it offers that is not available to others through other routes, as you referenced living at attitude. There are a number of areas that are mixed up in that debate. Q25 Dr Harris: On this point, you did not raise it there, and I am interested to know genuinely because it is a fascinating issue, what UK Sport or DCMS's view is. You did not say one of the criteria is, is there equity. Hypoxic chambers are not going to be available to everyone, for emerging countries and so forth. If you have an expensive enhancement therapy, as far as your policy thinking is concerned, should that ever be a factor? Should you permit things that are costly and first world enhancement? Mr Scott: You cannot possibly apply an affordability factor. Equally, why is that the developed world are able on send its athletes for three months at great expense to train at altitude? That is not available to developing countries. Are you going to stop those athletes travelling? How would you do that? Q26 Dr Turner: Are you comfortable with a situation whereby you clearly have substances with demonstrable performance enhancing properties which are not prohibited, and techniques which likewise enhance performance which are not prohibited? Does this worry you? Can you think of think of any examples you are looking to eliminate? Mr Scott: We are relatively comfortable with the prohibited list as it is currently constructed. As I say, it is reviewed annually, there is a constant willingness to include new techniques or substances where they are shown to meet one of the three criteria. We firmly believe that at the heart of any decision about what is to be included on that list should be the performance enhancement element. Certainly it is our belief that at the root of the World Anti-Doping Code is the idea that taking illegal substances is about cheating. It is about giving an unfair advantage through scientific manipulation, it is not about achieving an advantage through hard work and through the application of top class services. If the system can do that, absolutely fair and good. It is about using something that goes beyond, it moves into that ethical debate about what is right and what is wrong. That is always one of the factors that has to be debated when you are looking at the inclusion of anything on the prohibited list. Q27 Dr Turner: Can we assume that there are candidate substances and techniques under consideration for the prohibited list at all times and currently? Mr Scott: Yes, absolutely. Q28 Dr Harris: What about safe performance enhancements where there are no obvious side effects and it is clearly for the benefit of the athlete, like laser eye surgery, which clearly enhances the ability of those sportsmen for whom that is important. Do you think that is an area where the line might need to be drawn, and whereabouts would you be inclined to draw it in respect of those issues, or drugs which aid healing, expensive drugs, new therapies, clearly for the benefit of the athlete but clearly enhance their ability to recover from exertion or injury? Mr Scott: This is where the discrepancies are very apparent around the world. If someone has an exceptionally good health medical system that is available to that athlete in that country to heal themselves more quickly, that is absolutely fair and right. It would be wonderful if everyone could have access to that but we do not live in an equitable world. Your question about laser eye technology, clearly it is something that currently is not banned. There is, as I just explained to Dr Turner, a proper process by which these things are constantly reviewed. I am not a scientist. I am not a medical doctor, so I am not competent to comment about the performance enhancing elements. We rely very much on the quality, and it is an extremely high quality, group of people who rely on a number of sources to make those decisions. Q29 Dr Harris: Before UK Sport or DCMS comes to their view, do you think we will be asked - and by "we" I mean either the public or Parliament - or is this just going to be you guys making a decision and giving a response to these issues that you are asked by WADA, hypoxic chambers, laser eye surgery? Is their consultation with parliament or the public? Mr Scott: There is consultation with all our stakeholders. To undertake a public consultation would be extremely difficult. What we undertake is a consultation process with all the bodies on whom this has a direct impact. We consult with national governing bodies, with the sports medicine fraternity, the British Olympic Committee, the British Paralympic Committee, with DCMS. We have ethicists that input to this. We have a number of sources from whom we obtain a view. Q30 Dr Harris: The public may have a view and you could ask them. There are opinion poll companies that do that very well. Is that something you would consider? Mr Scott: I think we would. Of course, as you are already beginning to discover in the kind of debate you are having here, it is extremely difficult to get to the fine detail of what will force you to say yes or no. That needs a huge amount of the background, knowledge and understanding. Q31 Adam Afriyie: What are you doing to identify new potentially illegal performance enhancing drugs? What work are you undertaking? Mr Scott: UK Sport are not directly doing any work ourselves. We have a very small research budget and our research priority has been on social research. We felt, because of the need to improve the testing model that exists today, we need to get a better understanding of the mind set of the athletes and we are investing quite heavily in that kind of research. Mr Reader: I think my first answer to that is WADA is uniquely placed to co-ordinate. All of the issues we have been talking about have application across the world. They are not unique to the UK. WADA has a fairly considerable research budget and commissions research around the world. I am very pleased that UK research institutions such as Southampton Medical School, the Horse Racing Forensic laboratory, Nottingham Trent University, UCL, as well as our WADA accredited labs and Kings as well, have all been involved in, and are contributing to, the body of research evidence that quite rightly is co-ordinated through WADA. Obviously it is important that is then fed back around the world and informs people about NADO's decision. Q32 Adam Afriyie: In general terms DCMS, and therefore UK Sport, await reports from WADA and other institutions and act on that information rather than conducting active investigations themselves? Mr Reader: I do not think that is quite right. UK Sport are clearly the Government's expert advisers in this field and they work very closely with the WADA accredited laboratories. They have very close relationships with various research institutions around the countries. The eyes and ears of the specialist people working on these sort of issues on a day-to-day basis, that network exists. If there are particular issues which government can help or contribute to, we would be willing to. Q33 Adam Afriyie: I did not mean it as a slight. I was saying that UK Sport will initiate and investigate to find out what other new things are going on but not that you would conduct the research yourselves directly. Mr Scott: No, and what we have learned, and Matthew made the point, is this needs an international solution. You have to have that global co-operation. What we do is we are in inconstant dialogue with the laboratory, and we are receiving all kinds of things from the laboratory about stuff that might need a bit of further investigation. We are sharing that with our international counterparts, primarily through the Association of National Anti-Doping Organisations where I sit on the executive, and through the International Anti-Doping Arrangement, which is the ten leading NADOs. That debate, that discussion, helps inform the nature of the research submissions that then come forward to WADA. Q34 Adam Afriyie: We have the 2012 Olympics coming towards us at a rate of knots. Are there any particular human enhancement technologies that you are concerned about in the run-up to the Olympics? Are there new ones coming onto the horizon or that would seem to be particularly attractive to the 2012 Olympics? Mr Scott: I am not sure there are new ones. What is concerning is the growth in blood doping, which has been around for a number of years. As you know from the scandal in Spain, that is very much back on the agenda. Clearly the area that a lot of people debate, and you yourselves have looked at this, is the whole possibility of gene doping, genetic manipulation. At the moment the advice we receive from our experts is that it is probably premature, but this is a field that can make sudden leaps forward, and it is the speed with which that leap forward could move through into the sports system that we need to be very conscious of. The reality is that a lot of the people who will be competing in 2012 in the Games are already in the system. That is the nature of high performance sport. It is only six years away and the likelihood of you being able to compete at the level required to represent your country at the Olympics you are probably quite well up the ladder. There is an opportunity certainly to see what is happening to those individuals through the current day doping programmes we all operate through the world. Q35 Adam Afriyie: My final question is to Allison. You are on the education side. To step back to what Dr Harris was pressing at earlier, when it comes to education, if you are saying that it is morally wrong to use performance enhancing substances that is a very different proposition to saying it is morally wrong to break the code of conduct or the rules we have laid down. I would argue there is a very big difference between those concepts, and in the education you are providing or supplying that really ought to be made clear. Is that something that you do make clear? Ms Holloway: With the launch of the 100% Me programme last year, the underlying principles of that programme were about personal choice. Obviously the philosophy behind the 100% Me programme is it was not just an education programme, it was there as a symbol to represent dedication and commitment and hard work on the part of an individual. Many athletes who were involved in the consultation and design of the programme really wanted us to establish a programme with which they could associate themselves to be able to say that they are drug free. One of the important aspects of the programme, and of the name of the programme, is that an athlete gets to make their own personal choice about the decisions they make in sport. It is important to us that athletes committed to completing cleanly have all the information and education at their disposal so they can make their choices. What you are talking about there is a moral choice, and particularly for current elite level athletes it is very difficult to shape the morals and the values of adults where those values have already been established. Therefore, we really do need to allow the athlete to make their own personal choice about what is right and wrong for them. Q36 Adam Afriyie: If I were to read the 100% Me programme, would I find anywhere a statement that says that it is morally wrong to break the rules and the code of conduct because of the fairness issue but makes very clear that it is not necessarily morally wrong to use something which enhances your performance? Those are two distinct issues and I am wondering if that is clear. Ms Holloway: We do promote fairness in sport through the education programme. Obviously we have a responsibility to promote the rules of the game as well. Therefore, it is essential that our lead athletes understand where they may be overstepping the mark. We do promote a level playing field and ethical principles. Going back to the idea of the programme, it is about the individual making that personal choice. If it is not on the list, what is right for them? What makes them feel that they are 100% Me? Q37 Dr Iddon: I would like to turn now to the actual testing programme. First of all, can I establish which samples your doping control officers take from the athlete? Is it just blood, just urine or a mixture? Mr Scott: It can be either. It is primarily urine but it can entail blood as well. Q38 Dr Iddon: Urine it is well known can be adulterated or substituted. What effort do you make to ensure that the sample is uncontaminated and intact at the time of testing? Mr Scott: That is the whole process of the international standard for doping control which lays down the process by which the urine is collected. Obviously that is absolutely central to the integrity of the process, that urine cannot be contaminated in any way. We have an absolutely robust system for both the collection of the sample, the transfer of the sample to the tamper proof bottles, and the transmission of the sample to the laboratory for testing. Q39 Dr Iddon: Are there any other limiting factors that you can tell us about that limit the testing technologies? Mr Scott: In what context? Q40 Dr Iddon: Let us turn to something specific, laboratory capacity and laboratories with the expertise. Do you feel there are enough of those? Mr Scott: As you know, the UK is one of only three countries with two WADA accredited laboratories, at Kings and at Newmarket HFL. Accreditation is a very, very exhaustive and exhausting process as the individuals will tell you. They are constantly monitored to achieve the highest standards. I believe there are 30 laboratories in the world now and they are all expected to meet those WADA standards. I think in terms of the accreditation process, the supervision of those standards, WADA does a very good job. I believe here in the UK we are exceptionally well served, that we have a laboratory in Kings which is one of the oldest and has an exceptionally good reputation and history, and HFL which is an extremely modern laboratory with a lot of resources behind it thanks to its association with the horse racing fraternity which has added a new capacity. It is great for us here in the UK that we have access to that number of qualified personnel. Q41 Dr Iddon: My understanding is that the sample is split and half of it is sent by the organisations for testing and the other half of the sample is given to the athlete. Mr Scott: No. The athlete is responsible for putting the sample into what is called the A and B bottle, then witnessing the sealing of those bottles, signing the sealing of those bottles, and both bottles are then sent to the laboratory. The A bottle is the one that then goes through the whole sampling and testing process at the laboratory, and only if there is a positive finding is the B sample used. If it is a negative finding, the B sample is destroyed. Q42 Dr Iddon: It seems to me, as an outsider, that two laboratories is a very small number of laboratories to handle a large number of samples which would happen when the 2012 Olympics are here. Mr Scott: We will obviously gear up for that and there will be additional staffing resources brought in. What you find is at the time of the Olympics there is an international network of laboratories and you get an exchange of personnel. David Cowan, the professor at Kings, worked in Torino during the Torino Winter Olympics. In terms of qualified personnel, there is that international exchange. You only get those kind of pressures of a big multi-sport event infrequently, so you do not gear up a laboratory for that capacity year in year out. What you draw on is that international network. Q43 Dr Iddon: Why not accredit a third laboratory or even a fourth? Mr Scott: On an ongoing basis we do not need it. In terms of the number of the tests we do, and the number of tests undertaken in the system, there is enough capacity at Kings and HFL to do that. Q44 Dr Iddon: When you come across an HET, an enhancement technology, which is essentially a drug or chemical substance, how much effort do you put in detecting that if it is something new and difficult to detect, let us say EPO, Erythropoietin? Mr Scott: Obviously a huge amount of effort is put into that, and the history of EPO shows that with some really good intelligence and the provision of EPO to the lab it was very quickly able to put in place a system whereby it could be detected. I think the science that is in these labs is of the highest possible standard. More importantly, it is a science that is shared around the network of the 30 labs so there is this constant encouragement of improvement in the standards amongst the 30. Q45 Dr Iddon: Who supports the research into detection of the new substances? Mr Scott: WADA primarily. There are some national programmes. We ourselves have done some modest investment in the past, and we are going to be doing some research in the next year with both HFL and Kings looking at some of the tests that have been done historically, looking at some trends there. We will be doing that with our own labs. Q46 Dr Iddon: Could you explain the advantages of intelligent testing as distinct from random testing? Mr Scott: It goes back to my earlier comments. Last year there were about 180,000 tests undertaken globally in anti-doping. If you talk to WADA, they believe that maybe up to 50 per cent of those were wasted and were not going to prove anything. They were not done in the right circumstances. They were not taking a sample when there was most likely to be doping, or it was in the wrong sports or the wrong disciplines of the sports. What intelligent testing is about is improving the targeting of the tests we have available to us. It is understanding a lot more about the lifestyle of the athlete and the kind of pressures they are under where that risk of thinking "If I dope now I may gain an advantage." It is also about understanding more about the benefits of certain drugs, their life in the body, when they are most efficacious so that you are then testing when that it is at its peak and most likely to find there is a real benefit. It is very complex but it is something we have to address and have to put in place if we are to get maximum effectiveness out of the tests we have available to us. Q47 Dr Turner: I imagine that when the 2012 Olympics arrives we will see the biggest drug testing programme ever undertaken in history. Will the extent and intensity of the programme be solely determined by what you think is in the best interests of eliminating cheating from the sport, or will it be limited by international laboratory capacity? Obviously, however good our laboratories are, they will not be able to take that workload on. Mr Scott: Answering the second point first about capacity, there is always the provision of a huge temporary capacity at something like the Olympic Games. It is very easy to bring in the sophisticated testing machinery. As I have explained, there are number of individuals who are qualified to use that machine internationally who would also be brought in. I do not think capacity will be a problem. Q48 Dr Turner: You have will have a tent full GC mass spectrometers. Mr Scott: Perhaps we will rent a big hall somewhere. It will either be at Kings or HFL or both, and there will be an enhancement to the number of mass spectrometers, or whatever they have that they need to undertake the necessary testing, and individuals will be brought in. In terms of testing numbers, there are two parts to that. Obviously there is the extent to which the UK wishes to increase its testing in the run up to the Games. We have historically now always undertaken a very targeted programme of any British athlete that is likely to be going to the Games. We have wanted to ensure that any person representing GB is as clean as we can guarantee. We have now done very effective pre-game testing programmes for the Commonwealth Games, Winter Olympics, Summer Olympics and that would certainly be central to our preparation. As we are likely to have the biggest team ever in London, that would mean a large increase in the number of tests. Also, of course, a lot of athletes from abroad will be here in the United Kingdom in the run-up to the Games, acclimatizing, getting used to the venues, there are potential training camps here, and one of the things we will be in discussion with the Government about is the extent to which we, as the National Anti-Doping Organisation, will be testing those people as well. Australia did that in the run-up to Sydney. There was a fair amount of that in Athens in the run-up to the Athens Games, and we think that is something we need to look at. That will require additional capacity too, but that is part of the pre-Games planning that we are only now beginning to get our heads around. Q49 Dr Turner: Professor Waddington is quoted as saying that it seems strange and worrying that international elite athletes have an incidence of asthma several times that of the normal population. They, if they satisfy medical examination, are qualified for exemptions and are allowed to take certain drugs, including steroids, quite legitimately. Firstly, can I ask you how rigorous the medical assessment to qualify for the TUE is, and is it internationally consistent? Mr Scott: I will ask Allison to answer that because she manages our TUE process and it would be helpful if she could explain that to you. Certainly I am very happy to say that we obviously have some concerns about the international consistency of the application of TUEs. That is one of the things we have put to WADA as one of the issues they need to tighten up in terms of international compliance with the code. Ms Holloway: If I can reiterate as well, we do get a large number of TUEs in the UK and that is fairly consistent across the world, and in particular for us in medications and the use of gluco-cortico steroids as well. It is an ongoing concern for all National Anti-Doping Organisations and WADA. In terms of how rigorous the test is for the assessment of asthma applications, it is a little inconsistent. There are some international federations that require athletes to go through very rigorous respiratory lung function tests to assess their need for Beta-2 agonists. The problem with this in the UK, and therefore I expect the problem in many countries around the world, is there are only two places now in the UK where athletes can have this test done and very few experts that can conduct the test for athletes. That is a big problem we are facing at the moment. The international standards for therapeutic use exemptions, however, does not require athletes to provide any documented medical evidence for the use of asthma medication. It is something that, in our consultations to WADA, we have suggested that they need to look at, one way or the other, whether they downgrade it or they actually make it more effective in terms of monitoring it. All an athlete really needs to do is have a physician fill in an application, say that they have conducted an examination of sorts and maybe listened to the chest or a flow-loop examination, and then they submit the form and it is accepted on receipt of the application. We are very concerned about this and it is something that we have put forward as a recommendation to be reviewed. Q50 Dr Turner: This sounds like a massive opportunity for abuse. Do you have any evidence, either anecdotal or whatever, that athletes are deliberately abusing and evading the system in this way? Ms Holloway: It is difficult to know that. I think that is a possibility. With asthma it is difficult at the moment because there are differing views on whether or not it really is performance-enhancing for athletes that do not suffer from asthma or exercised-induced asthma. A lot of work in research is going into this to try to determine whether or not it is actually effective in enhancing performance. This is constantly being looked by the Science Committee and the Prohibited List Committee. I do not know whether it is being abused but you have recorded the figures there, so I guess: do we really think that many athletes in the UK and around the world have asthma? There is an increase in sports like swimming --- Chairman: Sixty per cent of cyclists have asthma. That seems strange, does it not? Q51 Dr Turner: It must make you extremely suspicious, to say the least? Mr Scott: We are naturally suspicious, I am afraid. Ms Holloway: Yes, and it is something that we are looking at. Q52 Dr Turner: Gene therapy manipulation is not a practical proposition at the moment but are you aware of any sports scientists around the world tinkering with it and looking for opportunities? Mr Scott: There is speculation. I would have to put my hand up and say that I have seen no absolutely evidence. What I have heard is a lot of rumour. I have heard that there is the prospect obviously of it being applied. I think some of the things that are being suggested are extremely scary, if they are true, and of course the one thing you must not be is complacent. It is extremely important that if anything is heard, it is properly investigated. Certainly I have not heard anything about which I would be in a position to say, "We need to do this". What I have heard and I am sure some of the stuff that you are hearing is that this is a real possibility. In what way is it a possibility? How is it going to be applied? Where does that transfer take place? Those are some of the questions that we are asking and we are having to continue to look at. Q53 Dr Turner: We are not immediately going to see a race of super athletes, hopefully? Mr Scott: I sincerely hope not. Q54 Dr Turner: There have been criticisms about the accuracy and adequacy of data provided by testing. Clearly one must accept the UK laboratories on this. Is the reliability of testing across the world consistent? Are there problems here? Mr Scott: I think the accreditation process and the standards that WADA is demanding of the laboratories is very high, and obviously they are continuing to try to ensure that those standards are maintained and, more importantly, are improved where there are weaknesses. I certainly believe that our laboratories have extremely good systems. Remember, HFL is one of the newer laboratories and so has gone through the new WADA process but that is even more rigorous than the previous one. Obviously they had to go through re-accreditation but just to get accreditation in the first place is a much more rigorous process than that. The fact that there is a much better network now between the laboratories where there is this exchange of knowledge, this exchange of expertises, is helping as well. It is a little family; there are 30 of them and it is extremely useful that they can meet regularly. WADA facilitates that; it gets the labs together regularly. They are obviously in daily contact with each other. That is what that industry is like. Q55 Dr Turner: Does this mean that whenever an athlete is tested in whatever country, his or her sample will be analysed to the same high standards and using the same techniques wherever they are? Mr Scott: That is absolutely right. Where we may have some concerns is more on the sample collection procedure where I think not always our high standards are met, certainly in terms of the information given to the athlete; for example, chaperoning sometimes is extremely inadequate. Those sorts of issues are not yet consistent. Similarly, we have made these points to WADA that this needs to be tightened up. Q56 Dr Turner: Are there ever any problems with storage of samples, samples getting degraded because they are badly stored? Mr Scott: Any sample that is badly degraded obviously has to be rejected. That is one of the criteria that the lab would apply. Any inadequate sample would not go through the process. Q57 Dr Iddon: Is there any mystery shopping done? Do you deliberately send to the laboratories samples that are contaminated? Mr Scott: That is what WADA does all the time. They never know when it is coming or how it is from. Yes. Q58 Dr Iddon: That is how the quality is maintained? Mr Scott: Absolutely. Q59 Dr Harris: How are we planning to learn from Beijing for London? I have a number of questions in this area, so you will have to be quick in your answers. Fire bullet points at me. Mr Scott: We are learning from all the games, not just Beijing. As you know, WADA undertakes an independent observer programme for all the games. Just recently, they put on their website, for example, the reports from Torino and Melbourne, so we will obviously be studying those. We will work with LOCOG in terms of the delivery of the anti-doping programme. There are two options there in terms of how it is finally delivered: either UK Sport could deliver it, or we could be the advisers for the delivery. They gear up accordingly. Q60 Dr Harris: Is someone responsible and is someone responsible for London 2012 going to go to Beijing? Mr Scott: Yes. Q61 Dr Harris: Who? Mr Scott: I understand that they will be appointing a medical director. Anti-Doping will come under the responsibility of the medical director for the games. That person is not yet in post but we are still two years out from Beijing. That individual will carry that responsibility. I expect we will be there as well observing that. Q62 Dr Harris: What are you going to do about coaches? There is a lot of stuff about athletes but some people feel that the problem starts with coaches and that if we can crack that, we might improve the situation? Is there some way of penalising coaches, or do you think that there is a case for criminalisation of people with that sort of responsibility? Mr Scott: Certainly under the code, as you know, coaches are sanctionable where it can be proven that they have had any degree of intervention in either the application of doping or doping methods. The sanctions on the coaches are more severe, as you know, including a life-time ban. UK Sport similarly has a life-time ban instantly on any coach receiving public funding who has been involved with anti-doping. I think the education of the coaches is equally important as it is of the athlete. Remember that quite a lot of the doping that goes on is, even today, inadvertent. It is just plain stupid. They should not have taken something. So there is an important role to let the coach know what systems are in place to help the athlete make the right choice. Q63 Dr Harris: On the subject of inadvertency, there is this issue of people saying they took a supplement and so forth. Do you think the recent legislation on vitamins and minerals has been helpful in this area? Mr Scott: I think the whole issue of supplements remains a major challenge. We are just putting out a new guide to athletes. At the moment, what we can offer is advice basically on risk assessment and risk management of supplements. We would love to see an industry standard in the supplements area. That was a commitment given by a number of the big players at a seminar hosted by WADA last year in Germany. We would like to see progress on that front, but at the moment it remains a high risk. Q64 Dr Harris: What about criminalising? I guess that is a policy issue. Are there thoughts about bringing criminal sanctions into this? France and Italy, as I understand it, do that but if it s not a controlled drug in this country, there is no criminal sanction. Mr Reader: There are no current proposals to criminalise any aspects of anti-doping. Q65 Dr Harris: Are you sure? The Home Office is always coming up with new things to ban from that. Mr Reader: That may well be the case. There are substances and methods on the prohibited list which we have already touched on, which include social drugs - cocaine and heroin, for example. Clearly, as Class A drugs, they are high priority for our law enforcement agencies. There are products on there, such as steroids, which I understand it is an offence to supply or possess with the intent to supply, but not possess for personal use. That is something that we keep under review. Q66 Dr Harris: Are there thoughts in the run-up to London, and we have covered this in another inquiry, to toughen up the anabolic steroid enforcement side? I think these are Class C drugs. Mr Reader: The short answer is that we keep it under review with the Home Office. There are no imminent plans. There are no specific plans at the current time. Q67 Dr Harris: The moment when there is an alleged case of doping, governing bodies deal with that. Some people argue that there is a conflict of interest for those who are seeking to promote sport also being in charge of running the inquiry. Is there a case for an independent ombudsman type authority to deal with this so that not only is there no conflict of interest, but there is seen to be no conflict of interest? Mr Reader: Yes, and I think this issue was touched on the Culture, Media and Sport select committee inquiry. There is a recommendation that UK Sport and the Government consider the establishment of a national tribunal service and that, as I understand it, is currently under consideration. UK Sport is undertaking an options appraisal into that. Q68 Dr Harris: What about doctors? We know that doctors are involved in doping in other parts of the world. It would be hard to believe that if some of the things had happened in this country doctors would be involved. Are you confident that the World Medical Association for example is taking a tough enough line? Is the GMC actively involved as a stakeholder in trying to ensure that no doctor gets involved in this sort of stuff? Mr Scott: We obviously work very closely with the medical profession. The likelihood of there being rogue doctors out here is a reality we have to consider. That is certainly what the Spanish scandal has revealed very clearly. Again, we put a lot of effort into ensuring that there is education material available to doctors so that they know the kinds of decisions they need to be making with regard to specific athletes, who are elite performers, because there are risks they run and any prescriptions that they may legitimately make to them for a medical reason could actually contain bad substances. Something as simple as that was what I was talking about by inadvertent doping. It is still possible but it is about that relationship between the athletes and their doctors. Q69 Dr Harris: There have been no cases in this country of GMC-registered doctors so far being caught. Lynford Christie told us in a seminar that I think was public that he did not think that the UK sports authorities were doing enough to educate people, despite the 100% Me Campaign. I think he was aware of that. I do not want to go over everything that has been one. We have had a lot of detail on that. Do you think that was a fair criticism or unfair? Mr Scott: I would always be prepared to improve and do more. You have to remember where we come from. Certainly when Lynford was in the system there was no education programme. 100% Me was only launched in 2005. I would question on what basis he was making that judgment, whether that was a bit historic in terms of what he experienced when he was in the system. We are now I believe rolling out a very effective programme. UK Sport has finite resources here. We are having to work through others, so our prime target has been the training of trainers to deliver the message on our behalf, which is this focus on tutors in the governing bodies. If the governing bodies are responsible for their sport, we are educating and providing them with the resource to educate their people. Q70 Dr Harris: I accept that answer. He was thinking more about what could be done in schools in terms of education, and everything is suggested for the citizenship side, maybe in school physical education lessons. I managed to go to a couple. I forged a note for everyone! That is an opportunity or maybe some of the sports degrees ought to have much more on this because a lot of athletes and coaches do go through that path. Mr Reader: I accept that. I am sure more could be done through the curriculum. It is worth noting, and the point has been made, that any athlete who is in the system, however young they are, when they have been identified as having talent and they are starting to be supported, they will be made aware of and will be participating in 100% Me programme. The other point I want to make is that you may be aware that the first inaugural UK School Games will be taking place in Edinburgh, which will bring together all young talented athletes between 14 and 18. The idea is that that will be an annual event up until 2012. The purpose of it is to recreate an Olympic or Paralympic experience for young people. UK Sport will be there and will be publicising and encouraging athletes to be aware of the 100% Me programme. That is another opportunity. Q71 Dr Harris: So you have accepted that the curriculum has a role to play. Are DfES engaged with you at officials level or should we be asking DfES about school and university curricula? Ms Holloway: There is quite a lot in the current curriculum at the moment that focuses on education around the misuse of drugs. At all Key Stage 1, 2, 3 and 4 levels, there is curriculum focused on drug misuse, but there is also in GCSE PE a focus on anti-doping as an issue in PE. A lot of the young people who are interested in going into sport in the future and working in some aspect of sport, whether that be as an athlete or coach or physiotherapist or whatever, are given access to education on anti-doping. I think the real problem that lies in schools at the moment is that the teachers do not necessarily know how to deliver on this subject. It is a very sensitive issue. They do not necessarily have the expertise to deliver on the issue of drugs in schools. A National Healthy Schools Standard has been put into place. I do not know whether it has been rolled out across all schools yet but there is an expectation on schools that they have a recognised and named adviser within the school who can deal with drugs-related issues, that the schools are supposed to have a policy on how they deal with drug-related issues, and again, as I said, that the curriculum deals with drugs and the law, et cetera. Q72 Dr Harris: Perhaps you could send us, within reason, a bundle of curriculum materials, and then we can make a judgment. I do not think we have had that yet. Ms Holloway: We are currently developing some material for schools at the moment with various education consultants that do deliver education for teachers. Q73 Dr Harris: I would be interested, if you have access to it, what is listed in the curriculum at the moment. Thank you for that answer. My last interest is about the doping control passport idea. What do you think the potential benefits or pitfalls of that approach are? Mr Scott: It has been around for a while. We have looked at it. It would need the full cooperation of the international sports federations and, at the moment, I do not think that is there. Those that would require that are the ones operating at international level. Q74 Dr Harris: That is a practical point but I am interested in what you think it could achieve and obviously whether it could work? Mr Scott: That is the big question, if it does work. Q75 Dr Harris: Assuming it could work, what do you think are the benefits? Mr Scott: I suppose the primary benefit is that you have an up-to-date, ongoing data source about a particular individual. That is clearly of benefit. You would be recording the tests that were done. There is the ability to have a full briefing on what was in those tests. There are advantages to it. Q76 Dr Harris: But there could be baseline physiological measures before the career enhancement starts. Mr Scott: That could well be included. Q77 Dr Harris: Would that be useful? Mr Scott: Yes, undoubtedly, I think it could well be useful. Q78 Dr Harris: Haemoglobin is a good measure, it is argued in the literature, for monitoring EPO use far better than hematacrit but you need a baseline level, do you not? Mr Scott: You do. Q79 Dr Harris: That might crack the EPO problem? Mr Scott: It could contribute to it, certainly. Q80 Dr Harris: You need to tell us if you think this is the case because I cannot put the evidence on the record. What about monitoring the financial rewards that an athlete has had so that a sanction regime could actually hit him in the wallet retrospectively rather than simply prospectively in respect of a ban? Mr Scott: As you know, for example the IAAF does that already. You will have seen that with the Dwayne Chambers case where he has received a financial penalty for the rewards he gained when he was competing with drugs in his body. Q81 Dr Harris: That is just one sport and in a sense he was punished for his honesty because he admitted a history of use, and I do not think many athletes and others in sport are going to queue up to do that, are they? Mr Scott: No. the reality is that I would struggle to name athletes that have owned up to doping. Having been caught, most still maintain that they are innocent. Ben Johnson of course famously maintained his innocence until he was finally put on oath on the stand. It is the psychology of those types of people. Q82 Dr Harris: If you think there are advantages to this passport idea, how are you collectively going to help push it because there are practical objections? Who is responsible for doing so? Mr Scott: This is an issue that we believe again requires international partnership because there is no point in it being applied to just one group of athletes. You are talking about top level athletes who are competing constantly internationally, and so it needs the support of WADA, the IOC and the international federations concerned. The best forum for that is the Foundation Board of WADA because all those parties sit round that table and are represented at that table. Q83 Chairman: Do we have someone on that? Mr Scott: Not at the moment, no. Mr Reader: There are five places allocated to Europe, two of which are to the Council of Europe and three of which are to the European Union, although currently one of those is the deputy chair. Currently and for the future, the EU presidency holder sits on the foundation, and they consult Member States prior to the Foundation Board meeting. There is very much an opportunity and a responsibility to feed in views to our representative. Q84 Chairman: John, I understand that the IOC may try to insist on immunity from prosecution of doctors and coaches who are found with Class A drugs within Olympic venues in 2012. What is our view on that? Mr Scott: I was not aware of that, Chairman. That is the first I have heard of that. Q85 Chairman: Could I say that that is a possibility. Perhaps you could let us have a written note to say how you would respond? Mr Scott: Have you been told that by the IOC? Is that something you have seen? Q86 Chairman: It is something of which I have been informed which I would like to check out. Mr Scott: Yes, we will look into that. Q87 Margaret Moran: This is a question for Matthew. In the previous CMS select committee report there was a suggestion that there should be more cross-departmental working so that parts of the UK Government can jointly determine whether to seek to pre-empt the views of new medical research and developments by sportsmen and sportswomen and their coaches. How much co-ordination is there in practice across Government, for example, with the Home Office and Department of Health, and do you think that that kind of cross-departmental coordination could help to pre-empt the use of medical research? I should say that the Government's response did not actually address that issue. That is why we are particularly interested in it. Mr Reader: The answer is that we have made informal contacts within Whitehall, and so we do regularly speak to our counterparts - for example, in the Home Office. I may have mentioned earlier that in terms of where the future threats are, there is an argument for saying that it would be helpful and advantageous to have a cross-governmental group of either officials and ministers. My answer to that would be that if there are particular issues that need to be addressed, then there may well be a benefit in that. In the first instance, we would very much look to UK Sport and our specialist adviser and UK Sport through its network and through the WADA accredited laboratories and its research links into the various research organisations. They are the eyes and ears, if you like, out there in the field. If there are particular issues that Government can come together to address, then we are very happy to consider that. I suppose the short answer to the question is that there is not anything formal on the table at the moment. Q88 Margaret Moran: There is no liaison directly with the Department of Health to work out what medical research is going on out there that might be helpful? Mr Reader: Not in recent months; if there were a particular issue that had been identified, as I say, coming through the specialist and the experts in the field via UK Sport, then we would certainly speak to our colleagues about that. Mr Scott: Alison can perhaps help you with something we are doing on that front. Ms Holloway: We have obviously realised over recent years that there is very little joined-up thinking in this area. Research is a particular area to which we are starting to direct our attention, particularly because at first we were focused on making sure our foundation programme was running effectively. Over the next year to two years, we will be looking at putting in place a research steering group to bring together academics and practitioners from various areas of sport, education and medical science who can help to advise us on where the best research or the most effective research could be. We will be looking at having within this steering group medical and scientific researchers and social science researchers to help us to do an audit of all the research that is going on at the moment across the world and also then to advise us on where we could recommend research investment could be placed for anti-doping. Q89 Margaret Moran: In the first session, we heard some very powerful arguments around ethical issues for and against the use of HETs in sport. How far do those arguments feature within the WADA decision-making process and should there be more attention paid to those arguments and, if not, why not? Mr Scott: Our view is very firmly that doping has no place in sport. We do not believe that the values that sport is meant to represent are helped in any way by people engaging in doping practices. WADA has clearly recognised the significance of the ethical debate by making the spirit of sport, the ethical dimension, one of the criteria under which they would consider applying a prohibited status to either a substance or a method. So they are very aware of that. The ethics of this is absolutely central to why we are in this. It goes to whether this is about something that should be controlled by sport, controlled by Government, whether it should be criminalised, whether it should be code of conduct. That is something about which, under the code and under the UNESCO Convention, there is still a degree of flexibility to allow individual countries to address that in the way they fit. For example, the code does allow for the continuation of a legislative framework which pertains in countries like France. Here the Government has taken the position that this is an issue that should be owned by sport, and that it is about the kind of sanctions that sport should be applying to people who are not following its rules. That reflects the culture and the moral framework that pertains in individual countries. Q90 Dr Turner: We spoke about the prohibited list before. How much input do you as a body have into the WADA code and the prohibited list? Do you think the WADA code goes far enough to satisfy some of the concerns that you have, which we have already raised? There is a review going on. Which features would you like to see updated and what impact do you think the review is going to have? Mr Scott: Firstly, may I reiterate the points that Matthew made about where we are now as to where we were? We must not underestimate the scale of progress that has been made with the advent of the WADA code to actually bring the range of sports together around a common agenda here and agree to a harmonisation in what are, quite often, very jealously guarded areas of responsibility. They do not willingly give up any of that. To achieve the WADA code was a major milestone. As Matthew again said, it is not perfectly. Of course we are at the sharp end of this. We are a national anti-doping organisation trying to make this work across over 50 sports in the United Kingdom context; that is nearly 200 governing bodies because we have one of the most complicated sporting systems in the world. Certainly, starting to roll something like a code out very practically means teasing out some of the challenges that the code represents. We have gone through a consultation process for this phase one, as we will with the following phases. The way we did that was to put up our initial thoughts on some of the pitfalls and areas that needed improvement in the WADA code, and we shared that with the stakeholders, and indeed with the public because it was available on our website. On the basis of that feedback, we have now submitted our response to WADA. It was reviewed by DCMS and by the Minister before it went. The Minister fully associated with it and then attached a forward to it picking out some of the key themes he felt WADA needed to address. That similarly is now available on our website. Within that are a number of very technical issues clearly in terms of making the code really work. There are some very fundamental points as well, which I think we have already begun to rehearse here about the nature of the banned list and getting it absolutely clear as to why something is on the banned list and what is an absolute given before something goes on the banned list. Should it be performance-enhancing plus or can it be that if it challenges the spirit of sport, then it is damaging to health? Clearly a lot of things are damaging to health but they are not on the banned list. That is something we are asking be looked at. We think that is absolutely fundamental to the code. One of the other big issues, and this is a huge challenge for WADA, is that we honestly believe that we are applying the code very rigorously to our athletes, absolutely rightly. We believe it is absolutely right that we do that, but we are not convinced that that is happening in other parts of the world and that, in terms of fairness, there is a question mark here as to whether our athletes, in terms of the rigour with which we are applying it, are being disadvantaged internationally. So code compliance, making sure that the rest of the world steps up to the bar, is the big challenge. Q91 Dr Turner: Are you satisfied, too, because there have been criticisms that there is inconsistency in the application of the WADA code both in sports and countries? You have expressed your concern about the consistency between countries. Are you satisfied that it is being consistently applied across different sports in our own country? Are there any inconsistencies there? Mr Scott: As you know, the code comprises some mandatory articles and some non-mandatory articles. I think it is in the non-mandatory articles that you will always get degrees of interpretation. Similarly, we are arguing that certain aspects of the code should now be upgraded to be mandatory. There are some challenges in that. One of the things we are very sensitive to is that athletes want to feel they are being treated the same no matter what sport they are in, and I think we subscribe to that as well. We believe that is absolutely fair and appropriate. For example, there are some challenges in terms of making a system practically operate, and this is particularly true when you are looking at how team sports operate versus how individual sports operate, the sorts of lifestyles and the way these people have their lives managed for them. Putting in place a fair mechanism there does tease out some of the realities of translating a principle into practice. We are saying that has to be looked at as well because we feel at the moment that there are some loopholes in terms of the expectations we place on our individual athletes and what we place on our team athletes. Q92 Dr Iddon: I want to move away from drugs now and perhaps look at other human-enhancement technologies. How much effort is the Government putting in to backing human-enhancement technologies, part from chemical substances? Mr Reader: Do you means in terms of legal things? Q93 Dr Iddon: Yes, of course. Mr Reader: The committee may be aware that the Chancellor announced a significant level of additional Exchequer investment into elite sport in the Budget in March. I think the total package between now and 2012 to support our elite athletes will be in the region of £600 million. There are three broad areas where that money is being directed: into the governing bodies for them to run their high performance programmes - that is employing the coaches, the performance directors and so forth; secondly, to the athletes themselves and UK Sport runs Athlete personal Awards, which basically is a contribution to the athlete's living expenses; the third area, which is the answer to your question, is in the support network around athletes. It is very important clearly for sports science and sports medicine - incorporating nutrition, psychology biomechanics, strengthening and conditioning, all those sorts of areas - to make sure that in perfectly legal performance-enhancing activities athletes are receiving the very best services. That is delivered through the institute network. In England, that is the English Institute of Sport. UK Sport has taken on responsibility for oversight and the strategic direction of the English Institute of Sport. It is very closely locked in to the other two elements I talked about in terms of going into the governing bodies, so they are trying to bring together everything that the Institute is doing in direct support of the athletes and the governing bodies themselves. Q94 Dr Iddon: When it comes to clothing and equipment in its broadest sense, do we rely on industry bringing new technologies to the Government, to the sports people, or is there some pressure from your organisations to get industry to enhance our athletes' performance? Which way does it go? Mr Scott: Clearly the UK, in order to achieve the highest possible success at world level, needs to be improving performance all the time. Some of that will involve technology. If you look at the application, for example in swimming of the swimsuit, if you look at very technical sport like rowing where you are looking at the shape of the oar, these kinds of things are all extremely scientific. That is part and parcel of what sport is, particularly in those sorts of sports where it is seeking excellence in both the design and the technology and the athlete that uses them. Q95 Dr Iddon: Who promotes the changes? Is it industry or is it your organisations, or is there a bit of both? Is there liaison? Mr Scott: It is a bit of both; certainly through the Institute network, through the performance division of UK Sport, we constantly want to look at where there are opportunities to improve our athletes' performance. Q96 Dr Iddon: Is WADA also promoting activities of this kind? Mr Scott: No. The IOC clearly is but WADA is not. Mr Reader: Clearly the national governing bodies in the UK, whether that be UK Athletics or British Swimming or many of the others, clearly have a very strong interest in making sure that their athletes are performing to their very best ability. Q97 Dr Iddon: I am sorry, but I did not put that question very well. WADA is an anti-doping agency, I accept that. What I really meant to say is: are they looking at non-prohibited substances which may enhance athletes' performance worldwide? Mr Scott: Yes. As I say, any substance, drug or whatever that could potentially lead to unfair advantage is constantly reviewed through the prohibited list process, which is an annual review. Proposals are put to that committee from a number of sources: the governing bodies and governments can put them forward. That is the process by which I think what you are seeking an answer to is undertaken. Q98 Dr Iddon: Do we have access to their research, for example in improvements in nutritional standards for athletes and the use of legal supplements? Are we aware of what they are doing? Mr Scott: The UK has a representative on that committee, and so we are very lucky that we get quite a lot of information as to what is going on within that committee. Q99 Dr Iddon: Can you put a figure on how much money is going into giving human enhancement technologies that are not prohibited - clothing, equipment? Does anybody know? Mr Scott: No. Clearly an element of what UK Sport invests in to the governing bodies has a technology element to it. For example, we are investing in sports medicine research and sports science research. We are doing work in nutrition and psychology. All those areas are receiving support. It is obviously part of the total mix now that makes up the package that is needed to deliver world-class athletes. Q100 Dr Iddon: Finally, when this money comes from Government, and Mathew has just mentioned a figure, who does it come down to and who is responsible for its distribution? Mr Scott: UK Sport receives the money for what we call the performance pathway, and so all the money that is intended to take us from talent identification hopefully to podium success is managed through UK Sport. Obviously in the home countries - Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - there are different arrangements, but there is now what is called the institute network, so there is a lot of cooperation between the institutes and the sharing of knowledge. Q101 Chairman: Can I finish with a couple of questions? We thank you very much this morning for the very frank way in which you have responded to our questions. I got the impression that you are running a very sophisticated and effective organisation within the current rules. You are very good at detecting what is out there and being able actually to deal with it. I think the whole committee would join me in complimenting you on that. There is one thing I have not got from you, if I am honest. Really this inquiry is trying to look ahead and see what UK Sport and the Government are doing in order to make sure that by 2012 we are ahead of the game rather than reacting to the game. You will say if that is an unfair criticism later. For instance, in answer to Brian Iddon's question about legal HETs, Matthew talked about this third stream of money that was coming from the Chancellor, but you were talking about what we are doing now, applying the biomechanics, the nutritional standards or the physiology development that we know now to our athletes. I think what Brian Iddon was getting at and what I would like to get at is: what are we doing looking forward? What investments are we making going forward? John, when you answered about gene therapy, you said it might or might not be there but we really do not know. We should know, should we not, because we know that in medical science there are huge developments being made in terms of gene therapy? It will not be in sports science where this occurs; it will be in medical science and we will pinch those ideas and take them forward. Do you ever speak to the MRC, for instance? Do you design research programmes with MRC looking forward? Do we do that on a European or world level? Do we do the forward-thinking research to make sure that by the time they start to apply these techniques, we are actually ahead of you? Mr Scott: Chairman, if that is a criticism implied or other, I am absolutely happy to accept that. We, as an organisation, have had our work cut out in the last two years modernising our systems, bringing in a code that has just transformed the sporting landscape. Understandably, I think you will agree, we have had to deal with the here and now. You are absolutely right to say that we have to do more about thinking into the future, and I accept that fully. I think we must not underestimate the amount that there is out there and that in some small degree we are contributing to that, not least through the international networks that we are engaged with that. I have mentioned the Association of National Anti-Doping Organisations where this stuff is debated regularly. The International Anti-Doping Agreement is debated regularly. There is a Science Committee within the Council of Europe, which monitors the European Convention. We send representatives to that. These sorts of issues are debated regularly there. There are forums where, hopefully, the intelligence that is needed to map out how we begin to address these is being put together. I accept a criticism that we are not as actively engaged in it as perhaps we should be, but that is something we will now come to, having got the code in place and operating. Q102 Chairman: My point is that HBO arrived and we reacted to it and where is that intelligence? Thank you for that. It would be useful if you could let us know what plans you have to coordinate that forward thinking. Mr Scott: We are very happy to do that. We will share with you what our plans are, particularly for this research group, because that is central to this. Q103 Chairman: This is the first time we have heard that. Mr Scott: It is a new idea. We are beginning to put that in place. Q104 Chairman: What is its budget and who will be on that? Mr Scott: We can do that. Q105 Chairman: My last question is on that theme too. Do you look outside the box, particularly if we take the military? Some of the most advanced thinking is going on in terms of human enhancement technologies within the military. It is useful for your troops to be able to stay awake for 36 or 48 hours to be able to perform at maximum capacity for longer periods of time. Do you look at what is happening with the military, both in the UK, the States and elsewhere, in order to pick up their ideas? Mr Scott: That is a very good point. Ms Holloway: There is work going on in the area of nutrition and health maintenance and things like that, and there is work being done with the military and with experts working within the military on how they treat the soldiers. There are some links there. Mr Scott: Again, I think that is an area where we need to look again at the composition of this research group so that we are getting access perhaps to some of that knowledge. That is something we can certainly look into. Chairman: On that note, may I thank you very much, John Scott, Alison Holloway and Matthew Reader, for your evidence this morning. This is the last evidence session on this subject. |