Backbench Business Committee - Minutes of EvidenceTranscript of representations made on Tuesday 11 February 2014

HOUSE OF COMMONS

REPRESENTATIONS

TAKEN BEFORE THE

BACKBENCH BUSINESS COMMITTEE

BACKBENCH DEBATES

TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2014

JESSE NORMAN and MARTIN VICKERS

SIR ROBERT SMITH, SIR MALCOLM BRUCE and FIONA O’DONNELL

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Representations

Taken before the Backbench Business Committee

on Tuesday 11 February 2014

Members present:

Natascha Engel (Chair)

Oliver Colvile

John Hemming

Ian Mearns

Jesse Norman and Martin Vickers made representations.

Q1 Chair: Jesse, you have a bid for a 90-minute general debate in the Chamber or Westminster Hall on the future of non-league football. The allocations we have available to us today include the end of the day on Tuesday 25 February. The end of the day normally means two hours, but it can be a lot shorter-it is the time at the end of Government business. We have all day on the Thursday of that week in the Chamber, which is provisional, and we have Westminster Hall as well.

Jesse Norman: Was that Tuesday 25 February?

Chair: Yes. So if you want to shoot.

Jesse Norman: Thank you very much indeed. It is a measure of the significance of this issue that, without invitation, I have been joined by my esteemed colleague, Martin Vickers. He and I feel strongly that non-league football-what we would call conference and grass-roots football-is a very big issue in the constituencies of many colleagues across the House. Having just inquired among colleagues, I have quickly been able to assemble a list of 10 from across the parties who would support this. I have no doubt that that list would grow very quickly in the context of a debate and that therefore we would have no difficulty filling a two-hour debate, if that was what came up. It certainly would be our preference, if possible, to have it in the Chamber.

There has not been much discussion of these issues in the Chamber, or indeed in Westminster Hall. There has been an important and excellent pair of reports on football governance by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, but the focus of the debate that I am seeking is much more at the other end of the spectrum: conference, non-league and grass-roots football. I do not think that there is a single Member of the House who does not have a non-league football club-and, indeed, more than one-in their constituencies, so I anticipate a strong turnout.

The issues, as you can appreciate, range from the governance of the Football Association in relation to those clubs to the financial difficulties in which many of them find themselves and the financial settlement. This is no exaggeration, but in my constituency, Hereford United is a well-loved club that has been well supported historically and is the lifeblood of the city of Hereford. It is in a bit of financial difficulty over sums that are the equivalent of two days’ pay for a star premiership striker. There are important issues of equity and fairness across the game of football, and is it important that we have a wider debate about them.

Q2 Chair: In theory, would the end of the day on Tuesday 25th work?

Jesse Norman: I think that would work very well. It would be a timely and early response to something for which we have been pushing through other channels for some time. I would be grateful for that if it were possible.

Q3 Oliver Colvile: First may I thank you for coming to speak to us? I represent Plymouth, as you know, and Plymouth Argyle may or may not end up remaining in the league, but it is always in danger. This is an issue for a lot of football clubs that are in the lowest form of the league. I am trying to find out what you hope to get out of this. Are you looking for some understanding of where the Government stand on this issue, or are you looking for suggestions about how the FA might manage the process? What is the aim?

Jesse Norman: That is a good question. Inevitably for a topic that is so widely followed and important to many people, there will be people who want to bring different questions and issues to the table. I certainly hope that we can get the issue on to the wider political agenda. I hope that the Government will start to flesh out some of their thinking on the aspects of football that are not covered by financial fair play and on some of the work that they have been doing on the premiership and the FA. We have heard from a Minister that it is the least well governed sport in this country, so it would be good to speak about not only financial issues, but governance issues. I hope we will be able to use the debate to spring a line of further arguments that could lead to action and, conceivably, legislation.

Q4 Ian Mearns: My question is in a similar vein: how do you see this panning out? The term "non-league football" covers a multitude of things-from pub and club teams, to clubs that play in the football conference and seek to get promoted into the Football League, so there is a wide variety. Some non-league clubs attract only a handful of spectators, whereas others, such as Luton Town, regularly attract 3,000, 4,000 or even 6,000 spectators, so there is a broad spectrum. As the debate would be so wide ranging, would you want to focus on the football pyramid and the vagaries of the clubs within it, or the broader spectrum?

Jesse Norman: I naturally think of this as a pyramid, and the trouble is that the pyramid gets very wide at the bottom. The natural instinct of many colleagues, including Martin and me, will be on the conference divisions. However, I do not want to rule out having a wider discussion that gets the issue of grass-roots football generally into the political bloodstream, because it has received so little discussion.

Q5 Ian Mearns: My town of Gateshead has a club in the conference, so I have to declare an interest. In addition to being a Gateshead fan, I am a Newcastle fan, so the fact that you are from Hereford does not help me particularly.

Jesse Norman: I am doing my best. It would be wholly inappropriate to mention the name Ronnie Radford in the current context.

Ian Mearns: It would be totally inappropriate.

Q6 Chair: My only other issue is that a debate on non-league football might need a bit more than 90 minutes. I think that that would be easily filled, but it is something for us to discuss. Would you turn down Westminster Hall?

Jesse Norman: I would have a strong preference for the Chamber. I have been perfectly happy in previous contexts to have Westminster Hall debates, and I have been very grateful to the Committee when it has been able to accommodate us, but I think that this needs to be put straight into mainstream political circulation.

Chair: Thank you for bringing that to us. We will go into private session after this and will let you know straight after.

Jesse Norman: I am enormously grateful to you all. Thank you.

Sir Robert Smith, Sir Malcolm Bruce and Fiona O’Donnell made representations.

Q7 Chair: So this is an application for a three-hour debate in the Chamber on a motion about the security situation for Afghan women. Before you start, would you read the motion for the record?

Sir Robert Smith: The terms of the motion are: "That this House recognises, ahead of critical presidential elections to be held in April, the essential contribution of Afghan women human rights defenders to building peace and security in their country; recognises the extreme challenges, including violent attacks and killings, that they face as a result of their peaceful work; believes that sustainable peace and security cannot be achieved in Afghanistan without women’s full participation; and encourages the UK Government to improve its support and protection for women human rights defenders in Afghanistan."

Chair: Thank you. Do you want to speak?

Sir Robert Smith: The topicality is twofold. We are obviously into the year of withdrawal of ISAF forces and the big transition of the security situation in Afghanistan, which is causing a lot of concern, especially to women regarding how they are going to be treated after the security change. We also have on 5 April the presidential elections, so this is a time of transition in Afghanistan. We have new legislation taking women’s rights backwards in terms of violence against women and their rights in court, and we have reports of difficulties for human rights defenders promoting women. My experience goes back to the previous International Development Committee’s visit when we sat in a classroom full of girls actually learning again and they showed us their homework and enthusiasm. The next time the Committee went to the same school, they were not allowed to go and see the girls because it was thought inappropriate.

Also, on the previous visit, we went to a small company loans scheme and saw all the women entrepreneurs. The scheme basically trusted women, because they repaid the loans, whereas the men did not. For the country to rebuild itself, it will have to take on its whole population, so this is a timely moment to focus on that. I think that parliamentarians in Afghanistan want parliamentarians in other parts of the world to send a signal of support for women’s rights, and to show that the spotlight will not disappear just because the military situation has changed.

Sir Malcolm Bruce: May I supplement that? We produced a report in this Parliament on Afghanistan, and I can testify to what Sir Robert says: there was a pushing back against the rights of women. We met some women who were very passionately fighting for their rights and saying that they would not let them go, but they wanted support. As a result of that and the evidence that we received, we put in our report that the status of women was absolutely the single test of whether our engagement in Afghanistan, in development terms, had made a difference. The push-back is now extremely strong. Over the next two or three years, either Afghan women will maintain some of the advances and Afghanistan will move to having at least a more pluralistic base, or there will be a real danger that it will be pushed right back to the dark days of the Taliban, when women had no rights at all. We have a responsibility as a country. We have laid down our own service people’s lives to protect those rights. I think it is time that we had a very strong demonstration in our own Parliament that we are looking to the rights of women, and the protection of those rights, as critical to Afghanistan’s future.

Fiona O’Donnell: May I add something as well? This motion has broad support across the House from a large number of MPs, and NGOs also support it, but it is not just about that-it is also about the general public. I am sure that many MPs have received e-mails from their constituents on this issue and that, if the Committee grants a debate, there will be a concerted campaign urging MPs to participate in it, so I am absolutely confident that we would have enough people to contribute. This is a great opportunity for us to show solidarity with our sisters in Afghanistan, and to demonstrate that their struggle is not forgotten and that we want their daughters-any mother would want this-to have a better life than they have had.

Q8 Chair: You heard that our allocation is basically the end of the day on the 25th, and then we have some time on 27 February. We are also anticipating, however, some time on 6 March, which is in the week of international women’s day. For topicality, would you consider that day? Sometimes people are away on Select Committee visits.

Sir Robert Smith: You are suggesting that the women’s day debate would be split into-

Chair: A suggestion came to us about women’s contribution to economic growth, so this would be a separate debate. That would be for three hours and this would be a separate debate on the same day.

Sir Robert Smith: And then we would have the motion-

Q9 Chair: Yours would be first, because it has a votable motion.

Sir Robert Smith: That would be good; it would be excellent.

Chair: Obviously we would have to make-

Sir Malcolm Bruce: It is two debates, both focusing on women.

Q10 Chair: Yes, just given that it is the week of international women’s day.

Sir Robert Smith: It would be topical.

Chair: Excellent. Thank you very much for that.