UK Concussion Guidelines for Grass-roots Sport

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the support of the party opposite. World-leading experts have informed this guidance and it is important that we give it to the many people who are engaged in recreational sport across the country. The example that the noble Lord gives from his own family is illustrative of the issues that we need to make people aware of, so that people can intervene where needed and make sure that there is support for those who require it.

As my right honourable friend the Sports Minister said yesterday in another place, he has committed to continuing to work with his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that the relevant advice is given to people, including those who want to contact the NHS through the 111 service. Many health experts from lots of sporting backgrounds have been involved in the preparation of this advice.

The noble Lord is right to point to the role of financial governing bodies in disseminating the advice that is appropriate in the context of their sports. Last year the English and Scottish Football Associations banned heading the ball in training for primary school-age children, an example of work that has been taken on. We are working with national governing bodies to make sure that the guidance is disseminated to everyone who needs to see it.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister clarify one or two points? First, as is said in the document and is well-known, the younger you are, the more serious concussion can be. The school-aged people that we are primarily talking about tend to play a lot of sports. There must be thousands of people who have the experience of the child who plays in three school teams and maybe also on a Saturday.

What is the responsibility of the parent to make sure that, if you have been banged on the head playing rugby, you do not simply go off and play something else? Swimming is a good example. You can injure you yourself when swimming; diving carries a risk of concussion. What is the reference across that they are giving out to parents and coaches in all these sports about all the people involved? Are they going to make sure that everyone knows they have to talk to each other and who the conduit is for passing on that information? That is an important factor.

Secondly, when it comes to the governing bodies—which will be the way that information will be disseminated to people in the individual sports—what role does the Department of Health have in making sure that the guidance is technically correct and follows a consistent pathway? Any one of three Ministers could have answered this Question, and it just happens to have fallen to the noble Lord. What co-ordination is there to make sure that we have a consistency of approach across all departments?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord is right that this is work that engages other government departments and many institutions in education and healthcare. A range of government departments and representatives from the education sector and medicine have been engaged in the process, and the guidelines will be published through all those channels to make sure that schools, teachers and doctors are aware. As I say, it is for the national governing bodies of each sport to make sure that this baseline guidance is tailored to the specific context and setting of their sport, and we would like to see that built on. It is for them to give any additional messages. The guidance is an essential first step, and fundamental to it is the simple overriding message: if in doubt, sit them out.

Young Female Racing Drivers

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to point to the many ways that women can get involved in motorsports, not just as drivers but as team principals, nutritionists, psychologists, talent scouts and in many other roles. Lots of people have obviously been inspired by the recent Netflix series, “Drive to Survive”, which perhaps did not give enough screen time to all the women who take part. There is definitely a role for the sport itself, as well as for government and parliamentarians in exchanges such as this, to draw attention to that and to inspire people to get involved at every level.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister assure us that there will be a slightly more open and coherent attitude towards the full participation of women across non-traditional groups? At the moment, the Government seem to be following behind the sports themselves as opposed to leading. Will they tell us where that guidance will come from and who will be leading it?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My department is in the process of finalising a new government sports strategy. Central to that is tackling the inequalities that exist in activity rates and making all sports more inclusive. We want to see people getting involved. I have pointed to recent successes of the Lionesses and the achievements of the Red Roses and the Great Britain team in tennis. Those British heroes are inspiring women and girls to get involved and we are keen to amplify their successes to inspire others.

Football: Illegal Entry to Matches

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The Government published their response to the recommendations made by the fan-led review in April last year. We remain committed to publishing a White Paper following up on that, which we will do in the coming weeks.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, to return to the original Question, tailgating here or anywhere else is presumably already an offence. What briefing is given to both stewards, who should now be better trained as a result of this, and police, who are there to take action when it takes place? Also, are we looking at one of the other major areas in the Casey report—interference in the disabled access entrances, which were stormed at this event?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord is right: disorder associated with attempting to gain unauthorised entry may indeed be a criminal offence, and criminal punishment can follow. The Sports Grounds Safety Authority commissioned a review of stewarding, following the noble Baroness’s report, which looked at these issues. It is now working with football’s governing bodies to follow up on the points that were identified there. The noble Lord is right to draw attention to the way that disabled fans were particularly affected by people trying to follow them into matches—that is deplorable.

BBC: Future Funding (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Addington Excerpts

Friday 16th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when it comes to the end of a debate—especially one like this, where I have not served on the committee—a certain degree of nerves creeps in. One thing has come out in this debate: there seems to be a great deal of good feeling for the BBC, but not for all the BBC, and the bit we do not feel good about changes with every person who speaks. If we take that on board, we discover that there is not one answer to this, unless we are imposing some form of dictatorship. But what do we regard as good about the BBC? Its universality—the fact that there is something for everybody.

Certain bits will annoy certain people. For example, I am sure that every Government wish they could, at the snap of their fingers, get rid of the “Today” programme. Time after time, the Government sit down, do stuff, and stuff goes wrong. Whether it goes wrong by little portions or by great tidal waves, the “Today” programme tells us, the political class listen to it, and then, along with the broadsheets, they set an agenda. If things are going reasonably well, the Government do not care, but when they are going badly or they are being criticised, they care deeply. Just about everybody who has spoken in this debate has been in a party that has been in government. It was a bit of a shock to the Liberal Democrats when they discovered that they were getting their fair share of this. As for political bias, I am afraid that the Conservative Party in some form or another has normally been in power over the last 100 years, so if the BBC is out to get it, it is not very good at it—end of.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Let us settle down. How the BBC is funded is the big question. There seems to be a reluctant agreement about the licence fee, but, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, put it, a bit of rebranding is required. It is known as the TV licence fee, but my daughter does not watch television programmes on a television but on a laptop. It is surprising to discover the different ways to consume things that the licence fee covers—for example, using a mobile phone—so a bit of rebranding is required.

On the idea that we should consider people’s ability to pay the licence fee, it seems quite appealing initially when you look at local taxation levels and banding levels, until you realise what a gin trap they are for anybody who goes anywhere near them, and how they are totally out of date, et cetera—and on and on into the night. The most dominant Prime Minister of my lifetime was brought down—or at least, the process was started—by playing with that. So, we have to get a degree of consensus, at least about what we do not want.

In terms of advertising, the cake is not big enough, and there is also the universality of streaming and subscriptions; these factors are pulling at each other. Some form of paying for the BBC through a licence fee seems to be the only option for the moment, although it probably cannot carry on as it is unless everybody decides that the other things are far too scary and we do not want to do them.

The idea of having a basic, worldwide news provider more tightly controlled by the Government it is primarily criticising is totally unacceptable. If that were to happen, the entire future of the BBC would be called into question. It would become the party in power’s body, not the nation’s. If we lost that, nothing could do the work that the BBC did, and led the other public service broadcasters to do, during lockdown. There is nothing else that gets close to or has the capacity of the BBC. We would have to invent something—a very weird creature—that would take it on. I hope that when we hear from the Minister, he says that the Government are behind the idea of having something that is independent and looks fully at the public service duty.

As for the TV licence, let us just call it a licence and grade it. How would we do that? Well, your Lordships’ answer is going to be as good as mine at the moment. However, making sure that the BBC is not under the control of the political group of the moment is absolutely essential. We must have something with a degree of public reaction—we are probably doing that now, but we can always do it better—and a degree of independence. Without that, you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Political advantage should not be a factor here. I think somebody said it is dreadful that the BBC is competing with online news—well, yes, but it could be better and more distinctive. You can go to your particular lobby group, but that is not what the BBC should be. Can we have an idea from the Minister when he responds—and indeed from the noble Baroness, Lady Merron—about what the Government think this institution is going to be? If it is going to be very different, the Government need to justify that.

I have one final point, which was mentioned earlier on. I have championed women’s team games at the BBC, which then led the other public service broadcasters on this, and we now expect to see those games. More than half the population enjoy their triumphs and disasters and buy in to that. The job is not finished yet, but that could not have happened without the lead of the BBC quietly breaking the idea, pushing it forward, and pushing forward the raising of standards of professionalism within those sports. That is something the BBC has done that has affected the lives of just about everybody. We all think that there is too much music we do not listen to, and people who do not like sport will think the same, but if we do not allow the BBC to take that initiative and push something forward, we have lost something very important. I hope the Minister will give me his thinking on how this can be achieved when he comes to reply. I say this to the Government: please, do not get rid of something that is basically good. Allow it to change.

Football: Abuse and Violence

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an important issue. One of the great powers of sport is that it brings people of all ages and all backgrounds together. Of course, we want everybody who takes part to have a fulfilling and enjoyable experience. That is a matter for the football authorities, but I will be very happy to undertake to make sure that officials at my department are speaking to them about this issue.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Government give us some idea of their opinion of the professional conduct in football whereby people sit around and shout at a referee who has given a decision they do not like? Will the Government encourage the FA to make sure that dissent is punishable by a card or a sending off? If you do this, you can rest assured that professional managers will not want to end games with seven or eight players.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

We believe that change needs to come from the top and participants in the professional game have the opportunity to be positive role models for people taking part at every level. That is a central message in the FA’s new “Enough is Enough” campaign. Underlining this, last month the FA challenged a decision by the independent regulatory commission only to fine the manager of Liverpool FC following his sending off by the referee for shouting in the face of a linesman. The FA won its appeal and Mr Klopp served a one-game touchline ban.

UEFA Euro 2020 Final

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister give us a little more advice about what this reaction will mean? Have the Government identified when the next football match of national significance will be? That should have happened with the Euro finals. Have we got an intelligence profile in place to give us a better chance of spotting this in future?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The match at the centre of the noble Baroness’s report was clearly of national significance and an unparalleled situation. The current system for designating risk levels for football matches is determined by the police, so the Government believe that this is rightly an operational matter. It is not for us to create a separate system for classifying those matches and going over the heads of the police. However, we continue to ensure that appropriate resources are available to the police and others to ensure the safe delivery of major sporting events.

Football Spectators (Seating) Order 2022

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one where I find myself slightly conflicted. I did not like the idea of bringing back safe standing, probably because I lived very close to Carrow Road and the violence that was endemic in football for decades occasionally spilled out into the roads close to me. I remember that all-seater stadiums were brought in to stop that organised violence. They were largely successful as part of the packages that went through, but it is well that we remember that.

It was not just the crush. Seating, and the barriers brought in here, may well stop that incredibly dangerous surge forward on an open terrace. I remember people saying that the movement of the crowd was wonderful; look at old film of the movement of a crowd. I am astounded that people were not more frequently hurt—one person going down, taking three or four with them, trapped underneath the motion. It is bad enough when it happens on a rugby pitch, which is, generally speaking, soft, and only three or four people are landing. The wind is knocked out of you, then two more people land and you cannot get your breath back. There is usually a referee pulling you to your feet then. It was potentially incredibly dangerous, and the fact that only a few people were involved in crowd disorder is probably why there were so few disasters. There is also the intrinsic danger in areas as such as stairwells. Floods of people going through them led to tragedy in the past. Please let us not think that these measures were brought in for no reason: there was a need. It was not the only action, but there was a need.

I ask the Minister a couple of questions on the “stay standing” procedure here—the barrier in front to stop people coming forward. What weight of people pushing forward has been tested against the barriers giving way? What is the level of people flow coming forward? Can we have a little idea of the testing that has taken place? If they are sturdy enough to resist that, most of the danger will be removed.

The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has done a very good job on disabled access here, but the grounds in the Premiership do not have an unblemished record. If they have just got to the level of providing access—I do not think they have—they have done so incredibly recently. Their unwillingness to take these steps has been obvious for a very long time. Nobody has fallen over themselves to make sure this happened fast. Will we make sure they are properly regulated and enforced to make sure that a disabled person who goes into the stands is safe? Remember that they may not all be wheelchair users; many people who are disabled are not. They may have to use them temporarily; they may be able to stand for parts of the game. Is a person who is slightly unstable on their feet safe? That is a good question to add. What can be done to make sure that they are safe?

When it comes to other crowd control techniques, can the Minister assure us that a person will be identified as in a ticketed area, and thus can be easily identified if they are committing anti-social, racist or other abhorrent behaviour? Has that been tested? Crowds allow bad behaviour or allow people to think they can get away with it. Football is just one area where it has happened historically.

If we can get those assurances, let us give the experiment a go. However, I should like to think that the Government are paying attention to it, remembering that there were pitch invasions at the end of last season and occasions when crowds have behaved badly. There are many fewer than there were, and it is now a news item worthy of note, which is definitely a step forward from the historical position, but are we making sure that we are able to punish people with better monitoring arrangements and the identification of the people there? We need that assurance, because it was not about the seating but the safety. The seating was just a vehicle to get there. If the Government can give us those assurances, I will wish this experiment well, because, let us face it, we did not bring the measure in because we were desperate to interfere with people’s lives but because we had to.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for securing the opportunity for this debate. The order has returned licensed areas of standing spectator accommodation to the top tiers of domestic football. The statutory instrument in question has now come into force but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, said it is a historic moment of significant change, and I know that it is a field of great interest to many Members of your Lordships’ House.

Your Lordships’ House maintains a close interest in matters of sports ground safety, keeping a keen eye on the safety of our football stadia and on the work of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, which regulates and advises us on this issue. It has done so since its inception as the Football Licensing Authority, at a time when, as noble Lords reminded us, we as a nation needed to apply some urgent focus to safety in our sports grounds—particularly to spectator safety at our football stadia following a number of very serious incidents which had raised many questions about the safety of the people enjoying a day at the match.

With the establishment of the Football Licensing Authority, the Secretary of State retained a power to issue directions regarding the nature of seated accommodation, and with that the all-seater policy was established—the requirement that clubs playing in the top two tiers of English football provide seated accommodation, and that they should remain all-seater at whatever tier of competition they find themselves playing in. The all-seater policy has played its part in the overall improvement of safety at football grounds, through which we have seen the game appeal to a broader range of people and, mercifully, reduced the occurrence of serious crowd safety issues. But in the intervening years a number of factors pressed the case for change. While the all-seater policy has been very successful, “persistent standing” represented a stewarding challenge in distinct areas of stadia which had simply not been designed for spectators to stand safely. The all-seater policy caught in its scope only clubs promoted to the Championship and has not permeated throughout the entirety of professional football. Clubs in the same league are constrained by different ticketing offers but must safely manage the expectations of visiting fans. Various stadium infrastructure options are now available to provide safe standing. While this will always remain a safety policy—noble Lords are right to accentuate the importance of safety again today—the calls from fan groups for choice in how they watch the game were notable. Supporter groups have campaigned on this issue for many years, and the Football Supporters’ Association in particular has been an important partner.

The order, laid earlier this year, is a significant milestone. It comes after several years of careful and evidence-driven policy development, which reflects the different forms of safe spectator accommodation that we are now assured may be delivered with comparable or, indeed, with improved levels of spectator safety.

The potential for licensed standing accommodation had been discussed over several Parliaments but, as the noble Lord reminded us, the Conservative manifesto of 2019 outlined a clear commitment

“to work with fans and clubs towards introducing safe standing”.

With sensible caution—we promised progress rather than necessarily completion of the process—we have been careful to balance moving quickly with the gathering of evidence, consulting the people involved and shaping a responsible policy response.

As noble Lords will know, the Government launched an early adopter programme for licensed standing in seated areas on 1 January this year. The programme was implemented to test the practicalities of safety in areas of standing spectators—whether areas struggling with persistent standing could be mitigated with the installation of appropriate infrastructure to support near-continually standing supporters, and stewarding strategies that permitted standing in these areas of the ground. This programme offered the opportunity to test the approach over the remainder of the 2021-22 football season in stadia already equipped with, or prepared to invest in, appropriate supporting rails in some limited test areas of their spectator accommodation.

The programme included five early adopter clubs: Cardiff City, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. While their vested interests cannot be denied, it remains extremely welcome that an appropriate cohort of football clubs was prepared to engage in this programme with no guarantees as to the outcome. Their investment in and openness to the project was critical, and we would not have come to enacting a significant change in the legislation governing sports grounds safety without their enthusiastic involvement.

With a number of clubs enlisted, the Sports Grounds Safety Authority formally commissioned an independent evaluation of the early adopters programme, which included a full roster of on-site observations across all participating clubs. The evaluation built on areas of relevance highlighted in an earlier evidence review and on the wider hypotheses of crowd dynamics in different configurations of spectator safety.

The authority published an interim report from this study on 23 April this year, which confirmed that

“Installing barriers or rails in areas of persistent standing in seated accommodation continues to have a positive impact on spectator safety”,


particularly in mitigating the risk of a progressive crowd collapse, by limiting forwards and backwards movement. This confirmed the belief of some experts in relevant areas, but the opportunity to have this configuration observed in situ, in real match-day environments, offered a compelling platform from which to commit to an evolution of approach in the regulation of sports grounds safety regulation.

On 24 May, we laid a Written Ministerial Statement, which indicated that, on the basis of these findings, the Government were “minded to” change the existing policy to allow all clubs currently subject to the all-seater requirement to introduce licensed standing areas for the start of the 2022-23 football season, provided they met strict criteria set by the Sports Grounds Safety Authority. The Statement was clear that any change to the existing all-seater policy would remain contingent upon the final evaluation report confirming the findings of the interim report.

CFE research subsequently provided the SGSA and DCMS with the final evaluation report. This concluded that the trial of licensed standing areas had been a success in both home and away sections. Given the positive impact on the safety of fans and the lack of any evidence that it increased disorder or anti-social behaviour, the report recommended that all clubs, in consultation with the SGSA and safety advisory groups, be given the opportunity to implement licensed standing areas and that the necessary amendments to the legislation be made as soon as possible.

The report also highlighted a number of other positive impacts of installing barriers or rails, also consistent with the previous research findings of the SGSA itself. These include: celebrations being more orderly with no opportunity for forwards and backwards movement; the risk of injury and the danger posed to others from spectators standing on seats or on the backs of seats being significantly reduced; egress from stadia being more uniform; it being easier to identify pockets of overcrowding in these areas; barriers making it harder for spectators to move towards segregation lines; putting stewards in more locations without affecting sightlines; and barriers offering stability for people moving up and down aisles and gangways. The final report also noted that operating licensed standing areas has the additional benefit of removing

“the need for safety teams to make spectators sit down, thus reducing potential conflict between staff and spectators”,

while also enhancing the match-day experience of spectators.

On the basis of this carefully considered programme of work, the Government subsequently laid the statutory instrument which retained the all-seater policy by default. Within this, the SGSA has the leeway to set appropriate criteria for areas where stadia subject to the policy may permit standing accommodation. With that, we have met, and indeed, exceeded our manifesto commitment of 2019; subject to meeting exacting criteria, clubs may now apply to offer areas of licensed standing accommodation for spectators throughout the Football League.

The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, raised a number of important specific questions on the management of these licensed standing spaces, and I am pleased to say that the criteria which the SGSA has set for licensed areas directly addresses many of the points which he has highlighted today. However, to cover those briefly: meaningful engagement with the safety advisory group must be demonstrated, as must a plan for continued engagement with it throughout the season; there must be no negative impact for other spectators, and specifically for spectators with disabilities—we are always happy to engage on feedback, but provision for all supporters is key to the criteria set out for standing areas; and appropriate stewarding must be in place. The detail of what this looks like and the resulting broader management of spectators will of course vary from ground to ground, but what will remain common is the careful oversight of grounds adopting safe standing areas.

Level Playing Field, with which the noble Lord is associated, and many others, have been important parties in helping us to develop this policy. These licensed standing areas are relatively few in number and their compliance to the criteria will be closely monitored. However, the continued input of Level Playing Field, supporters’ groups and other advocates for accessible stadia remains very welcome, whether that is with their club, the SGSA or directly with the Government.

The noble Lord highlighted the importance of accessibility for spectators, and we particularly welcome the continued efforts of Level Playing Field in convening spectators with accessibility needs and for advocating for them in football—and in other sporting areas. All-seater stadia have contributed a lot to the needs of many spectators, and we hope that standing areas will offer choice and reinforce the improved experience that all-seaters can offer those who wish to or need to sit. I should say that Ministers have met Level Playing Field as this change has been introduced, and we welcome its continued engagement in ensuring that it has no unintended consequences for any fans.

The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, also reflected on the fact that it might be perceived that we have changed public policy in line with those spectators who are “persistent standers”. Our research has now demonstrated that alternative policies may deliver the same, or improved, aim of spectator safety. With appropriate licensed infrastructure in place, at the expense of the club, spectators who wish to stand may now legally purchase a ticket to do so, and we can permit this in the knowledge that they are doing so in a safe environment. Safety should remain the prime objective, as it does in this statutory instrument.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked some questions on specific numbers and the density of crowds. I should reiterate that this is not a return to terracing. The criteria for standing areas have been carefully crafted following the existing evidence and new observations from the early adopter areas. Standing areas will maintain the same density of crowd; here we are talking about allocated places assigned to ticket holders, and feedback from the police on appropriately monitoring stewarding has been reflected in the criteria more generally.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I was concerned with making sure that the barriers are sturdy enough to resist any crowd surge. That surge—the movement forward—is the danger. Can the noble Lord give us a little detail of when we will find out what that testing was so we can be absolutely sure of this? Also, if, as I understand it, there will be only one row, have there been tests to make sure that that will always be kept in place?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for the clarification. If it is helpful, I will write with some technical detail, as what he is asking is probably best covered in a letter setting out some of the technical specifications.

It is perhaps an interesting point to add that UEFA, which has consistently also maintained an all-seater policy for its competitions, is now conducting its own review into the feasibility of licensed standing areas. UEFA will engage with relevant parties in the UK and other UEFA nations that routinely have standing accommodation available in its domestic competitions.

The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, asked about the consumption of alcohol in view of pitches, an issue covered by the fan-led review. I know that he looks forward to a full response on that from the Government, which will be coming in due course. I shall check whether the document that he mentioned has been deposited in the Library, and, if not, I shall ensure that it is.

In conclusion, the statutory instrument does not change the overarching approach to sports ground safety. Safety remains the primary factor in whatever type of spectator accommodation is offered; the measure that we are debating today does not draw our interest in that to a close. We must not rest on our laurels with any aspect of stadium safety, but I am confident that in the Sports Grounds Safety Authority we have an expert body that will ensure that our approach evolves and remains world-leading for many years to come.

National Women’s Sports

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to celebrate the success of national women’s sports, particularly in team sports.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it is no secret as to why I have brought this issue forward. We have had a long run of great sporting success. For someone who would sooner cheer for Scotland, unfortunately this has been mainly by English teams. We have all seen our national women’s sides enjoying a tremendous run of success in team games that were originally thought to be male dominated.

The Euros were an odd one—for me, a hardened rugby union player, football suddenly became enjoyable to watch. This was not only because there was a successful team to relate to, but also for the sheer joy the players seemed to have in competing and in that success. Who would have thought that a song, brought out in 1969 by Neil Diamond, would be belted out with such great gusto and with which everybody would join in? “Sweet Caroline” has become an anthem for British sport. It happened because a group of female players enjoyed and enlivened their success. It engaged the vast majority of us in a way we did not expect.

This success has been backed up—though this is a little bitter-sweet—by the England rugby union team, which had 30 consecutive victories at international level. I do not know how many records that broke, but it was magnificent. If we cannot celebrate this degree of success with better grace and embrace it a little more than we have done so far, we are going to be in trouble.

The whole structure of sport encourages people to take part and enjoy it. I am asking the Government what we are doing to get the best social, health and emotional health benefits from it. How are we going to do this?

What did we do to allow that success to be seen? First, we made sure that it was all on free-to-air television. If either of those tournaments had been tucked away in even the most brightly lit corner of a streaming service, the vast majority of the population would not have seen them. This had to be something that the BBC and ITV particularly took on and said, “Here it is.”

It is also about the warm-up to it, not just the events. Women’s football has been available for a long time, mainly on the BBC—we have seen it. If you did not see it, it does not really matter, and that applies to any form of public entertainment or engagement that goes on. For the first time, rugby union having the women’s competition in stand-alone tournaments when you can watch it has been massively beneficial to getting people engaged in it.

Why does this matter? If you are getting the women and girls to think that sporting activity is normal, you can encourage more of them to take part in it. It is not a totally closed book because they are out there now, but most of the clichés and stereotypes which have stood against female participation are thus addressed. You are going through and making sure that people can get out and get involved. How do you access this and encourage people to do it? You start at school, I hope by having a smorgasbord of opportunities to try. You encourage children to get out there and enjoy the sports that are going on. However, the thing about school is that you leave it. Generally speaking, people drop out of sport post 16, 18 or 21, when they leave this controlled environment where to an extent it is made easier for you or you are encouraged—indeed, forced—to take part in sport.

What do we do to break that down? You encourage children to try sports, hopefully ones that are culturally available to them. For instance, if you are talking about codes of rugby, I suggest that St Helens rugby league might be your first port of call—this might be the first opportunity to celebrate that other bunch of Lionesses who got into the semi-final of that particular tournament. You have to make sure that it is culturally available for your background and the groups that you are going out to, and then you must encourage people to go from the club at the school to the small amateur clubs—the big, professional, international, shiny stuff does not really matter that much as regards the benefit to society if you do not get people taking part in these games on a voluntary amateur basis.

In this country, government is very lucky that we have a tradition of sports clubs which founded themselves, fund themselves and look after themselves. Sport does a lot. Government helps but primarily, sport helps itself. That is why they are there and why, for instance, local government finds itself assisting football clubs with their grounds, not providing all of them as they do in most of Europe. The Government should be encouraging that. One of the easy ways of doing this is to make sure that there is an effective link between school and club activity. You get better coaching and the idea that you can carry on afterwards. I hope that this will be encouraged.

For women and girls, this might mean expanding the traditional bill of fare. We have just spoken about two sports which are not encapsulated in the traditional diet of netball and hockey, although they should both be represented. Indeed, both those sports have had their degree of success but possibly, if we televise them more we might do them a bit of a favour. However, maybe that is taking the debate a bit too far down one avenue.

How are we going to encourage this, making sure that that offer to take on these things in later life is done? We have to do more on that. School sport partnerships took a step in that direction—I do not know whether they were all-encompassing and fully working that through, because in most cases they got stopped when they had only just started to get going. Can the Minister give us an idea of what they are going to do?

I return to one of the things which government should probably do more of, which is to celebrate better team sports generally. We are in an odd position here, in that we have handed out honours and awards like toffees for people who have had modest successes. It was great back in those heady days when England won the Ashes for the first time, but they should have beaten Australia before that. Everybody got a gong—or whatever the correct term is in cricket; others will correct me later—at the end of it, even if they sat on the bench. Then England win the Rugby World Cup. Great: everybody gets a gong. The England women’s team were amateurs in 2014. The definition of amateurs is that you pay to play, you are not paid; you give up time and effort and you put money in. When they won the World Cup—and they are much more consistent about getting to finals, and so on, than the men—two of them got medals. Has the person who devised that for a team game never actually watched a team game, let alone participated in one? Do not goalkeepers and defenders count in football, or the people who do the hard work to win the ball in rugby, or is it only the glamour boys? I speak as someone who was definitely in the grunt brigade.

This is what the Government could easily do. If it upsets some weird table of achievement or the giving out of awards, give one medal to the entire team and give people a copy of it. That is a way out. The example I give of where that has been done is the equestrian teams for eventing. There used to be one medal; now they give them each one, but it still counts as one medal. That is something that the Government could do easily.

I know the Government had a lot on their plate this summer, but they did not have an official reception for the Lionesses: come on. There was enough of the Government left to celebrate that better. Why did that not happen? You could probably do it now and nobody would lose any Brownie points for having a party late, as opposed to not having it.

As the clock beats me, I thank everybody for taking part and hope that the Government will be able to answer my questions and the other thoughtful ones that I know are coming.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for securing this important debate on the success of women’s sport. The timing is, as noble Lords noted, particularly apt with so much success occurring across women’s sport, not least the success of England’s Red Roses reaching the final at the women’s Rugby World Cup last weekend—and coming so tantalisingly close to winning the tournament—and the Lionesses at this summer’s Euros. I am very happy to be responding to this Question for Short Debate at such an exciting time, and I assure noble Lords that His Majesty’s Government are keen to build on this success and momentum to create a lasting legacy for women’s sport.

The Government are fully committed to supporting women’s sport at every opportunity, pushing for greater participation, employment, commercial opportunities, visibility—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Addington accentuated—and opportunities at school. It is important that we take the time to recognise and celebrate success, which is why today’s debate is so important as well as so timely.

This summer we witnessed a major success in women’s sport the Lionesses beat the German team at Wembley to lift the UEFA European championship trophy. This inspirational tournament was staged in July across England, from Rotherham and Wigan to Southampton and Brighton. As noble Lords have noted, the final at Wembley was attended by a record crowd of over 87,000 people. That was not only a new record for a women’s international game in Europe but broke new ground for a women’s or men’s Euros final tournament game. The tournament also became the most watched women’s Euros ever, with a global cumulative live viewership of 365 million people across television, out-of-home viewing and streaming. This massive figure is more than double the number that watched the last UEFA European Women’s Championship in the Netherlands in 2017.

The tournament was truly a ground-breaking moment for the sport and has dramatically boosted interest in the women’s game, bringing it to the forefront of people’s minds. The event held for the Lionesses in Trafalgar Square the day after the final was a momentous occasion and saw 7,000 fans celebrate with their heroes. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State and the former Prime Minister Liz Truss met the Lionesses at their training ground to congratulate them and were very proud to support the event in Trafalgar Square. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, said, it is also important that we focus on the long-term legacy by way of celebration. To commemorate their already incredible achievement, we are working with the Football Foundation and the FA to name sites after the players in towns and cities that shaped their careers. We hope that that will inspire many generations of more players.

We will also continue to invest in grass-roots sport to bring on the next generation of Lionesses. We know how valuable physical education at school is: it gives pupils an opportunity to excel, to be active and to lead healthy lives. My noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington talked about the importance for bone density and preventing diseases such as osteoporosis. That is why we are actively working with the Department for Education to understand the barriers that prevent the ambition of two hours of PE a week being achieved. We will also continue to work with the Department for Education to ensure that girls have equal access to sports.

There is more work for us to do to identify and address the different barriers to participation that exist for young people; we have heard about some of those again today. We will continue to adopt a more targeted approach as part of our new sport strategy. Alongside this, the Department for Education is working on updating the School Sport and Activity Action Plan, which will set out steps to improve PE teaching in primary schools and to help schools make better use of their sport facilities.

On facilities, my noble friend Lord Sandhurst spoke about the importance of single-sex changing facilities. The Government are committed to maintaining the safeguards that allow organisations to provide single-sex services and we do not plan to announce any changes to the law.

Aside from the Women’s Euros, there are a number of other recent examples of success in women’s sport. Over the last week, we have seen the England Red Roses reach the final of this year’s women’s Rugby World Cup, as well as the other Lionesses—as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, put it—reach the semi-final of the Rugby League World Cup. The Great Britain team reached the semi-finals of the Billie Jean King Cup for the first time—as my noble friend Lady Sater said—in 41 years. Great Britain’s women also won three medals at the recent Gymnastics World Championships in Liverpool. Jessica Gadirova claimed an historic floor gold medal for Great Britain on the final day and sealed Great Britain’s first ever women’s all-round World Gymnastics Championship medal with bronze in Liverpool. This year’s Commonwealth Games also highlighted the success of women’s sport with Eilish McColgan’s outstanding performance in the 10,000 metres, to give just one example. Some 173,000 spectators attended the T20 women’s cricket at Edgbaston, a record for women’s cricket.

It goes without saying that Emma Radacanu’s win at the US Open in 2021 truly inspired the nation as well. A peak audience of 9.2 million tuned into the match on Channel 4, including 48% of 16 to 34 year-olds. The UK’s honours system can provide a way of recognising stellar sporting achievement and moments of national celebration. Examples of this include the MBEs awarded to the GB women’s hockey team who won gold at the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 and the damehood awarded to Dame Laura Kenny as a result of her becoming the most successful female cyclist in Olympic history following her performance at the Tokyo Games in 2020.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

The fact is that we have given out honours to every member in a team. If you are giving out only two, the only team you are ever going to honour is beach volleyball. Can we do something about it?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I take the point the noble Lord raises. Of course, the honours system is independent of government, but his point will be well heard and, I am sure, fed back to those who sit on the independent committees.

All those sportswomen, whether honoured yet or not, are inspiring the next generation to follow their dreams. We are looking forward to this momentum being maintained and built on with the rugby league World Cup final this weekend, the ICC women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa, the FIFA women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the netball World Cup in South Africa and the Solheim Cup in Spain. I am sure all noble Lords will want to send our best wishes to the mixed England team who are in the finals of the wheelchair rugby league World Cup tomorrow.

As noble Lords can see, there is much to celebrate in women’s sport, but it is not enough that we celebrate these successes; we must continue our hard work in ensuring that they continue for decades to come. We are doing this by investing £230 million between 2021 and 2025 to improve grass-roots facilities across the UK. In addition, after Emma Radacanu’s spectacular win, we put just under £22 million into tennis court facilities. We will also look to continue our world-leading reputation for hosting major and mega sporting events and bringing all those special moments, like the Lionesses’ victory, to the United Kingdom. Major events make people feel good in a way unlike others and it is right that we should all have the opportunity to witness at first hand the successes of our brilliant athletes, men and women.

With this in mind, we must continue to build our pipeline of sporting events so that we can inspire more people across the country to watch, participate in or volunteer in sport, putting emphasis on the need for events to consider their social impact and legacy at the early bidding stage, to maximise the benefits after conclusion. It is worth highlighting in that regard that we successfully won the bid to host the women’s Rugby World Cup in 2025 in May this year, and I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Hayward for securing the financial commitment from the Government for that and pass on, via him, my congratulations to the Kings Cross Steelers for their victory in the Bingham Cup. Hosting the women’s Rugby World Cup in 2025 and delivering the legacy programme will generate transformational social impacts across rugby fans and more widely, including in the towns and cities which play host, and the legacy programme will look to focus on access to rugby for women and girls across the country. The 2026 ICC women’s T20 World Cup was announced as being awarded to England and Wales in July this year, another important opportunity that will further boost the ECB’s strategy to make cricket a gender-balanced sport.

The UK has also won the bid to host the International Working Group on Women and Sport from this year until 2026, another great opportunity not only to share the fantastic work we are doing but to learn from other countries. There is no doubt that the visibility of women’s sport is continuing to grow, and this was boosted earlier this year when we added the FIFA women’s World Cup and the UEFA Women’s European Championships to the listed events regime, meaning both tournaments will remain available for free-to-air television broadcasters and to the biggest audiences.

We want to continue to build on recent successes, such as the Women’s Euros and the good work already being done to encourage more women and girls to participate in sport and physical activity. We need to look ahead and be prepared to take advantage of opportunities and find ways to overcome challenges, such as have been outlined in today’s debate. We need to keep talking about issues relating to women in sport, asking questions and pushing ourselves to do more, so that women can continue to be in the driving seat of our national sporting success and not just of the Government Car Service. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for today’s debate and to all noble Lords who participated in it.

Football Governance

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I join the noble Lord in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Kamall, with whom I swapped places on the substitutes’ bench; I hope that his stay there will be as brief as mine. However, for all the changes in ministerial positions, the work to continue examining the recommendations made by Tracey Crouch, in commitment to and fulfilment of our manifesto pledge, as the noble Lord said, has continued at official level. The Secretary of State and my right honourable friend the Sports Minister, who have stayed in place, have been engaging with organisations. The Sports Minister made sure that his first meeting was with the Football Supporters’ Association. They are taking the time to continue that engagement and to look at the policy, and they will bring forward a White Paper with the answers to these complex issues soon.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister assure us that the Government are still in absolute agreement that there needs to be change and that it will happen soon? If that is so, can they assure us that we will not be talking about this in another year’s time, because there needs to be action now? Those assurances are required, and other sports have similar problems. I put my hand up as a rugby union player.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes, we still agree that football needs to be reformed to secure its long-term sustainability. Some of the action can be taken now; it does not require legislation or government action. The clubs can do it—for instance, on the financial flows throughout the football pyramid. We continue to encourage clubs to do that, and we are discussing the challenges facing rugby football clubs as well.

Public Service Broadcasting: BBC Centenary

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those debates where there has been less direct confrontation and “You’re wrong and we’re right” than I was expecting, but, at the same time, there is the fundamental truth that to those of us who feel really embedded in it, public service broadcasting feels slightly under threat. I do not know why this is, other than that it has become fashionable, certainly on the right in politics, to feel that the BBC—let us face it, that is the lead organisation, the unit—is against the Conservative Party.

I feel that this is almost totally down to the fact that the Conservative Party has its behinds on the Treasury Bench. Any news organisation that does not primarily put fire under what the Government are doing is not worth having. Let us face it, if they are the people making the decisions—I point my finger towards the Treasury Bench—they will be the ones getting the criticism and being the most solidly examined. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, gave a little suggestion about what happens if you are not in power: you get ignored. When a party comes third or fourth in a general election, they are begging the BBC to pay them some attention. So if noble Lords want the BBC to be nicer to them, they should lose the next two general elections—it is that simple.

Having got that off my chest, I will now address some of the things that it is very unlikely that anything other than a public service broadcaster will do well. We have already heard a few examples: children’s television and science. Another is sport, particularly sport that is not immediately mainstream at a given point in time. It is a fact that public service broadcasting has proved to us that disability sport is still a contest worth watching. If Channel 4—whatever happens to it—has carved a little place in history, it is because of the huge step it took in making the Paralympics accessible. It was a massive change that went beyond sport itself: it managed to broadcast programmes in which disabled people were people who happened to have a disability, and viewers did not notice it half the time. By the way, Adam Hills playing disability rugby league for Australia and losing to Wales, while still having a smile on his face, gets my round of applause.

We can look to another sector, which is probably bigger still: the growth of women’s team sports as national institutions and events. Who is going to forget the Euros in a hurry? It is not the type of football with which I am most closely associated, but the degree of enjoyment, celebration and success that came out of that game—the team will probably have it coached out of them by next time—was something we could embrace as a nation. The fact that 51% of the population can play sport, enjoy it, be good at it and have a degree of sheer joy in it is wonderful.

At the moment, we have yet another England team—the rugby union team—which is the betting favourites to lift another world cup. We will see what happens with rugby league. There is a lot of enthusiasm here. These sports would not have been brought to the attention of the public if it were not for public service broadcasting. There was no ready market, so nobody was willing to invest money to get them there. It takes a leap of faith to bring them forward—and that must come from public service broadcasting, because who else is going to do it? You can make a huge investment and work for 100 years to build an audience—you might be able to do it—but who is going to make that first investment? The public service broadcasters took something that already existed and said, “Enjoy it. Make sure that people are embracing it more strongly”. No matter what happens in public service broadcasting, this, among other things, is something we must encourage for the future: that minority groups, by taking part in something, are given the credit they deserve, allowing them to become mainstream. I cannot see this being done anywhere else—or in any other way going forward. If anybody has any suggestions, I am all ears.

I will make one final point: when we look at public service broadcasting, we must also remember that it is a public service. Before we get rid of it, I would turn our minds back to the pandemic. Who else other than the BBC would have taken on providing huge support to education? Who else could do it? Who else would even consider doing it on a commercial basis? Whatever the Government do, I hope they will retain that capacity for public service somewhere within our broadcasting system. If we do not, we are potentially damaging ourselves in the long run.