Football: Safe Standing

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. Owing to the previous Chair’s great chairing and the great behaviour of all Members, I am unprecedentedly extending the length of speaking time. Members may now speak for five minutes, and if anybody wants to take interventions that will be okay as well. I call Clive Efford.

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[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for her work on raising this issue.

When I was a child, it was evident to everybody who came to my house that I had an incredibly obsessive football-supporting father. They spotted it from the moment they stepped into the lounge and saw the football shrine made up of memorabilia collected over years, which outgrew the area it was originally assigned to. The evidence of my father’s support for his team even pushed away the family photographs. If people failed to miss that, they would notice the football programmes in frames throughout the house and up the stairs, which my dad would happily point out to anyone who showed a bit of interest in them. I witnessed the weekly rituals he went through. Every time his team played a match, we had to make mum sit upstairs in the bedroom, because if she set foot in the lounge, the opposition would score against the team we were all cheering along. I learned from a very young age how important football is. I believe that the vast majority of football fans are entirely decent, law-abiding people—although some, like my dad, are utterly obsessed.

I am very proud to have Hull City in my constituency. In 2012, it announced that it supports safe standing in principle. In June, representatives of the club came to Parliament to lobby MPs about this issue, although I was sadly unable to attend that event. Geoff Bielby, the chairman of the Hull City Supporters’ Trust, and Barbara Wilkinson, the secretary of Senior Tigers—a supporters’ group for over-55s—expressed a preference for safe standing. They suggesting designating a small area of the KCOM stadium for safe standing—they suggested it could accommodate 7,500 people.

A survey has shown that 47% of fans would be more likely to attend a football match if there was safe standing. I cannot speak for everyone else’s team, but Hull City certainly want to encourage as many people as possible to come down and cheer it on. If this is one way to do it, I say, “Let’s go for it.” If more fans come to matches, that will hopefully bring in a lot of extra income.

As many hon. Members have said, people stand anyway. A Hull City supporter who is unable to stand as he finds it difficult told me that he wants safe standing. I asked him why, and he said that he wants to be in a seated area where the stewards can enforce sitting and can make sure people in that area sit down. He said that, at the moment, people stand all over the place, but giving people the choice and saying, “If you want to stand, go here. If you want to sit, respect the fact that everybody in this area wants to sit,” would be a practical solution to the problem.

It is time that we allow local clubs to make these decisions, based on local information. I am not saying that we should create a rule that affects every club in every city, but for clubs such as Hull City, surely it should be up to the local authority, the police and the football club to work together and think about what really works for our football fans and our city. I do not believe that one size fits all. Allowing a local decision-making body to decide on the amount of safe standing means that it can adapt quickly to changing circumstances. We would not need to have a big debate if, a bit further down the line, we want to reduce or increase the amount of safe standing. That would be the best solution and the best decision for obsessive fans such as my dad and clubs such as Hull City.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

I call Hilary Benn.

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[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

There are many things I would like to say and many things I would like to challenge. Ten MPs made a point that I would like to challenge, but I am not able to do so because of the ongoing court proceedings. I point that out as a fact but also because there are people with far greater expertise, such as one of my constituents, who has a dramatic amount of expertise in this area and could contribute greatly, who cannot speak because that would compromise court proceedings. The timescale is important, because some issues need to be discussed. I refer specifically to the comments made by 10 MPs today that it would be highly inappropriate for me to respond to.

As it happens, I am a football fan who for 25 years has sat only twice. Because one of those occasions led to a very unlucky defeat, I refuse to do so other than when one could only get a ticket at Wembley. There is not a corner, wall or even roof of Elland Road where I have not stood. The concept of standing is very pleasant and the concept of seating is not.

Spiritually, I am totally in support of what the Football Supporters Federation wants to achieve and the practical way it is going about it, but there are some issues that the Minister ought to consider. First is the safety or otherwise of current football stadiums, which has been raised in a different context. Many MPs have suggested that they are much safer than they were, but I challenge that notion. The ability to get out of a football stadium in a disaster has not been tested in real time in any stadium in this country. Seating is probably worse than railed standing would be. The Leeds University model that is used to test the design of stadiums is flawed. I would like to illustrate my point by giving precise examples that are unsafe, but it would be problematic to do so. When I have challenged football safety officers and owners on this, I have been given confirmation that there is no system. Therefore, there needs to be a review of all aspects of safety, including the remaining banks of seating and the inability to get out of stadiums quickly in an emergency.

Secondly, 11 MPs mentioned Germany. I have been to most of the Bundesliga grounds with the chief safety officer, the chief family liaison officer and with the ultra leader. I went to quite a number of major Italian grounds last season with the safety officers. Safe standing is quite possible, but other issues emerge. The Minister should talk to the safety officers in Italy; there, the big safety issue is the firing of pyrotechnics as missiles from one end of the stadium to the other. That is a major issue in Italy. The supporter who fell to his death in a stadium this year and the racism at Lazio compound the safety issue.

Let us be clear: in the Bundesliga, there is a whole series of safety problems—some in the seating but some in the safe standing areas, too, which the safety officers have to deal with all the time. Fans have to have a season ticket. The amount of alcohol provided is significantly less in standing areas than in seating areas. The body checks at the entrance are significantly greater because of the risk of pyrotechnics. Culture changes over time. I am not against standing at all—quite the opposite—but I hope the Minister will visit Italy, Germany and perhaps Ajax in Amsterdam and look at what the safety officers say of the problems that they face, so we get it all right, not partially right.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Do any other Back-Bench Members wish to speak?

[Clive Efford]

I’ll have another go.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

No, Mr Efford, I think you will find you have spoken already. I call Sandy Martin.