UK Basketball

Debate between Alex Sobel and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of basketball in the UK.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Bailey. I am delighted that the Backbench Business Committee has given us an opportunity to debate the future of basketball at such an important juncture for the sport. It is five years since this place last had a chance to discuss this hugely popular sport.

There are three main areas of the sport and different organisations leading and governing them, as befits a game played by so many in this country. To put it simply, we have the grassroots sport, which is overseen by Basketball England, Basketball Wales and Basketball Scotland, looking after all the amateur clubs, from juniors right up to the semi-professional national basketball league. We have the professional club game for adults, which is overseen by the British Basketball League and Women’s British Basketball League. In my constituency, we have Leeds Force, who are the newest team in the British Basketball League. I know that many other hon. Members are in attendance because they have WBBL or BBL teams locally; just like all sports fans, we are here to support our teams. Finally, we have the elite, international top of the sport, which is made up of the eight Great Britain teams, both male and female, playing in age groups and at adult level, and overseen by the British Basketball Federation. This is GB Basketball.

I pay particular tribute to the women’s team, who beat both Portugal and Israel last week on the road, to jointly top their EuroBasket qualifying group with Greece, one of the pre-eminent basketball nations, which finished fourth at the last EuroBasket event, in 2017. Some of those top players are here today, as I am sure people will not have failed to notice: Stef Collins, GB women’s captain, Eilidh Simpson and Bev Kettlety, the team manager. Those women’s futures are at stake, as are the futures of their male counterparts, of all the boys and girls playing in the national age groups, and of all the boys and girls in the clubs out there who dream of one day putting on a Team GB jersey—in other words, all those who think that they have a future in basketball and that our great country will sustain their dream of one day playing for their national team. The more immediate future concerns those women present here today and their dreams of finishing the qualifiers and competing at the 2019 EuroBasket championships, where they have a brilliant chance of taking GB to its highest ever placing in the competition.

Minister, let us not be remembered for throwing an air ball; let us do what is right for basketball and slam dunk the ball right into the hoop for our GB players. At the moment, the ball is in the hands of UK Sport, and I am concerned that it is double dribbling with its decision not to fund GB Basketball. I see an opportunity for the Minister to make an offensive turnover, and her assist could provide the opportunity for British basketball to score the winning three-pointer that sees those women through to EuroBasket in Serbia and Latvia in 2019 and all the other GB teams continuing to compete in their competitions, thereby maintaining the dreams of young people to play at the highest level.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this hugely important debate. On the point about dreams, does he recognise the point made to me by Tyler Gayle, who wrote to me on behalf of Sheffield Hatters, our women’s basketball team, and said that the sport of basketball is one of the most effective at reaching out to deprived communities? Is that not a particularly important reason that it should continue to be supported?

[Alex Sobel]

My hon. Friend’s area has two great basketball teams: Sheffield Hatters and Sheffield Sharks. People in disadvantaged communities in Sheffield, Leeds, London and other urban centres, aspire to play for such teams and, one day, for our national team, so his point is spot on. My constituent Tricia McKinney, knowing that this debate was scheduled to take place, wrote to me on a similar point. Her son represented England and played for Sheffield Sharks, in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and her daughter and four grandchildren are involved with clubs in Leeds. She said:

“I see first hand the physical and social benefits ‘of being involved’. All the facts and figures show that basketball provides opportunities for adults and children from diverse ethnic backgrounds and both genders to participate in sport. It is a particularly important sport for those in deprived communities.”

That echoes my hon. Friend’s point.