Safeguarding Children and Young People in Sport

David Simpson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Bambos Charalambous]

I think that my hon. Friend was referring to someone who has been convicted. We should congratulate the people who came forward and whose cases led to convictions. More cases may follow, and we do not want to go into that area, but my hon. Friend makes a good point about the bravery of the people who came forward.

A predatory individual could simply seek a supervised role with a sports club that would allow them access to children and young people. They could be groomed over a long period and, once the individual had built a trusting relationship with them, they could be exploited and abused. There is evidence to show that adults who have been barred from working with children will continue to try to get access. The NSPCC has discovered that, since the definition of regulated activity was changed in 2012, more than 1,100 people who have been barred from working with children because they pose a threat have been caught applying to work in regulated activity by the DBS. I am not aware of any statistics in relation to unregulated activity.

Sports clubs can find it complex to identify which role should be classified as regulated activity and which should not, and could be at risk of committing an offence of over-checking if they decide to carry out a DBS check with barred list information on an individual in a role that does not require it. It is clear to me that that places sports clubs in a difficult position and that the definition of regulated activity needs to be amended and widened.

Another area that needs re-examining is “Positions of trust”, as defined by sections 21 and 22 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. As the law stands, children are protected from being groomed into sexual relationships by trusted adults with power and influence over them. That applies to teachers, social workers and doctors, but not to sports coaches or youth leaders. That creates the absurd situation that if a physical education teacher teaching football at school engaged in sexual activity with a 16-year-old child, that would be an offence, but if the same individual in a sports coaching role did the same thing outside school, that would not be. There should be no distinction between the two, and the law needs to be changed accordingly.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on obtaining the debate. We can put safeguards in place for the future, but what more can be done to help those victims who have been traumatised—those people who are living with the trauma day in, day out?

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Gentleman poses an excellent question. There needs to be much more support for those people in relation to their mental health. Many people are suffering trauma as a result of past events. We need to ensure that there is a proper support network for them, so that they get the counselling, advice and therapy that they need in order to come to terms with the appalling effects of historical sexual abuse.

To return to the point about positions of trust, many national governing bodies for sports want to see the change to which I referred, and have told the NSPCC that more than 50% of all safeguarding cases arise from inappropriate relationships with sports coaches. I understand that last year the Minister announced that a ministerial commitment had been secured to extend the “position of trust” provision to sports coaches. I invite her to update us on the progress of that commitment.

Closer working with the police will be necessary. I have been made aware of instances in which the police have suggested that an individual may pose a risk to children at a sports club, and that has led to the individual’s suspension, only for the police to take no further action because the suspension means that there is no longer a risk. That sort of practice exposes clubs to challenges to their decisions to suspend and may have an adverse effect on an innocent individual.

Many victims of abuse will need advice and support when reporting it and also in the aftermath, when they may suffer from depression, have suicidal thoughts, be at risk of self-harm and suffer with their mental health generally. I know that last year the Government published a Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health, but will the Minister give serious consideration to out-of-hours provision of support for victims?

At the start of the debate, I touched on how Barry Bennell was able to get away with his sexual abuse of boys, despite it being an open secret in Manchester and other places. It is the responsibility of us all to call out abuse when we see it. I would like to think that, given the recent sex abuse scandals, none of us would tolerate knowing about any such abuse and not reporting it.

Playing sport should be fun, safe, enjoyable and rewarding. The purpose of this debate is to ensure that it remains so for children and young people. For the sake of people such as Ian Ackley and the other brave victims who spoke out about their abuse, and those who have not done so or were not able to do so, who have been robbed of their youth by the actions of evil men, I hope that by speaking up and taking action now, we will be preventing future abuse from happening in sport.

I appreciate that some of the matters that I have mentioned may fall outside the Minister’s remit, but I want to ensure that these issues have been properly aired and I hope that she will be able to use this debate to influence her ministerial colleagues to bring about the changes that will make children and young people in sport safer.

Rural Communities in Scotland: Broadband

David Simpson Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[John Lamont]

I will come to the USO shortly, and the hon. Gentleman might agree with some of the points I make, but first I want to make some progress.

Unlike what has happened in England and Wales, the Scottish Government have decided not to devolve further to local authorities the delivery of broadband. Instead, they have set up two delivery programmes, with the bulk of Scotland being covered by Digital Scotland. That means that the focus has inevitably been on the central belt and connecting the easier-to-reach cities and towns in order to meet the targets. That is yet another example of the central belt bias of the SNP Government in Edinburgh and of the centralising tendencies of the nationalists

I would like to look a bit more closely at how Digital Scotland has been performing and how it has been serving my constituents in the borders and people in other parts of Scotland. The problem that I come up against time and again is the lack of consistent information from Digital Scotland and the Scottish Government. Let me give colleagues just one example.

Colin from Foulden in Berwickshire first contacted me a few months ago, when trying to find out when improved broadband would be coming to his property. He moved into his house five years ago. Before finalising the purchase of it, he checked the broadband speeds on the BT website to find out when superfast broadband would be available. The website stated that for his landline and postcode, superfast broadband would be “coming soon”. Since then, he has been waiting patiently for his upgrade.

After Colin contacted me, I wrote to Digital Scotland, the Scottish Minister and my right hon. Friend the Minister in this debate to raise my constituent’s concerns. I received an email from the Scottish Minister in charge of broadband delivery, Fergus Ewing MSP, who said that fibre roll-out was planned for my constituent’s area. A month later, I received an email from Digital Scotland, also saying that there were plans to roll out fibre broadband. After I pushed for a more accurate date, I was told that my query had been passed to the policy team in Digital Scotland, who a month later responded that there were in fact no plans to upgrade my constituent’s broadband. Colin told me:

“I am left with the impression that nobody really knows what is going on.”

Sadly, across my constituency and, I suspect, many other constituencies, there are many people in Colin’s position. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister would agree that that is just wrong and cannot be allowed to continue.

The Scottish Government and Digital Scotland have dithered and delayed too long. Most superfast projects in the United Kingdom have already begun their phase 2 procurement. Digital Scotland has delayed the procurement process and is considerably behind other parts of the United Kingdom.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Far be it for me, coming from Northern Ireland, to get into an argument between the Conservatives and the SNP, but does he agree with me—indeed, he has made this point—that it does not matter which Government are responsible if they say they are going to deliver; the delivery problem is on the ground, with the infrastructure? The organisations that are meant to be delivering are not delivering for the people on the ground. That needs to change, and Government need to change it.

[John Lamont]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The constituents we represent do not really care about the infrastructure and who is responsible for delivery; they just want better broadband servers connected to their homes and communities.

I urge the United Kingdom Government to consider alternative models for broadband roll-out across Scotland. The time has come for the Scottish Government to be stripped of their responsibilities for future broadband delivery projects and for the job to be given to local councils in Scotland instead.