Radio: Local Commercial Stations
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
The legislation to which my noble friend refers gave the definition of localness to Ofcom, which is the independent regulator. After 10 years, it has updated it to take account of modern listeners’ views and the increase in commercial radio in the digital space. However, stations still have to produce local news at regular intervals throughout the day and should broadcast at least three hours of locally made programming each weekday. If they do not provide local news hourly, they have to broadcast at least six hours of locally made programming each weekday.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, following on from the idea that a local music station is listened to because people like the music, does the Minister agree that you could make sure it is local by having a local guide to live music, for example? You cannot fake that from London. It would ensure that stations had people on the ground. Would that not be a model going forward?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
That is exactly why, as I just said, stations have to have locally made content.
Discrimination in Football
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord for repeating the Statement. I will begin a response and ask some questions by echoing the Minister’s remarks and those in the Statement that honour the remarkable courage of the three players—Zaha, Sterling and Rose—who have stood up for proper values when it is enormously difficult to do so in the environment in which they work. They are young men and their courage needs to be commended.
Secondly, I honour the work of a Member of this House, the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, who, with Kick It Out, has worked so hard for decades to address the questions implicit in the Statement. As a House, we should be proud that he is one of us. He is stepping down from the front line of those responsibilities, but his work has been very considerable.
I note from the Statement the various measures that are taken reactively to incidents that occurred in Montenegro, Chelsea or wherever. Of course, we must frame responses that are appropriate to incidents of that kind. I also note that there is every desire to create conditions and have a discussion with the appropriate people that will try to keep in check the outbursts that we all so much regret.
I have a question for those of us whose responsibilities overlap with the DCMS. We hear that some football club fans are using closed Facebook groups to promote racist ideology. With the publication of the Online Harms White Paper this week, will the use of this type of technology be looked at as it applies to football?
I was responsible for an activity that reached out to and included people from a vast variety of racial and ethnic groups—55 at one time—for a number of years. When I took up my responsibilities in that arena, I noticed that, with all the diversity in front of us, those of us running the show were about half a dozen very white people.
I knew then that a bigger job had to be done if we were to work away at the culture that we seek to change. I set myself a target: to diversify the leadership offered to this group within three or four years. In the end, we brought in a variety of faces from Fiji, Korea, various countries in west Africa and the Indian subcontinent. I noticed and can attest to—indeed, we measured it—the change in the nature of engagement on the part of those who had previously been talked to or over but now felt that they owned the operation.
That leads me to ask my question—which, apart from the Facebook one, is perhaps my only serious one: how do we change a culture? A culture in the support of our national game permits and encourages these subversive activities. I remember having a close association in the 1980s with those neo-fascist groups of hooligans that went round causing trouble at various football stadiums across the land. How do we change a culture and allow a diverse population to feel that it has ownership of this game, rather than it being in the hands of multimillionaires from other places? Seriously, how do we stop black players on the pitch being used, in a sense, as icons, heroes or puppets for people’s own prejudices? There is deep work to be done. We could apply what I have said to homophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Changing a culture is difficult; in football, that seems to be the number one question to address.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. This is one of those happy occasions when there is a great deal of consensus in this Chamber, and possibly across the whole of government, on the fact that we must address this.
We are not talking about a new thing; we are talking about something that many of us hoped was at least in terminal decline. In fact, we are hearing an unpleasant echo of the culture of abuse in football that was a regular part of the cheering of the crowds when I was growing up. I remember being in Scotland when the first black player played in the Old Firm game and Glasgow market sold out of bananas. There is nothing new here—which is probably one of the most worrying things.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. It strikes me that we will have to get co-operation between bodies that, shall we say, cherish their independence very strongly. The Premiership, the Football League and the FA will have to work with government closely and consistently if we are to achieve the identification of those taking care of this. Indeed, the noble Lord mentioned something I had not thought about but should have done: social media. These issues are all related in making sure that things go forward.
When it comes to international groups—club football at the top level is an international game now—we will have to work with our neighbours. I hate to bring discord to the debate by echoing the previous one, but what steps are being taken to make sure that, under any circumstances, we have good links to ensure that someone cannot simply run away from the game until they get to a big international stage and then carry on this activity? If we start with racism, nationalism will not be far behind. Skin colour first, language second; it will happen. What are we doing to identify the problem? As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, pointed out, what are we doing to make sure that anybody who takes action when they feel that they are not being protected will not suffer huge penalties?
The Premiership is one of the biggest invisible earners in this country. Billions of pounds are involved. If a manager feels that his players are under threat and removes them from that environment, what are we going to do to protect him? Ultimately, it will be a manager who will do this, even if an individual player walks off. It will be a manager who has to take the brunt of it, and the club. What are we doing to protect them—what are we doing to work towards it? Until we start to take questions like that very seriously and to make sure that the whole of football—FIFA, UEFA, everybody—works together, we are not going to do this. The Government’s role in this is to co-ordinate that.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I am grateful for the comments from both noble Lords. This is something that we will find a consensus on—as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, there was consensus across the other place on this. We all realise that it is a serious problem that needs urgent attention, and that is what we are going to bring to it. I echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, on the courage of the players I mentioned for coming forward and highlighting the issues that have affected them. Equally, the work that the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, has done in 26 years of the Kick It Out campaign has been a tremendous achievement.
On the issue of closed Facebook groups, the noble Lord will remember that on page 31 of the Online Harms White Paper is a list of harms that are in scope. Extremist material is on the list of things that are not necessarily illegal, but are harmful. That is indeed one of the things we are looking at. However, the important thing about the White Paper is not so much whether individual harms are on that indicative list, but the processes that social media companies have to go through to make sure that their users are protected. On the Facebook group, there are issues there, given that it is a private communication channel. The noble Lord will remember that that is one of the areas we are consulting on. It is important to remember that a lot of these things are illegal under the current law. Therefore it is important that the authorities use the current law to deal with them, if they are able to, so that it is not just the clubs themselves.
I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, that culture is important. One thing we are doing as a result of the round table we had on 25 February is to bring two working groups together to report before the summer, so that actions are in place before next season. The second working group is looking at some of the issues that the noble Lord was talking about, addressing the fact that, for example, BAME players make up 30% of the playing population, and yet coaches represent 7.6% of the population. We want also to look at new ideas about data collection; at more challenging targets being set; and at having more transparency in recruitment practices and other incentives, to encourage under-represented groups into careers—not just as players but in running the game as well.
Another issue that will be considered is that there is an even smaller BAME proportion among journalists, who are one of the ways in which culture is spread. People who are interested in the game learn about it and consider it through journalism. For example, Raheem Stirling has been critical of the negative perception of BAME players through the media. That is something that we want to address. I agree that culture is important. We are trying to do something about it; we will do so and report back soon.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned that these problems are not new, and he is absolutely right. We should not forget, however, that there has been a tremendous advance in the last 26 years. That is one of the reasons that we want to move quickly: we are not complacent—especially as Kick It Out has reported that there has been a rise in incidents. That is why we convened the round table and are taking it seriously. We want to take positive steps and make positive recommendations in time for next season.
On international liaison, this morning the Minister for Sport said that she will be meeting officials from UEFA and FIFA to discuss these issues. Lastly, I agree that the sanctions need to be looked at not only in terms of their seriousness, especially for the big clubs, but also whether we have got it right in, for example, fining smaller clubs for taking players off the pitch if they are suffering racial abuse. That is one issue that the working groups will look at.
Sport: Drugs
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Addington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to prevent the use of image and performance enhancing drugs in amateur and junior sport.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I put down this debate a good few months ago. The matters under discussion, and certainly my awareness of them, seem to have grown between then and now. I initially spoke about amateur sport and drug taking because I was receiving increasing amounts of information that amateur sport, and particularly rugby union, was finding an increasing number of people who were testing positive, particularly in the lower grades. I may be being a little unfair to my own sport, in which I still occasionally run out—although I have a nagging suspicion that the games I am playing in now are probably not the primary target for drug misuse at any level. However, it is a sport that encourages body mass, dynamic explosion and strength, as these are huge advantages when it is played at a competitive level.
The attitude of the sport seemed to be that it was not a big problem because it was all about gym bunnies who were into building themselves up, but that it was extending testing down the leagues. There are all sorts of implications of that: if it is only a few people and they are casual players, why are they putting in testing further down? Clearly there is a danger that drugs are getting into types of amateur sport. Some people have taken it seriously and put good programmes in place. Canoeing, rowing and cycling have been recommended to me and have been given a pat on the back from UK Anti-Doping.
As this debate approached and I started asking around for briefings, I got a series of communications from UKAD which made me think that my original title might be a little narrow. The only change I felt I could make was to add in image-enhancing drugs. I am talking about amateur sports, but it is quite clear that I am catching the edge of a bigger problem. Steroids, and other drugs like them, have become part of a fashion revolution to get people bigger and stronger. The easiest way to do that, and to enhance your image, is to use steroids. This affects sport in a certain way, but the evidence is incredibly difficult to gather. By its nature, these are amateur sportsmen who are not, in most cases, contractually bound. You cannot get at them; you cannot test them all the time; and a lot of the evidence is anecdotal.
What we have discovered is that the availability of performance-enhancing and image-enhancing drugs is incredibly wide—I would say almost endemic. You cannot go anywhere near this field without finding them available. I asked, but got very little support on, a question about the actual medical damage done to people who take them. When doing my own research, I discovered an article on a website which happened to be linked to somebody who was supplying drugs. It was very informative and said that oral steroids, in particular, are very bad for your kidneys and encourage cirrhosis of the liver: it is not surprising that they damage you. As I was going through the site, little flashes were coming up saying that somebody had purchased. There were three purchases in the London area in 10 minutes. So what comes across is how readily available these things are—and how it is almost impossible to find out what is going on. It is getting more complicated all the time; that is the problem we are hitting.
What can the Government do to support these sports and their governing bodies? It is clear that, at the moment, the huge amounts of money and effort that would be required for a coherent strategy are simply not available. Clubs often rely on amateur structures and they do not have the money to undertake coherent testing. They are dependent on the governing bodies, which would rather spend it on something else. How far down do you go? If casual use is coming in, what do you do? This is becoming incredibly difficult to play out. The only people who can take a coherent position at the top—on education, for a start—are the Government, and more has to be done.
There are lots of lists of nasty side-effects from acquiring muscle mass by using steroids and the other drugs that come into this. Acne is common for males and females; hair loss on the head; shrinkage of the genitals—not great fun; and the development of breasts. These are possibly not the best things to enhance your image. In the long term, and more seriously, there is an increased danger of heart attacks and kidney and liver failure. But there is still a lack of information behind simple statements that this is happening and this is nasty. We know that this type of campaign has to have something more behind it. You have to have somebody telling you that there is more to this and some way of enforcing compliance with sticks or carrots. At the moment there seems to be a combination of: “It’s somebody else’s problem; it’s not really us; we haven’t found anything”—though all the information suggests that you are not finding it because you have no way of testing and nobody has the incentive to look that hard and find out what is going on—and, “It’s too difficult”. Unless more information is made available about the damage being done, such as platelets in the blood causing heart attacks and strokes, you will not have an effective tool to get on the education pathway.
Another problem is that many of these drugs are taken by injection. All the problems associated with injecting any form of drug then come into play. Hepatitis C, HIV, you name it: everything that is tied in with needle sharing is there. There are also behavioural problems— “roid rage”, I think it is called—and a great increase in the amount that people drink when they take steroids. So it is a confused picture.
I now come to probably the only bit that might get reported, which is the fact that gym culture is being personified and built up in the public mind. There comes a time when certain TV programmes capture the national zeitgeist or are seen to be the symbol of everything that is wrong; I am afraid that “Love Island”, on ITV, seems to be the one that has got us here. So far, we have had complaints here, which have been followed through and acted on, about selling plastic surgery and excessive smoking on the programme. But it also personifies the gym and “body beautiful” culture that we have been talking about. UKAD wrote to the producers on 2 August of this year to ask what they were going to do about it, because one contestant on the programme, Frankie Foster, had been banned from playing rugby because of a doping offence. To date it has still not received a reply. Surely the Minister can tell us what the Government are doing to encourage those TV producers and everybody else to intervene there.
If you are saying that it is great to go for the gym body look, with everything else—often you will have to take other drugs to cover up some of the side-effects of the steroids or other bodybuilding drugs you are using—surely that cannot be right. We are just starting to see the tip of this situation. Can we please find out what the Government are doing to try to get further into it?
Pornographic Websites: Age Verification
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I completely understand where the noble Lord is coming from but what he said is not quite right. The Digital Economy Act included a power that the Government could bring enforcement with financial penalties through a regulator. However, they decided—and this House decided—not to use that for the time being. For the moment, the regulator will act in a different way. But later on, if necessary, the Secretary of State could exercise that power. On timing and FOBTs, we thought carefully—as noble Lords can imagine—before we said that we expect the date will be early in the new year,
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that good health and sex education might be a way to counter some of the damaging effects? Can the Government make sure that is in place as soon as possible, so that this strange fantasy world is made slightly more real?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The noble Lord is of course right that age verification itself is not the only answer. It does not cover every possibility of getting on to a pornography site. However, it is the first attempt of its kind in the world, which is why not only we but many other countries are looking at it. I agree that sex education in schools is very important and I believe it is being brought into the national curriculum already.
Armistice Day: Centenary
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, the return to the main debate, after just over an hour, is rather a challenge.
I remember something said to me by one of my old schoolteachers, who many years ago was apparently set the task of setting questions about World War 1 for a public examination. The process was going fairly well until he decided that he would be clever and ask what did not change after World War 1. He came up with the answer that there was nothing that did not change. So trying to understand how important the war was is one of the most important things we can do to understand our own past.
It was the first total war, the first time as a modern state we had anything like universal conscription, and the first time that the full weight of an empire was thrown into a war. We have heard many contributions, particularly about the Indian army, but armies from across the Empire came to aid us—in France, the Middle East and Africa. The entire state convulsed into doing something. Those four-and-a-half years probably changed the course of our history and our structure. That alone would be worth remembering, even without the hideous loss of young men’s lives. An egality of suffering was established in a way it had never been before. The sons of the aristocracy led the charges over the top and were mown down a split second before the people behind them. The nature of what we went through united the nation in a way that virtually nothing has done before or since. I hope that after four years of very good memorial services we will take a series of lessons with us and build on them.
The first lesson is probably that it was not just Tommy Atkins who fought. I remember that about four years ago I had an exchange with the noble Lord, Lord Lexden—who is speaking after me—and I pointed out just how dated “Oh! What a Lovely War” was when I tried to show it to my daughter. We now have a better idea of how the whole nation came together, and the concepts of what went on have changed over time and should be constantly examined. The role of women in society was undoubtedly changed by the contribution that they made to all aspects of World War 1. We must look at it as a whole, and the great success of this remembrance is that we have drawn people’s attention to the war. The big public displays—the Tower of London, the public opening and closing ceremonies, and many others—have been a great success. Those of us who are interested have listened and learned.
However, if we get over-congratulatory with ourselves we will miss a major opportunity. Over the weekend a little survey I did about whether one or two things had penetrated showed that, alarmingly, not everybody has picked up on this stuff. One of the most constant themes your Lordships will have picked up is the contribution of the Indian army. However, an alarmingly high number of people did not realise what that contribution was. Those of us who are here may think that is almost impossible—but it has happened. We have also vaguely known about the contribution of Australia and New Zealand. Somebody said to me, “But weren’t they only at Gallipoli?” We must try to get beyond the public perception that this is just happening to us.
Although my noble friend’s very moving description of her own family reached down there, the fact is that other people on those ships on which her ancestor died would have come from other nations and would have been supporting us. Often they were nations tied to us by empire. A bond created by conquest is a very odd thing when you think about it for a second. How do we build on this? That is what I hope we will take away. We cannot continually be in a state of celebration of the past or one particular bit of the past.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, pointed out that we changed the map of Europe only to change it again shortly afterwards after an even worse conflagration. This time it was not just the young men who died—everybody was affected. In half-dealing with nationalism or concepts of empire and self, we released forces that nobody could have foreseen at the time. Eternal lessons must be reinforced and built on. If we do not do that, we will have lost this opportunity and the work that has been done. Every time we invest time, money and effort into reminding ourselves of what happened, we must use it as a building block for tomorrow.
In a few years’ time, those of us who are still in this House or in its successor body, whatever happens, will have to think about commemorating World War II. That will be an even bigger and more complex challenge, and I hope that at the end of this period we will reflect and prepare for something that will challenge us and, more importantly, our children even more than this has done.
Online Anonymity
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
I am grateful for that positive suggestion, which we will certainly consider. I do not know what our position on that is; I am not completely clear about what the role of an internet ombudsman would be. Normally where questions about how to regulate the internet are concerned, they become much more complicated than they first appear.
Lord Addington (LD)
Will the Minister take this chance to confirm that the liberal principle, that you can do what you like until it affects somebody else, will be written into any further legislation? Will the Government make sure that that is a key consideration? If they do, much of the concern will go away and reassurance will be given.
Sport: Performance-Enhancing Drugs
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Addington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will give assistance to the governing bodies of individual sports to take steps to identify and prevent the use of performance-enhancing drugs in junior and amateur sport.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, the Government recognise the vital importance of protecting the integrity of sport, and that includes keeping sport free from the scourge of doping. UK Anti-Doping—UKAD—an arm’s-length body of DCMS, supports sports’ governing bodies with a wide range of measures. These include the development of athlete education programmes, public information campaigns on emerging threats to clean sport, and an active deterrent programme which includes anti-doping testing and individual athlete intervention tactics.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging reply. However, given that much of the information I have gathered on the subject shows that many part-time sportsmen are taking image as well as performance-enhancing drugs, will the Government consider putting pressure on certain TV programmes such as the all-pervading “Love Island”, in which many honed, buffed young bodies are shown to the general public, to make sure that these are all down to hard work and diet and not drugs?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I do not think “Love Island” has been officially classified as a sport yet. However, this is not the first time I have had to answer questions on “Love Island” and I take the noble Lord’s point. Image and performance-enhancing drugs, IPEDs, are a problem. UK Anti-Doping, the Government, educational authorities and sports’ governing bodies have to educate young people from an early age on the effects of these drugs and explain and inculcate a values-based system so that healthy nutrition, exercise, sleep and so on—healthy training, if you like—is the most important thing, not drugs.
Youth Services
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this is one of those important debates when we have to look at ourselves and see what we have inherited over recent times. The consequence of an action taken—probably understandably at the time—has come back to sink its teeth firmly into our rear ends. If we cut services for the groups that have the least support and money in the home, and the least ability to access them outside it, there will be consequences. These people will not reach their economic potential and will be a social nuisance. There is an entrepreneurial group out there that will use them as a resource, whether for knife crime or drug crime—you name it.
In terms of support, we have cut away the fat and a fair bit of the muscle and we are now in danger of going straight into the bone. We have to stop doing that and we also have to look at what is out there to rebuild. The oval ball has done terribly well—the 13-a-side game got in there first with a mention from the noble Baroness. Rugby union has done this as well. We could go through the projects for all sports but it is a long list, so let us look at the School of Hard Knocks project in English rugby union. There are other projects out there. All sports seem to have the ability to reach those groups in ways that most other projects cannot. As my noble friend said, the youth club—with its ping-pong and high-minded things and the little disco at the end—was probably out of date even when it was created. It is just one of those things that does not really appeal. It may have come at a pertinent moment, when there was nothing else out there, but now it is dated.
Sport seems to have the ability to engage people in a way that other structures do not. Probably the most successful of all these sports in engaging people is not, I am afraid, rugby union, rugby league or any of the others, but boxing. Boxing is wonderful because the idea is that it is a tougher sport. It is, let us remember, the martial art reinvented. It is a martial art. There are rules, regulations, training and discipline. Okay, there is no Buddhist chant or somebody in pyjamas—which seems to be loved by the West and taken as read by the East. It requires a degree of discipline and focus, and it seems socially acceptable for those groups to get involved in it. However, you can overplay this. At the APPG for Boxing, we had someone saying, “Wait a minute, we can’t solve everything but we can engage”. You find what is culturally acceptable. I am sure it was the same for Warrington with its sport. Rugby league is very much based on strength and weakness. If you find what is culturally acceptable, you can get into people and engage with them. All these activities and sports seem to improve schoolwork, improve interaction and cut down on violence. Boxing cuts down on violence—now there is a thought to carry away with us.
If we can get in and get people involved, we are achieving something. This is all motherhood and apple pie so far. The question for the Government is: how are they going to make sure it is easier for these outside groups to get access to this? If local government is struggling financially, as it clearly is, how can national government come in and help, at least in structural terms? How can local government make sure that the facilities for these activities are readily available? You will not always have the right club in the right place to make the interaction. Often you will, but not always. If you want to introduce something new, remember, sports actually like going into new places. It improves their base and their interaction. They have some interest in this as well.
How can you do it? First, try to make sure that all of the school system is available to sports because it has space, time, halls and playing fields—you name it, it is there. It may not be perfect, but it is there and it is something. Making sure that we are not running our schools predominantly through local authorities—that academies and free schools take on part of the burden—really has to come from central government. I cannot see anyone else who can do it. Even if it is only encouraging the sponsors of those institutions to take sport on as a relevant social activity, it is something that should be done.
Now we can go on for far too long about the wonders of sport. I know there are projects where music and dance achieve the same things, as will other activities. I am not sure croquet will cut it in most of these fields. As an entrance point, I am sure that string quartets will not either. Where you go after that, who knows? However, we have to make sure that these groups that have a tried-and-tested model that is achieving success are encouraged to go on. When the Minister answers, will he tell us what the Government will do to encourage this to take place? If we do not utilise this, we will be missing an opportunity—an opportunity that is provided for somebody else more or less for free. It really would be stupid not to.
General Data Protection Regulation
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
Of course, the noble Lord is entitled to his opinion but I do not agree with him. In this case, as I tried to explain, it does not matter whether it is a large or small organisation, or even an individual data controller, that misuses information. Individuals’ personal data is very important and has grown enormously since the previous Data Protection Act 20 years ago. My noble friend will of course realise that there was a Data Protection Act 20 years ago.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that small clubs perform a useful function for society generally, as do small charities? If a problem becomes apparent, will the Minister give an assurance that the Government will review it and see if there is anything there? I agree with him that data should be guarded but we do not want to damage these clubs unduly.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I am sure the noble Lord is aware that the situation for data controllers has not changed since the Data Protection Act 1998. This is not a question of problems but of protecting the data rights of everyone in this Chamber. Therefore, it applies to all organisations and to individual people, but only if they deal in personal data and are controllers of that information.
First World War: Empire and Commonwealth Troops
Lord Addington Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, when you have listened to the stories in a debate like this and you are this far down the list of speakers, two things will have happened. The first is that anything original you had to say will have been referred to at least once, and the second is that you wonder how long you can spend agreeing with everyone else who has spoken. I will resist that temptation, other than to say to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, that once again he has done us proud by making us remember these events and making the rest of the Chamber put on the record the suffering and the historic change that took place in the name of the Commonwealth and, mainly in this case, the British Empire, and how far it touched something outside us.
When we first had a debate on this subject, I commented to the noble Lord that we tend to look at what happened to us and to our people—a little prism of the fashion of a few years ago. Tonight we have certainly broken out of that habit because we have addressed the fact that it was not just us who were affected. Decisions made by our predecessors in this place affected the entire globe and we brought in many people who would never have considered it worth fighting in that conflict.
The one statistic that I was expecting to give but which the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, beat me to concerned the east African campaign. I had heard the anecdote of the Colonial Office saying, “About 90,000 bearers”—the noble Baroness described them as porters—“have died, but there again we don’t worry about bearers, do we?” That probably says it all. It was a group of people who were important to us in a campaign that we do not know much about. Why were there so many deaths? It was because we were consistently outfought by a much smaller German force.
We always like to forget our disasters, do we not, unless we build them up to be something dramatic and heroic? The east African campaign was not that. That we would dismiss the unit that kept those troops in the field, and the fact of them dying, says a lot about the nation we were. I hope it is one that we will never be again. When we are discussing this issue, and the vast commitments that were made, for instance, by the Indian army plugging gaps in our resources, we must remember that we were an empire. Empires traditionally use bits of their empire for their own ends. Possibly, this was what you would expect us to do with a large army from India. If you look at the way we acted towards those troops, you will see the ingrained racism of the time, which is something we should also remember because we do not want to go back to it.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that sacrifice and slaughter do not solve anything. The attitude that we could use other people in that way is something we should remember, along with the huge sacrifices made by other nations. I believe that New Zealand has the rather sad trophy of the highest proportion of casualties to volunteers. I think the ANZAC cause managed to get to 60%, with New Zealand doing slightly worse—or better, depending on which way you call it—than Australia. We must try to remember these statistics and facts and to put them into the whole, because if we just have a list of facts, we will forget that there were people behind every statistic.