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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Nigel Huddleston)
It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I thank the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) for securing time for this important debate today. Let us just hope that we can have the same success rate in delivering the things that she has asked for as we were able to achieve in the last debate. We were only half-joking when we said outside the Chamber that I should just stand up, say that I agree with everything the hon. Lady says, and then sit down. This is one of those cases in point, so I will try not to repeat too many of the points that she raised, but she raised such important points and I genuinely do agree with everything she said. I am also signed up to the campaign.
The hon. Lady was right to name-check all the people who have campaigned with her on this issue for so long, including journalists, sportspeople and people in this House. I give credit to her, because I know this is a topic she has been campaigning on for some time.
I am absolutely committed to supporting women’s sport at every opportunity, which means pushing for greater participation, more commercial opportunities and increased visibility of women’s sport in the media. We should do all we can to ensure women’s sport is treated equally to men’s at all levels, including in areas such as prize money. With that in mind, I would like to set out some of the progress that has been made and the challenges that remain. I will try not to repeat exactly what the hon. Lady said, but it is important to get all this on the record.
I agree that it is vital that women and men are recognised and paid equally for their achievements. I welcome the recent launch of the Telegraph’s Close the Gap campaign calling for fairer prize money in women’s sport—a campaign that I know the hon. Lady and many others have supported, as I do. In a bumper year for sport this year, with the women’s Euros, the rugby league World cup and the Commonwealth games in the UK, I am keen for all sports bodies to look at what more can be done to redress existing imbalances. As the hon. Lady mentioned, we are seeing progress, but we need to see more.
In January, it was announced that the FA will increase prize money for the winners of the women’s FA cup from next season—the hon. Lady gave it due credit for that—and professional female footballers in England are to benefit from maternity and long-term sickness cover in a landmark change to their contracts. It is remarkable to be saying that in this day and age and that it happened just this year. Yesterday, I was pleased to announce that the Government will be launching an in-depth review of domestic women’s football this summer to examine issues affecting the game at elite and grassroots level.
In cricket, last year, the £600,000 total prize pool for The Hundred was split evenly between the men’s and women’s competitions. As the hon. Lady mentioned, tennis is a great example to other sports; it has offered equal prize money in all four majors since 2007. The International Triathlon Union leads the way, having paid equal prize money to men and women in every race for every year since its inception in 1989, more than a decade before triathlon became an Olympic sport.
We know there is still a lot more to do. In September 2021, UEFA announced that it would double the women’s Euro 2022 prize money, but it is still a fraction of the prize money of the men’s competition. The 16 qualifying teams for the women’s Euros will share a pot of €16 million, but the 2021 men’s Euros saw a total prize pot of €371 million. I thought that either I or the hon. Lady had the numbers wrong, but she quoted pounds and I am quoting euros. The currency does not matter—the gap is still huge.
Of course, it is often argued that differing rates of pay for sportsmen and sportswomen is largely down to women’s sport not having the profile or media coverage of men’s sport over the years, but that is changing. Sponsorship and media coverage go hand in hand. If women’s sport does not have the media coverage, sponsors often do not see it as commercially attractive.
Record sponsorship deals have been struck with women’s sports leagues, such as Barclays’ sponsorship of the women’s super league, the premier women’s football league in England. Barclays will also be investing more than £30 million in women’s and girls’ football from 2022 to 2025, doubling its existing investment and becoming the first title sponsor of the FA women’s championship. The media profile of women’s sport is continuing to rise with new and innovative broadcasting deals being struck, such as DAZN’s four-year partnership with YouTube for the women’s champions league.
We have been working to improve the diversity of the listed events regime, first by adding the Paralympic games to the list in 2020. In addition, I was pleased to announce yesterday that the FIFA women’s World cup and the UEFA women’s European championships have been added to group A of the listed events regime, as the hon. Lady pleaded for in January. That will ensure that those tournaments continue to be available to as wide an audience as possible. Research conducted recently by the Women’s Sport Trust shows that almost 33 million people watched women’s domestic sport in 2021, with The Hundred and the women’s super league bringing in 11 million new viewers to women’s events, but we want to continue to push for greater change and strive for more equality and inclusivity in sport.
That is why in May 2021 I set up a women’s sport working group with key sector partners to explore some of these challenges and identify opportunities in women’s sport. Since May, we have held four meetings of the group, which have focused on participation, visibility, commercial investment and major events. We want to continue to use these meetings to bring value to and challenge all aspects of women’s sport. They are not just talking shops; we have some very powerful and influential people in those groups, and we will see, and have already seen, some action.
The hon. Lady asked what I can do. I regularly meet governing bodies of multiple sports—football and beyond. The topic of women’s pay and prize money comes up all the time, and I assure her that I raise it at every opportunity. Although we always get warm words, as she perhaps gets in the conversations that she and the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee have, we want to see action following on from that. I assure her that I will raise this issue at every opportunity.
The 2022 sporting calendar presents some great opportunities to demonstrate our commitment to women’s sport. At the rugby league World cup this year, female and wheelchair athletes will receive equal participation fees and will get prize money for the first time in the tournament’s history. I was delighted to see the news last week that all the Lionesses games at the women’s Euros this summer have now sold out, and a record attendance for any women’s football match is expected at the final. It is not true, therefore, that there is no interest in women’s sport; those figures show that that is not the case.
There are lots of reasons to be optimistic about women’s sport, but work remains to be done, as the hon. Lady said. I want to leave hon. Members in no doubt that I am personally committed to doing everything to raise the profile of women’s sport, women’s pay and prize money.
Question put and agreed to.