Sport Sector: Financial Support

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. We will publish the application process and wider conditions for loans in the winter survival package in the next few weeks, but the principle behind the loans is that they should be affordable in terms of both the interest rate and the repayment period. In relation to a review of sport, I am not aware of a formal review of the sort that my noble friend suggests, but I stress that the team in DCMS is working extremely closely with all sports to get as thorough and comprehensive as possible an understanding of the situation and how we can relaunch stronger in the new year.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register of interests. What work have Her Majesty’s Government undertaken to explore an equivalent of the hospitality sector’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme for the sport and fitness sector and connecting it to a scheme to drive activity levels that could support the Prime Minister’s obesity strategy?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises the interesting idea of “Work Out to Help Out”, or whatever it would be called. Obviously there are different ways of helping different sectors. We have tried to focus on a number of direct funding packages. Obviously there is the £300 million winter survival package; £200 million was announced earlier in the year for grass-roots sport; and there is £100 million for gyms and leisure centres, which I am sure the noble Baroness welcomes.

Professional and Amateur Sport: Government Support

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Great progress has been made at both elite and grass-roots levels in women’s sport. My honourable friend the Minister for Sport was absolutely clear yesterday, in responding to the Question, that he expects and will require women’s sport to get the priority it deserves in any funding coming from this package.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I ask you to note my interest on the register: I am chair of ukactive. Have the Government determined the impact on the NHS of the drop in activity levels and the subsequent impact this might have on sport at all levels in the UK? It is projected that 48% of leisure centres may close by Christmas without government financial support.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

It is hard to assess the absolute impact of the fact that some leisure centres have not yet reopened, because obviously there is a substitution with other provision being offered, principally online. But the noble Baroness is absolutely right about the importance of sport for our physical and mental well-being. The Government understand the financial pressures that some sports and leisure centres are under, and are pleased that so many have been able to open, following Covid-secure guidelines.

Olympic and Paralympic Games 2021

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

I absolutely agree with the noble Lord that certainty in funding has been critical to our sporting success. As I mentioned earlier, we are working with all sporting bodies to understand the particular pressures within their sport and what we can do to support them.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

Live sport is a lifeline for many people as spectators, but it is also massively important for giving athletes competition opportunities. I read with interest that the ECB has been nominated as the organisation to lead on opening sports events. What process was undertaken to get to that stage, and what other organisations are being talked to? We do not want to rush opening live sport, but for athletes to qualify for next year they have to have a competition opportunity.

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Baroness is quite right. No process was undertaken and no formal appointment has been made. Rather, an offer was received at a working level from the ECB relaying some thoughts from the sector. This was warmly welcomed. There is real emphasis on ensuring that this is a hugely collegiate effort to bring back sport, whether competition or training. Ministers and officials are continuing to work with the full range of sporting bodies.

Sport England: Female Activity

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

I am delighted that the noble Lord finds the campaign compelling and has learned from it; I think that will be true for many of us. The Government have supported the campaign substantially through Sport England, and in addition to the increase in the number of women engaged in sport, 16,000 organisations have registered as supporters and over three-quarters of a million women are active members of the online community.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I commend each iteration of this campaign, because it has challenged stereotypes, especially around women being affected by their period. But can the Minister explain what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to measure participation rates among disabled women? Often, disabled people experience multiple barriers to participation and inclusion, not least according to research by the Activity Alliance, which shows that many disabled people are worried about being seen as being too active, and therefore having their impairment and their benefits questioned.

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Baroness is quite right that disability can be a barrier to an active life and participation in sport in particular. Sport England is working with health and social care charities on the We Are Undefeatable campaign for those with long-term health conditions, 44% of whom have taken action. In the latest Active Lives survey, the group with the biggest increase in participation were those over 61. I know that there can be many barriers; I met a young woman in Yorkshire on Friday who plays blind cricket for England, and the barrier for her was transport to the station to be able to go and train. Barriers exist in many different shapes and sizes.

BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the Members’ register of interests and declare that I am a board member of the BBC and work as a freelancer, mostly in sport. I will extend this debate on creative culture to sport and elite women’s sport, and want to take a short time to describe the impact that sport has had on my life.

Watching the London Marathon in 1981 gave me the opportunity to think that somebody like me could do wheelchair racing. In 1990, when the BBC took a brave decision to put Helen Rollason on “Grandstand”, as its first female presenter, that was a special moment. The public debate was, “How dare they allow a woman to be on television, talking about sport?”—because obviously none of us know anything about it. She was incredible; she changed the dialogue around women’s sport and the Paralympics, pushing hard to move away from the very patronising coverage that we had experienced beforehand. That had a huge impact on my life.

Last year, BBC Sport set out to try to “change the game”. The ambition was pretty simple: to make a huge commitment to women’s sport. While in 2019, it accounted for only 3% of UK TV sports hours, the BBC delivered 33% of sports viewing figures and is the most popular destination for sports fans in the UK across all platforms. It is amazing to think that the continual investment in showing women’s games is changing the conversation. I am glad to say that I do not often have to have the conversation any more about the fact that “Women don’t play football like men”. No, they do not, and that is why it is exciting; it is about giving young women the opportunity to see others.

Having the Women’s FA Cup final, the Women’s Football World Cup final, and the Netball World Cup on the television changes the conversation. In a changing world that is not easy, when sports rights can be expensive and there are funding limitations. Some 45 million people watched, listened or read about Change the Game, and it has 30 million followers on social media; 11 million people watched the TV coverage of the Netball World Cup.

The Women’s Sport Trust did some research during the summer looking at the proportion and prominence of women’s sport stories put out by different media companies. Of the top 10 stories on the BBC Sport homepage each day, 46% featured women’s sports. If we look at the World Cup, 28 million TV viewers tuned in, with 11 million watching the semi-final between England and the USA. I am very proud to say that that made it the most watched sporting event of the year, bigger than the likes of the Rugby World Cup, Wimbledon and the Six Nations. It has been proved, again and again, that people want to watch women’s sport.

The FA has stated that from September onwards, there were more than 850,000 committed participants playing 11-a-side, or small-sided football competitively, with a retention rate of 23% among existing adult female participants. That is a direct impact of being able to see women’s sport on television. There is also more money flowing into the women’s game because of this. Barclays paid £10 million to sponsor the Women’s Super League—I never thought I would see that happen—SSE sponsors the Women’s FA Cup, and Gatorade extended its global sponsorship of Manchester City to cover the women’s team.

We should never underestimate the impact on young women of being able to see other women play sport at elite level.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 5, 19 and 20 in the first group. In so doing, I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said: all of us are united in believing that the Games will be great. We already have an outstanding organising committee and there is both political and popular will to ensure that they will be memorable and enjoyable.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for introducing my amendment so well. I need hardly say anything more, save to underline the fact that the original reporting provision required the first report to be submitted to the Secretary of State as soon as was reasonably practical after 31 March this year. Because of the delay in the legislation, that was put back a full year until after 31 March next year, which is very close to when the Games are going to be held the following year.

In the context of being transparent and accountable, not only to the people of Birmingham but to other taxpayers, it is important that there is a more regular reporting structure to and timetable for your Lordships’ House. That is why I have proposed the amendment that there should be a report, starting on 15 July 2020 and then every six months until the end of the year of the Games, 31 December 2022.

Transparency is critical. Transparency about any overruns on financing will carry the public with us. It will allow all of us to know the exact underwriting procedure, how it will be dealt with, the precise budget, the current expenditure on the Games at any given six months, and the provisions for drawing down on the contingency, which are unclear to me. I do not know if they are clear to the rest of the Committee. It would be helpful if the Minister could outline on what basis the contingency will be drawn down, particularly given that the Games are underwritten by the Government.

With those comments now on the record, clearly the amendment that I tabled about the budget and revenue sources for all Games events, including shooting and archery, has been overtaken by last night’s decision. However, I look forward to the debate that we will undoubtedly have on the second group, when we will look at some of the detail of what was announced yesterday and the consequences for the Games.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, like many others in your Lordships’ Chamber, I am very excited by the 2022 Commonwealth Games. I am excited for several reasons, not least because the Commonwealth Games book-ended my career, and my last Commonwealth Games signified that I should find something else to do with my life. Also, I lived in Ward End in Birmingham for four years, and I know that the opportunities to use the Games in an incredibly positive way for the city are boundless.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about the grouping of the amendments being quite sensible. The expectation that people have of the Commonwealth Games is different from the one they have of Olympic or Paralympic Games because they are different types of events. However, the challenge that this country has set itself is for the rest of the world to see how good we are at organising Games, so it is essential that we get the budget absolutely right—that we have enough money to spend, but spend it wisely. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about what happens in coming to this slightly late. As we get closer to the Games, things become more stressful. The amendments would ensure that all the different stakeholders worked together to do the reporting and make sure that the Games are carried on as well as possible.

The reporting of finances is important for a number of reasons—not just because of the Games in Birmingham. Looking to the future, we are much more likely to bid for another Commonwealth Games before we bid for another Olympic or Paralympic Games. I do not want the group of cities and countries that are able to host the Commonwealth Games to become smaller and smaller because of the cost and transparency involved in them; that is why I believe that the reporting is incredibly important.

I totally agree that there should be early and regular reporting. As we get closer to Games-time, those working on the Commonwealth Games organising committee will be looking for other opportunities. We know that there is a group of people who travel from organising committee to organising committee, and they will be looking to join the committee for the next Olympics or Paralympics. We cannot lose that corporate knowledge of reporting, and that is why it is essential that we have very regular reporting. It would also inform what we do in relation to future bids. Whether it is for the World Cup or any other Games, this information is incredibly important.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, one advantage of putting my name alongside that of my noble friend Lord Hunt is that he has said pretty well everything that needs to be said on the subject. I want to make the much more general point that we need not only to think about the Birmingham-based Commonwealth Games but to reassure cities which host similar events in the future that they will not be put in huge financial difficulties. That is the reason for the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and my noble friend Lord Hunt.

Clearly, the most important thing is the arrangement for underwriting and the relationship between central and local government. However, if any additional source of funding can be identified, through whichever amendment we consider, that would make the possibility of a city bidding for a major sporting event more attractive, then it must be part of the legacy. We need to say to the next group of bidders, “These are ways in which the costs can be met.” I think we all know what the Minister will say. If she wants to give us all serious heart problems, she should say, “Yes, the Government agree with all these amendments.” However, showing some degree of sympathy about the financial arrangements and their importance is a really important message that the Government ought to pass on to the city concerned, and to any cities that look to fund future events of this sort.

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I would be enormously grateful if my noble friend the Minister could explain why we are having this week’s delay at the end of the Games before announcing the actual results table. Everybody will know the result the minute before the last medal is awarded, and it will be in every newspaper in the country. It is a bit like having a general election and saying to everyone in a constituency, “You can all vote, except the shooters and the archers. We will count their votes in a separate election and announce the result a week later, when we give the overall result”. It seems illogical to me, but perhaps there is an excellent and clear answer that my noble friend the Minister can give to the Committee.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I am delighted for the athletes involved that there has been a late-night solution to this issue. Bizarrely, when we talk about the Commonwealth, Olympic or Paralympic Games, we rarely talk about the experience of the athletes, although they are at the heart of the Games. It can be very difficult for athletes to be in a position where they do not know whether their event is on or off the programme. Most countries do not support athletes financially or with medical services unless there is an elite pathway. This particularly affects women’s events and also involves media support and sponsorship. Once you are off the programme, you have nowhere to go and it is almost impossible to get funding to get back on it.

Having two different events has lots of implications. On the positive side, it could give us an opportunity to increase the number of events for disabled athletes, although there has been an increase over the years, which is great. In 1990, there were just two demonstration events at the Commonwealth Games; it is lovely to see where we are now. However, my big concern—actually, this is outside our control—is about the challenge that smaller countries may have sending teams to different venues. The bigger teams have a chef de mission, a large core staff and large medical teams. The home countries are fortunate that they are able to support that; some of the smaller ones might struggle to fund it.

This is not without precedent, to some extent. Olympic Games sailing events are held in different parts of the country. In Atlanta in 1996, sailing was held in Savannah. India is considerably further away, but we are looking forward to the Paris Olympics and Paralympics where surfing might be held on the other side of the world. The Commonwealth Games should be congratulated on getting to this stage, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan: why do we not just start the Games with a medal table? Everyone is going to be doing that anyway, regardless of the announcement; it is important for every country to know where it stands. It would make more sense for the TV coverage, for the athletes in the village, and for the spectators, if it was there.

It is also important to make sure that there is an equivalent experience of being at the Games, with countries having the same kit and the same medal ceremonies. We could share the welcome ceremony when you come into the village—not every athlete is able to go to the opening ceremony, depending on when their competition starts, so the welcome ceremony when they move in is important. I had not considered the closing ceremony until the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned it. It is really important that the athletes, team managers, and everyone else, go to this, if there is any way that they could be brought over. It is not without logistical and cost problems. In 2012, we promised that there was a bed in the village for every athlete, so they could come to the closing ceremony if they were competing outside. It would be challenging, but it would be a lovely, positive way to celebrate the final medal table.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I shall say one or two words on the principle of what is going on here. This is a good thing. At every Games, there are little rows about which sports take part. When the Games were on the Gold Coast, we had basketball but not judo. Australia likes its basketball; we are good at judo, so we made sure we had it. These deals and negotiations are always going on. You are always going to exclude a group of athletes, for many of whom this is the biggest thing they will ever do. This major international sporting event may be at the end of their career, so there is a good principle behind this.

I have a question for the Minister, the answer to which might make my later amendment unnecessary: how are we going to set a precedent for how this is done in future? Every good idea comes with baggage: how do we make sure we know what this means for the organisation? In principle it is a good idea and has good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with those, I am afraid. What are we doing to get this right? There has always been sporting politics over which events are in. There are lovely books about bitchy back-room deals and people fighting to get their event in. This may be a way of reducing that and making sure that more athletes and fans get the experience. It is a good thing; can we have a bit more guidance on how it will be looked on in future? If the noble Baroness cannot give the Committee the answers, it would be helpful if she could point it at someone who could.

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Moved by

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

7: After Clause 1, in subsection (1), at end insert “and support local schools to maximise use of their facilities to engage children and families in sport and physical activity”

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I declare that I am chair of ukactive, which is listed in the register of interests.

The absolute base thing that we need is a good Games. There is no doubt that amazing sporting performance inspires young people to be active and play sport. That is usually in the summer and then reality sets in in the cold winter nights, and you realise that, actually, becoming the next Jess Ennis or Dave Weir involves training 15 times a week, 50 weeks of the year, and it is slightly different.

We need to think about legacy: it will not happen on its own, whether it is about investment or a change in mindset. It is really important that we think about that. I would love physical literacy to have the same status as literacy and numeracy in school: for me, it is about healthy mind, body and spirit. It is outside the remit of this legislation to look at changing the school day or how we train our PE teachers. That is perhaps for another time, but my amendment is quite simple in what it is asking for. It is about maximising schools’ facilities before, during and after the Games to get the best possible legacy that we can for young people and their families in the area. The good news is that my proposal would require only minimal investment from the Government. However, if they would like to invest more and open it to the whole of the UK, I would be more than delighted.

We have to think differently about how we use our school sites. The reality is that, as much as we have this incredible elite success, today’s children are the least active generation ever. Sport England research in 2018 showed that just one in four boys and one in five girls in England achieved the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity every day. As children lead increasingly sedentary lives, they are at bigger risk of chronic disease, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes. That has serious implications for the NHS. We know that children’s fitness declines by as much as 80% over the summer holidays, so when they come back in September they are way behind where they were at the start of the holidays.

Announcing levels of government funding for the Games in June 2019, the then Sports Minister Mims Davies MP said:

“The Games budget is a significant investment in Birmingham and the region. It will deliver benefits to local people for years to come. It will increase participation and encourage more people to get active and stay active.”


But we need to do more. The Games are a key sporting milestone, but we know that post Games there is a spike in participation, but then it drops quickly. If we look at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, there was little increase. The figure was 67% in 2013 and 68% in 2016, so my idea is to discover how we can open schools and use them as community hubs during the summer holidays. Children live on average 2.4 miles away from a school, with the average distance falling as low as 1.4 miles in inner cities, where levels of deprivation are much higher. What I did not realise until relatively recently, which I perhaps should have done, is that 39% of sports facilities in England sit behind school gates. When they shut in the summer holidays, not just young people but anyone who accesses them no longer has the opportunity to do so.

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I ask the Minister to talk to her counterparts in the Department for Transport to ensure that resignalling does not take place immediately before, during or immediately after the Commonwealth Games, because it would cause considerable dislocation for passengers using the station. I repeat that these matters are not, strictly speaking, anything for this Minister, but we would like an assurance from her that discussions will take place between her department and the Department for Transport so that some of these matters can be debated and, perhaps, resolved. There will be an enormous impact on the Commonwealth Games if we get the transport system wrong, but so far it does not appear that Network Rail is making much of an effort to get the transport system, particularly New Street station, right.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I should probably apologise to your Lordships because all my favourite subjects are wrapped up in these two amendments. I shall try to be brief, which is something that noble Lords never want to hear at this time of the evening. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for introducing his amendment in such a positive way. I also thank the organising committee, which has been very generous with its time. There are a few areas that I would like to cover.

Quite rightly, we talk about the athletes’ village and transportation but I am not aware that we have talked about moving athletes’ sports equipment around, from the village to the training venue or wherever. Usually there is storage at the competition venue but these pieces of equipment are really expensive—between £5,000 and £20,000. An athlete’s desire to be separated from their equipment is usually very low. When I competed back in 2004, I tried to explain to somebody why I did not want my racing chair to be thrown on to a separate bus. I said that I would rather my two year-old child was sent on a separate bus, but then I realised that I sounded like a slightly harsh mother.

Most athletes will have only one piece of equipment and it is not easy to obtain. There will be a repair centre in the village, but it is far easier not to have to repair equipment in the first place. This is about training the volunteers and understanding the value not just of the sports equipment but of an athlete’s day chair. If you transfer to a seat in a bus, you do not want your day chair to disappear, as it may never come back again. Of course, disabled people are not just athletes, and I hope that the volunteer programme will do as much as the 2012 Games and Glasgow Commonwealth Games in encouraging disabled people to volunteer.

I am also very keen to think about what we can do for spectators. For example, I am thinking of flexible seating. I was offered quite a lot of reassurance about the purchase of accessible tickets, and that will be done in a very sensible way. Disabled people often have to apply on a separate phone line and often, only a limited number of tickets are available.

For me, one huge success of the 2012 Games was their flexibility. Whether people had bought a disabled ticked, an end-of-row ticket or a ticket for a seat with more leg room, when they turned up at the venues, they found that the volunteers were exceptionally well trained to think about how to make the most of the situation. The experience of a spectator is not just about watching the sport; it is about being part of a group of people—part of the crowd and the environment. As a disabled person, you rarely experience that. I was trying to think how to describe it. It is a little like being a Cross-Bencher or a wheelchair user in this area of the Chamber when the House is packed. You miss everyone around you—those little conversations that you can have with the people in front of you or behind you. It can be quite isolating, and that is the experience of the majority of disabled people when they go to concerts or sports events. It is them and their carer—a word that I do not particularly like. Often, it is just the wheelchair user plus one.

I shall tell your Lordships about my worst experience. Again, I am not a terrible mother but I took my child to a concert when she was two years old. It was explained to me that, as she was not my carer, she was not allowed to sit with me. They tried to make her sit 25 rows in front of me until I pointed out that they were responsible for her safety—and then they suddenly allowed her to sit with me. That is an example of rules and red tape, and of just not thinking.

The best situation that I have witnessed was at the 2012 Games. Plastic seats were found and a group of us who happened to be wheelchair users and had travelled together were able to sit together and enjoy the experience. I hope that Birmingham will be able to offer that sort of flexibility, understanding people’s needs and not saying, “You haven’t got the right ticket. You can’t come in”.

One of my favourite topics is toilets. I would love there to be appropriate toilets and lots of Changing Places toilets. I have been assured that that is being looked at very carefully. If the RADAR scheme is to be used, I have spare RADAR keys—the keys for disabled people. If you come from another country, you may not know that that scheme exists, but it is important.

Moving on to transport, the noble Lord, Lord Snape, lived up to expectations. I hope that in future I will be able to refer to him as “my friend in accessible train transport” or “my friend who finds solutions for train stations”. I share many of his concerns about New Street station. I declare that I am part of a group called the Campaign for Level Boarding. It is not strictly part of the Bill but we are looking at how to make it better and easier for disabled people to travel. I am delighted that the Secretary of State today launched a campaign called It’s Everyone’s Journey, which is a step forward in looking at access. However, the reality is that what we have talked about today is only a small fraction of what is needed to make stations, including New Street, more accessible. I will be writing to the Secretary of State later.

We need to think more about how the Access for All fund can be improved. As a disabled person, the reality for me is that I am only likely to be able to have truly accessible transport in the UK in 2075 and, although I hope to be, I warrant that I will probably not be around then. For me, part of the Commonwealth Games is thinking differently about how disabled people travel. When we get to the Games, lots of people will be travelling and New Street station will be a gateway. We need to think about how to get people out of the station quickly and how it can be used as a queueing system. I agree that the signposting around New Street is really difficult. When I lived in Birmingham, it was the old New Street station. I slightly prefer the new one.

Also, I did not realise that there were two taxi ranks at the station—I thought that there was only one. I find it an incredibly station difficult to navigate. I spoke to some colleagues from the Campaign for Level Boarding to get their experience of New Street. Dr Amy Kavanagh, an activist, praised the staff. Amy is vision-impaired and said that the staff there are superb. They are really helpful and adaptable and are an exemplar of staff across the network. Doug Paulley, a renowned campaigner, also praised the staff, but said about New Street that it is,

“narrow and curved. The underground tracks make it very difficult to find. The shopping centres and exits are hideously complicated, and it’s a huge distraction from what it’s meant to be: a railway station”.

He also described it as “Mordor”, which is an interesting view, but it shows his frustration at how difficult it is to get around.

Solutions are required. We need better signage. The signage in 2012, with spots on the floor, was really useful and we should think about that. Regarding the two taxi ranks, we should think about platforms or humps to enable people to get in and out of taxis more easily. Currently, the accessible toilets are on the wrong side of the ticket barrier. They can be used only when you have gone through the ticket barrier, so they need to be repositioned to the outside.

We need to be really creative in how we train and prepare people. The whole experience of being at the Commonwealth Games comes back to what I said at the beginning. It is not just about when you get to the Games venue; the experience starts when you leave home —the excitement and the fact that you have tickets and are going to the Games. Every step along the way is a very important part of that. In 2012, that is what TfL got right. For the vast majority of the time, it got the public transport right, and that is one reason why people have such fond memories of the Games. If we can take a bit of that magic fairy dust and move it to the Birmingham Games, it will mean that people go away having had a really positive experience. If we can sort out a few of the issues at New Street, we will have a better chance of making the Games a success.

[Baroness Barran]

I thank my noble friend Lord Moynihan for raising the important issue of accessibility through Amendment 8 and for his very helpful analysis of all the different issues involved. He gave the example of Japan and explained how focusing on accessibility and getting that right can improve the broad experience of the Games.

I know that the organising committee recently engaged with a number of noble Lords on its approach to accessibility, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Grey-Thompson, the noble Lords, Lord Griffiths, Lord Hunt and Lord Snape, and my noble friend Lord Holmes. It is extraordinary to listen to the expertise that noble Lords share on these different issues, and I am sure that I speak on behalf of the organising committee in being grateful to them for sharing that expertise.

The aim for Birmingham 2022 is that all venues and the services around them are designed, operated and delivered to ensure that everyone has a great Games experience. That is why Birmingham 2022 is developing an accessibility strategy with spectators, athletes, media, the local workforce and volunteers in mind. The strategy will be published this spring. I am sure that noble Lords will take the opportunity to provide feedback to the organising committee on all aspects.

I understand that a number of noble Lords have spoken to the organising committee since Second Reading about the approach to accessibility. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her feedback on that. I hope that that helped to address some of the questions raised, including around New Street station signage and accessible seating.

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[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, I will be brief. The social value charter is now on the website. Details of the principles to be upheld are clear for all to read. They cover everything inserted in the new clause that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and I have proposed to the Committee this evening. It is vital to protect and respect human rights. It is essential that the host country refrains from any act involving fraud or corruption, above all to prohibit any form of discrimination, and to carry out all activities in a manner that embraces sustainable development and contributes to the UN sustainable development goals.

Finally, the amendment looks to

“having regard to planning, construction, protection of the environment, health and safety, labour and working conditions, and cultural heritage”.

All these have been taken on board in the social value charter, and the work being undertaken by the organising committee is gathering pace. It has had conversations with accessible ticketing providers. We covered accessibility in some detail in the previous debate. It is important to recognise that Birmingham 2022 is not seen as an isolated event. These Games are the culmination of the Transformation 2022 agenda, which the Commonwealth Games Federation has been working on for several years.

I have recently returned from Qatar, where I was looking in detail at how many of the issues covered in this charter are being implemented, in a country which has faced many criticisms and challenges in the past. I was going to share some of those reflections with the Committee this evening but instead I might write to all Members, just to demonstrate how a country can use the greatest single sporting event—in Qatar’s case, the 2022 World Cup—to transform its political and social landscape. It has established is own charter and is committed to a much-needed process of implementing change.

There is a torchlight that is shone on countries over all aspects of the social value charter, which are summarised in the amendment; it is absolutely essential that the charter is taken seriously and implemented in full. Tomorrow I shall have the pleasure and privilege of meeting the president of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne over lunch. I shall be discussing how this document can be turned into a live document. It is remarkable work; the organising committee should be congratulated on it. It can be a template for work that is undertaken in Paris for the forthcoming Olympic Games and for all future international sporting events. I very much hope that it will be seen as that. The Commonwealth Games Federation should be congratulated on the work it has done to date. It is far easier to write words than it is to implement them, as all those of us who are interested in the subject know—not least the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, who spoke at earlier stages of the Bill and has done so much good work on this, and who continues to lead, as she does in the House, on the subject.

With that in mind, and with these brief comments, I simply ask the Minister to recognise that all this work is being done. Let us put it in the legislation and show the world that the Government are equally committed to ensuring that the social value charter is effectively implemented.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I briefly thought about whether disability should be added to the list but, after the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, presented Amendment 8 so eloquently, I am much happier with that.

The noble Lord’s amendment is really important. Given that homosexuality is illegal in 37 of the 53 Commonwealth countries, it is clear there is still a very long way to go in ensuring people’s human rights. This amendment brought to my attention the fact that a lot of disabled athletes who are part of the Commonwealth Games teams are treated far less favourably than their non-disabled counterparts. This goes down to the provision of kit. A number of Commonwealth countries do not provide their disabled athletes with appropriate competition kit or tracksuits. There is a charity called Kit Us Out, run by Alex Mitchell, which has provided several thousand pieces of sports equipment and kit to disabled athletes competing at both the Commonwealth Games and the Paralympic Games. At the previous Commonwealth Games, he also provided 12 wheelchairs for athletes who did not have them, making their lives significantly easier.

Due to the late hour, I shall write to all Members of the Committee and connect with the Minister’s department. This is something that is worth pursuing—making sure that we send out the right message to disabled athletes who will be competing in this country.

[Baroness Barran]

My Lords, as we have heard, Amendment 9 requires the Secretary of State to direct Birmingham 2022 to prepare a charter for the Games. I thank my noble friend for his amendment and, in so doing, welcome the great progress that has been made to ensure that such issues are at the forefront of Games delivery—not least, it must be said, because of the important role of this House and of my noble friend in exercising scrutiny of this Bill and the Games.

In October 2019, the organising committee published the Birmingham 2022 Social Values Charter, which focuses on five key areas: sustainability, health and well-being, inclusivity, human rights, and local benefit. The charter will be a living document. Birmingham 2022 is committed to reporting on its progress through planned quarterly updates. Of course, the organising committee is further required by the Bill to report on what it has done to ensure that its delivery of the Games promotes the values of the Commonwealth Games Federation, which is intended to capture the content of the charter. That was the key point made by my noble friend: words on the page are not enough; we need to see things implemented in reality.

Football: Racism

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord is very patient. He raised this point only 19 years ago, but we are now further on. The question of the efficacy of the legislation can be divided into two parts: whether the legislation is fit for purpose and is being implemented properly, and if it is not fit for purpose whether we need to amend it. My honourable friend the Minister for Sport is seeking a meeting with the Home Secretary to discuss this.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, many acts of racism occur in grounds during matches. However, social media has become a breeding ground and some providers allow the worst abuse to remain posted. Have Her Majesty’s Government considered how the online harms consultation White Paper could be used to look at this form of abuse?

[Baroness Barran]

Before I reply to the noble Baroness’s question, I am sure the House will join me in congratulating her—she is wincing—on her incredibly well-deserved lifetime achievement award from the BBC’s “Sports Personality of the Year”. The noble Baroness is absolutely right. Again, from talking yesterday with the FA, it is clear that players feel racism when they turn on their phones as well as on the field. That is very much part of what we will be considering in the online harms Bill.

UK Sport: Elite Sport Funding

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the debate and I draw your attention to my interests on the register. I am the chair of ukactive, vice-president of the LGA and I fit the noble Lord, Lord Addington’s, definition of an “old athlete”—many years ago, I was a lottery-funded athlete. In April last year, I published a report on duty of care in sport, which the Sports Minister, the right honourable Tracey Crouch MP, asked me to undertake.

Lottery funding was set up to transform the medal winning opportunities and it has done so. I want to point out that in Atlanta, although the Olympic team won one gold, the Paralympic team won 39 and were third on the medal table—but the funding is extremely welcome all the same. There is huge public support and a real feel-good factor when teams win. Medals matter—they always have—but we must understand that there is a cost to winning medals that is not just financial. The 2012 Games were an incredible experience and we were absolutely right to do it. The Games provide a moment of inspiration: there are athletes who are competing now because of London. I competed because of the 1984 Olympics.

Elite sport is the showcase, but it is a small part of the structure. Many sports are able to show the impact that winning medals has on participation. I have long thought that major sporting events—I need to be clear on this—on their own do not change the world or participation. It is not fair to expect the 10 days of the Paralympics to change the lives of all disabled people. It changed the lives of many Paralympians, but the reality is that for many disabled people, it changed little. It did not make buses more accessible, nor stop disability hate crime.

While it is not impossible to make a GB team or qualify for a major games, if the sport is not funded at the elite level it is likely to be very much harder. Young athletes need to be able to see the top of the pyramid and believe that they have an opportunity to get there. I understand that funding is not limitless and that there are challenges over lottery receipts; all sports want more money. But I would like to ask this: how do we inspire a nation if the opportunities to compete at the highest level are limited because there is no funding? There is a symbiotic relationship between elite, grass roots and wider participation. We also cannot forget the impact that volunteering has on sport.

I would like to look at one sport in particular, which I hope will provide a useful example: badminton, for which we won a medal in Rio. However, it is not in the funding cycle through to Tokyo for the elite side of the sport. Badminton has the largest schools championship in Europe, involving some 42,000 young people between the ages of 11 to 16. If badminton is played in your primary school, you are four times more likely to play it at secondary school. That has been made possible because of lottery investment and it could not be done without it. Approximately 50% of the people who participate in badminton would not be classed as “sporty”. For around £5 million of local money, the lottery has provided £70 million of investment into local facilities and that has been a key part of the growth in participation. The lottery investment into the world-class programme delivered not only the medal in Rio, it delivered a 245% growth in participation in London alone. Some 66% of the legacy growth across the country was among those aged under 16. Badminton believes that the lottery funding works and needs to be protected. I agree with that, although I probably have a different view on how the total sum of money should be spent.

I should like to ask the Minister about the status of the response to the Every Sport Matters agenda, which the non-Olympic and Paralympic sports have presented to UK Sport. I understand that the landscape is not simple. We have UK Sport, Sport England, the home nations sports councils and devolution. It is not a simple system to work through. I think that we need to start looking at this in a different way and consider how truly active we are as a nation. I am delighted that Sport England is looking at new ways of managing participation and funding projects differently. That is fantastic, but if we have less active people, we have fewer people coming into sport. We are a nation of sports lovers and we are a nation of people who like watching sport, but perhaps participation is a little further down the agenda. My own journey into elite sport was not about a pathway. I was paralysed at the age of seven. The world was not very accessible back then and my father believed that I ought to be fit and healthy in order to be able to live in an inaccessible world.

Part of the challenge is how we talk about sport. What do we mean by that? Do we mean competitive sport, physical literacy or physical activity? Sport is a subset of being active, and that is why we need to change some of the narrative. It should not always be sport for sport’s sake, we need to look at physical activity as a preventative front line of the NHS. We need to be thinking about the health of the nation and how we could fund projects in a different way. The reality, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has said, is that a four-year funding cycle for elite sport does not fit into a five-year election cycle, let alone anything else. We in the UK do incredibly well in sport at the highest level, but the inactivity crisis should be of huge concern to us all. If we look back at the medal success of the Olympic team in Beijing, we see that 37% of our Olympic medallists came from the independent sector. I cheered every single one of them on, but that is not how sport should be in the future.

As the chair of ukactive, I said at our national summit last year that activity is the golden thread that runs through every part of our lives. Today’s young people are the least active ever and we need a serious shake-up of the school day to save “generation inactive” from a lifetime of ill health. The fittest children today would have been considered some of the least fit and active 30 years ago. We need to bring activity back into children’s daily lives. PE takes up just two hours of the 168 hours in a child’s week, and that is only during term time. Research by ukactive has shown how the school summer holidays can drive a sharp wedge between the activity levels of the affluent and deprived children. We need to work with partners to open up dozens of schools over the summer to address this inactivity.

Children are never going to turn up to a nutrition session on its own or talk about oral health, the subject of an earlier debate that I spoke in. They might not turn up to a session about mindfulness, but sport has the power to do a huge amount. Nelson Mandela said:

“Sport has the power to change the world”.


By looking at how we can engage children through freestyle dance classes, football or whatever sport it may be, we might just have the chance of showing them the merits of a balanced and healthy lifestyle. We will then have a much greater chance of bringing these children into sport. Sport is absolutely wonderful and it has given me so many things in my life, but it is time to think a bit more widely than just sport.

Social Media: News

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Kidron for tabling the debate this afternoon and, in doing so, I declare my interest as a board member of the BBC.

Social media has transformed many disabled people’s lives. It has allowed new and news media to flourish and encouraged sharing of information. I would not want to go back to a time before social media and the internet. I remember being in the USA when the worst of the Rwanda genocide was happening and knew nothing about it because it was not covered anywhere.

I have spoken previously about how information is pushed through algorithms that try to second-guess preferences. While that may be valuable for advertising, we need to be reminded that it gives us a different, and while potentially increased perceived, choice, in reality it is far less than that.

I use social media quite a lot, and I have had many positive experiences. Sitting very late one night in your Lordships’ Chamber, I tweeted that I had not had anything to eat and within minutes had had several offers of pizza at the Peers’ Entrance. At 12.14 pm today I found out that there was a possibility of a joint Korean team competing at the Winter Olympics in hockey; at 1 pm I found out about a young disabled woman who has had her speech machine stolen and cannot communicate with her family.

However, I wish to talk about a very personal experience of social media. On Christmas Eve, I posted a moment in time. Ultimately, it was not going to change my life, but I could not get on a train. It was annoying and a bit irritating, as every other non-disabled person who was on the platform was able to get on, as they had the two previous trains. I did not think it was a news story but apparently it was. It showed how little control I had over something that affected me. Within minutes it was on news sites and I was taking calls from local and national newspapers. It received 320,000 impressions, 511 direct responses, 1,522 retweets and 1,360 likes. When I tried to rationalise it, I thought my post had raised an issue that affected millions of disabled people and helped others to articulate the experiences that they had. Of course, it brought out the trolls; the best that I can repeat is that people like me should not be allowed out. But this was something that I had spent less than a minute contemplating posting—possibly a valuable lesson for us all.

While propaganda may always have existed, it is now about the speed at which “news”—I say that in quotes—travels, and the responsibility that comes with it. It is not the same as a traditional news outlet and we need to think very differently about how it is regulated. I have concerns about the proliferation of these sites. What one person calls news, for another person is chip paper. You choose to follow a view because you agree or do not agree with it. I support difference of opinion; we need to be challenged to get the best out of the decisions that we make.

There is a great deal of positivity, and there are very responsible outlets that work hard to educate. My daughter is 15, and at her school they educate pupils through delivery of the EPQ skills lessons, with sessions on data literacy. They are taught to have a healthy scepticism about statistics; there are separate sessions on evaluating sources, both on and offline, and they cover fake news. So education gives you a choice. I understand that the Government may not want regulation; there is an element of Big Brother to that. Does the Minister agree, however, that social media companies should take much greater responsibility for the content distributed through their platforms?

Finally, while I recognise the positivity of social media, with the speed of development of platforms and technology we need to be much more mindful of what failure of self-regulation may look like and remain ahead of the curve, because dialling back is just too awful to contemplate.