Sport: Cricket

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, all I can say is that the Government are very much behind that new work continuing. I am not in a position to say, because I do not know, whether the unit is getting all the co-operation that it should, but I have no evidence that it is not.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is a terrible tragedy when a promising young cricketer has his career ruined by being involved in such practices as corruption? Can he say more about what is being done to help young players to realise what are the penalties for corruption and how it goes totally against the spirit of the game?

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that. She is quite right, it is not quite cricket. Although the international cricket authorities are busy doing that work, so is the English cricket board, but it has only just got into this. The ICC is taking the lead, but the English cricket board has a zero tolerance approach to corruption and is fully supporting the ICC's anti-corruption unit. The ECB has recently agreed to enhance its work in this field by establishing an ECB anti-corruption commission for education, security and surveillance. Its work includes extensive education programmes for younger players via the county academies and the development of an online interactive training module which will be ready before the start of the next season. So it is taking the issue seriously and getting on with it for the next cricket season for youngsters.