Sport: Exclusion of Drugs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking at an international level to maintain high standards by all countries and international sporting organisations in order to ensure the exclusion of drugs from sport.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when a little over a week ago I put down this Question for Short Debate on a topical matter, I had, as always, that slight feeling that the subject would have slipped from the news. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Indeed, this issue has become more relevant than it was when I secured the debate. At that point there had merely been an outcry against Russia, but since then Russia has been banned by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the IAAF. If ever there was a subject that is full of acronyms—and I do not like them—it is this one. Today, five other nations have been declared non-compliant: Argentina, Ukraine, Bolivia, Israel and Andorra—one of the world’s largest nations along with one of its smallest. More worrying still is the list of nations that have been placed on a watchlist for non-compliance. The coverage I have seen puts Brazil at the top. Brazil is the nation that will host the next Olympic and Paralympic Games. If anyone is feeling slightly complacent about this, let us look at who is with Brazil on the watchlist: France, Belgium, Greece, Mexico and Spain, four of which are members of the European Union. The international element of this is overwhelming.

I shall return to the original subject. ARD, a German television station, did a wonderful piece of investigative journalism which pointed out the problems in Russia. For this the station should be thanked wholeheartedly by the rest of the world. Indeed, it is a good thing for this House to be able to thank any branch of the press for doing excellent work, and I hope others will follow me in that.

The World Anti-Doping Agency sent in an independent commission to look at Russia. The commission’s report is one of the most depressing documents I have ever had to go through. There is state corruption or state collusion in corruption—a sort of “Everyone else in the world is doing it so you must do it better”—when it comes to doping. Bribes are being made in a system that was corrupt anyway. Noble Lords will know that when they normally read a report, they go through it saying, “This is fine but that is not”. Only around one in 30 lines that I read said that someone was not breaking the rules. It was basically appalling. On the action taken, after the report was published, the only thing the IAAF could do was put a suspension in place. Why does this matter? It matters because sport matters. The Olympics, which people are now saying are tarnished or were sabotaged, may have had some of the shine rubbed off, but that is probably overstating the case. A celebration of sporting activity brings people together.

This scandal may be about athletics, or athletics-led, but if there is a culture of cheating, everything is up for grabs and the whole thing is under threat. We do not think rugby union has any major problems with drugs at the moment, but Russia could have qualified for the last World Cup. However, the whole of Russian sport has now been called into question. Indeed, when we look at the non-compliance list we see that Argentina, which reached the semi-finals of the tournament, is on it. What this means for football and the other major sports, we do not know, but there are major problems in this area.

We should remember that sport is effectively recognised as a kind of “wonder drug” in terms of healthcare. Getting the people of this nation fitter is seen as a way of helping and encouraging them to make themselves healthy and thus save money in the NHS. It does not help if the international example being set by those at the top shows that they have been systematically cheating and so have taken away from the importance of this issue. It just does not work.

What should we be doing? The independent commission was brought in by WADA from the outside to report on these matters. It may be a model that we will have to use again and again. My first real question is: are the Government of the United Kingdom prepared to support and help fund all these steps in the future? Something will have to be done in this area. When I looked at it originally, I thought that perhaps we should demand that Russia should pay for the monitoring in the future. It would be a nice idea, would it not? An independent commission, perhaps even a permanent one, is what is needed, or at least it will have to be regularly reconstituted. Also, how are we going to interact with our international partners to make sure that something good comes out of this? Those are very real questions.

We also need to look at what we doing with legislation on the home front. There is a long-running debate around criminalisation: do we criminalise those who are taking part in doping? We should remember that we have had cases of it in our own country. Have the Government looked at the various models which have been put in place elsewhere? Which ones do they think work best? The gut reaction is that “something should be done”. If, however, that is not seen to be the most efficient way forward, should it mean six months in prison as opposed to a four-year ban and a change of career? I do not know which of those would bite harder. What are we doing to support our own agencies and checking to see whether they are able to do their job in the best way possible? If we wish to enjoy the benefits of sport, it is quite clear that we cannot merely leave it to the sporting bodies themselves. They need support and structure from the outside.

The Russian example is one where the state intervenes and condones these practices, at which point everything basically goes to hell. Are we going to intervene to support these independent structures? Also, how are we going to support whistleblowers both here and abroad? How are we going to make sure that someone who is charged with making sure that people are compliant is actually doing that? On reading the report, it is quite clear that no one felt that there was anywhere they could go to report these practices, and that was a huge part of the culture. All small organisations should get involved, along with political parties, sports bodies, the local golf club—you name it—because they all have this problem to a greater or lesser extent. Where can you go and where is it safe to report these practices that is outside the structure you are part of? What are we doing in this area? These are things with which the Government can help, even if only indirectly, and they will be much more efficient if they move forward with friends. We have to co-operate on this both with those we talk to regularly and those we talk to only occasionally. Sport is a forum that has made us regularly come together in the past, and it is where people can bury their differences.

The noble Lord, Lord Bates, has talked about the Olympic truce. Let us take a little of that spirit and carry it on to make sure we maintain the momentum. Can the Government give us some assurances about what they are doing in this area? I ask that because this is what is required. The more I look at this, the more worried I am.

I finally ask: what are we going to do to initialise the problem of accepting that we have ongoing tasks? The noble Viscount may not have that information because I did not give him advance warning of that question. It is clear that things have expanded, but do we have plans to ensure that we take this on for the future? Will we be able to institute groups that will lead the athletics and sporting groups into a format where they undertake activity that goes beyond current normal talking? We clearly need that.

I could go into a great more detail about the report. The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, is shaking his head—he is quite wise. I shall end by saying simply that unless we take action now we will throw away something very good, and I do not think that any of us wants to do that.