Youth Sport Trust Report

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point. We have to make sure that sports bodies represent the whole range of our communities and are not focused on elite sports or one particular community. I was contacted last week by a project that wanted to help more Afro-Caribbean people to swim— I think it is called Black People Can Swim. It is a fantastic project. I have asked my department to look at how we can have discussions with them to help make sure that we encourage more people from different communities to get involved in physical activity and sport.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the authors of the report, the Youth Sport Trust, and its chief executive, Alison Oliver. They certainly know what they are talking about. Since there is to be a new regime at the National Lottery, would this be a proper moment to suggest that the focus of grants should be on young people in general and youth sport and activities—as the Minister rightly said—in particular?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government are refreshing the sport strategy at the moment. Noble Lords who took part in debates on the Health and Care Bill will remember that we talked about the cross-government approach to sport and physical activity. We are looking at a number of initiatives for improving it. We welcome reports such as this, as they highlight the areas that we need to focus our efforts on as we work out what has worked in the past and what we need to improve. We hope to fill those gaps where they exist.

Channel 4 Privatisation

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 5th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Like the sale of any Government asset, the sale of Channel 4 will need to meet a careful assessment process to ensure value for money for the taxpayer. Further details will be set out in the White Paper to address that. We expect a lot of interest in Channel 4 from around the world.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, but is not Netflix a complete red herring? How many journalists and camera crews has Netflix sent to Ukraine?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Netflix is not a news producer in the way that Channel 4 is a public service broadcaster, but it is competing with Channel 4 for all the other things which Channel 4 does, including its entertainment and other content. This debate is not about the remit of Channel 4 but about ensuring that it can continue to compete with those, such as Netflix, which produce different but, at the moment, very competitive things.

Football: Casey Review

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I do not have those figures. However, as the noble Lord points out, where there is CCTV footage and with the further evidence gathered by the noble Baroness in her report, it is obviously for the prosecuting authorities—rightly separate from Government—to look at that and take the decisions they feel are appropriate.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that the most damaging outcome of the events at Wembley—notwithstanding the success of the Olympic Games in London and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the undoubted soon-to-be success of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham—is that international sporting bodies will be reluctant to send prestigious events to be held in the United Kingdom?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am pleased to say that the UK has a very strong track record in staging international sporting events, the vast majority of which go exceedingly well. We thank the noble Baroness for her report, to make sure that we have learned the lessons from this incident and will continue to do so in future.

Racism in Sport

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can only repeat to the noble Baroness that the Government have been absolutely clear that racism is unacceptable online or offline and that we respect people’s choice to condemn racism in whichever way they feel is right.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, may I ask the Government to consider legislation to the express effect that racism in sport should be an aggravated crime, thereby allowing greater powers in sentencing?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that racism is already an aggravating factor in many crimes. I am happy to take his suggestion back to the department.

Sport Sector: Financial Support

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right about the value of sport in terms of both physical and mental health. Obviously, with cricket being a summer sport, things may look very different next summer, but the current limits of 4,000 outdoor spectators in tier 1 and 2,000 in tier 2 should make a number of these games viable. Obviously, cricket as a sport lends itself to spacing for spectators, and we are truly optimistic that, by the time county cricket restarts, the prospects for normal crowds will be very good.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, what discussions have the Government had with the officers of the British Olympic Association and UK Sport about the financial implications for both of these bodies if the cancelled Tokyo Olympic Games of 2020 go ahead in 2021?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Lord, but I will have to write to him in response to his question.

Covid-19: Women’s Sport

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

I think the noble Baroness knows the answer to her question. Of course senior role models are absolutely critical, and we are fortunate to have several in this House, including the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, with her leadership role in women’s football at the FA. However, we need role models at every level in sport, not just the most elite, and that is part of what we are working on with all the different bodies involved.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD) [V]]

The Minister has acknowledged that young sportswomen need opportunities. What financial support are this Government willing to provide to improve these opportunities?

[Baroness Barran]

Particularly in relation to Covid, we have made a generous funding package available. More broadly, we are working with the governing bodies of all sports to make sure that resources are committed to the women’s game and that the positive momentum we have seen in recent years is continued.

Olympic and Paralympic Games 2021

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker]

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port? Lord Campbell of Pittenweem.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

Does the Minister appreciate that not everyone can win medals and that for many competitors the mere fact of selection for the British Olympic team is the high point of their sporting careers? Will support be available for them, not just for those identified as likely medal winners?

[Baroness Barran]

The decisions about where the funding allocation goes are entirely for UK Sport to take, and it takes a number of criteria into account in making those decisions.

UK Telecommunications

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Statement and for the reassurance given in large measure by what she read to us. Of course, a number of questions are left open and will emerge. Given the time that was available to me to read the various pieces of literature, my questions will be bundled out and no doubt brought into more coherent shape as time passes.

I note that we are promised “world-leading” primary legislation but are not given an exact time. Yesterday, the word was mañana. Today, in answer to the question of when, the reply is, “at the earliest opportunity.” I am becoming accustomed to the various euphemisms for mañana that are put forward in government reports. It will be a new, comprehensive telecoms security regime. I suppose that the various measures that will be necessary to make sure that we oversee activity in this area will be set out in detail. It would be reassuring to have “at the earliest opportunity” unpacked, if that is at all possible, because we are in an area where developments happen so quickly that the more time that lapses, the more behind the action and the curve we become.

I note that, as the UK’s 4G network relies on Huawei, achieving zero presence today would be near impossible, so I suppose that a reduction to 35% is welcome. But will this reduce over time to wean operators off the Chinese provider, or will 35% be an enduring figure?

The NCSC’s security analysis, which again I read very quickly, concludes that

“threat analysis highlights that our telecoms sector is potentially vulnerable to a range of cyber risks. This analysis is backed up by evidence generated from security testing of telecoms networks and by security incidents.”

In other words, the risks are high—an added pressure, perhaps, to ensure that not too much time elapses before measures are brought before us.

There is talk of the diversification of vendors and the categories under which they might be grouped, but there is not much reference to help us to understand how much home-produced material or producers will come forward. There are a number of players on the global scene. Is the activity lively in our economy and will it produce its own home-produced involvements in the provision of these measures?

Under the objective factors that help us to identify high-risk vendors, the claim is that we know more about Huawei and the risks it poses than any other country, so, whatever investigations have taken place, it puts us in prime position—according to the claims made here—to know the mind of Huawei, its activities and all the rest of it. That leads me to ask: if that is the case, how do we measure Huawei’s performance against its domestic security laws? How did Huawei pass, given China’s law on compliance with state intelligence services and co-operation with the police in the mass detention of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, for example?

In other words, Huawei gets in at 35%. We welcome that, but suppositions and assumptions are made about Huawei that we still need to have clarified for us. A lot seems to go by on just remarks, assumptions and general statements. Attracting established vendors not present in the UK and new disruptive entrants in promoting open interoperable standards is welcome. But, given the subsidies that Huawei is said to use to get market access, how do we know whether the subsidies exist and how much they amount to, and how will new entrants compete tomorrow when they cannot today? Those are just a few of the questions that occur to me.

I should say that one or two of the quotations I have used in making my remarks are attributable to members of the noble Baroness’s own party—so these concerns are felt by all of us. So we welcome what is happening today because it does set a direction of travel—but we travel with a few questions that are still waiting to be answered.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for the Statement and begin by declaring an interest: I was a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee when the security implications of Huawei’s involvement in these matters were first identified. I should confess that my attitude is still to a large extent conditioned by what we found then.

I do not share the enthusiasm of the noble Baroness for the compromises which have been announced, in particular since I spent two days last week in the United States. Any question of us being at odds with the US, and indeed other members of the Five Eyes, is something that we should not contemplate with anything other than great concern. The United States is of course our closest ally when it comes to intelligence, and I wonder to what extent account has been taken of the very strong expressions against our involvement that have come from the White House down. It has been said that the US will not share intelligence. By its very nature, we will not know what intelligence it will choose not to share—and, for all we know, such a failure may have considerable implications for the safety and the interests of this country.

Nothing that has been said or that I have read excludes in all circumstances the possibility of the risk that Huawei might be forced by the Chinese Government to exploit its position. Indeed, as has already been said, it is under something of a legal obligation to do so. I make that assertion without qualification because I am bound to say that were we in a situation where the positions were reversed and found ourselves with the kind of opportunities that a company acting on our behalf might have in a foreign nation and the national interests of the United Kingdom were at stake, we would undoubtedly seek to bring pressure on that company. That cannot be ignored.

Undertakings are frequently given, but we all know that, on many occasions, undertakings have a very short lifetime. They can be given and they can be conveniently forgotten. Throughout the discussion I have been asking this question: would the Chinese Government admit BT to such a sensitive opportunity as the United Kingdom is about to enlarge to Huawei? I doubt very much that they would.

I will conclude by saying this. It is an entirely laudable ambition to seek to extend broadband throughout the United Kingdom, but I hope that national security is not being sacrificed to that ambition.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

I thank both noble Lords for their comments. Quite a lot of points have been raised and I am conscious that other noble Lords want to speak, so I shall try to deal with them quickly. The noble Lord asked when the legislation would be ready. Of course, it has not been possible to prepare the legislation until the decision made today by the National Security Council, but we are all very conscious of the need to legislate early. What today’s announcement means is that the National Cyber Security Centre is able to issue guidance to providers. Until now we have not had the ability, other than by asking nicely, to say, “Please do not use more than a certain percentage of high-risk vendor equipment in your networks”. The NCSC will be able to issue that guidance and that will by confirmed by legislation, which, as the noble Lord said, will provide for a legal enforcement mechanism by the regulator.

As both noble Lords have hinted, I am absolutely certain that noble Lords and Members of the other place will appreciate that this is a very complex decision, a point I touched on in the Answer to the Urgent Question that I repeated yesterday. There are undoubtedly concerns across the House—from Members of all backgrounds, regardless of which committees they have sat on—about the decision taken. People have different reasons for feeling that way.

The noble Lord mentioned the rollout of 5G and the speed; it is happening quickly and accelerating. Again, that is part of the reason for needing to take this step today: to be able to say to providers that there is a percentage above which they must not go on the edge of that rollout of 5G networks for high-risk vendors. I said in my Statement and reiterate that through market diversification we absolutely want to reduce the reliance on high-risk vendors over time. We want to get to a position in which we do not have to use a high-risk vendor in our telecoms network. That also ties in with the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, who mentioned home-grown capability. The reality is that this is a market failure that we are dealing with. Although we have many excellent telecoms companies in this country, we do not have those that are making this equipment in such a world-leading way. As part of the diversification strategy, we therefore need to increase dramatically the amount of funding support we give to the research and development of companies in countries that we tend to work with and consider our allies, as well as the UK, to help plug this gap.

We know more about Huawei thanks to the actions taken over the years. Huawei started to be in our networks from 2006. In a way, the high-risk vendor test is perhaps not about meeting the criteria but about not meeting them. If the company does not meet them —in the sense that it operates in a system in which the Government expect companies or individuals to act in accordance with their wishes—that means the high-risk vendor test has not been met, so it is a high-risk vendor. Of course, the work of our services and the advice given to the National Security Council by the services is very much evidence-based.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, mentioned the Intelligence and Security Committee. I was struck yesterday when a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee in the previous Parliament said in the other place that he felt the risks with Huawei could be mitigated. Perhaps it depends on the evidence and inquiries that different Members have been involved with.

In relation to the Five Eyes relationship, the Prime Minister has spoken to President Trump. A number of us have been engaged in discussions with US counterparts over the last few months, and of course account has been taken of everything they have raised with us, but—because of our experience with Huawei and where we are on 4G and 5G—the view is taken that we are able to mitigate these risks. That is the advice we have had. I said in my remarks that today’s decision does not affect our ability to share sensitive intelligence data over highly secure networks both within the UK and with our partners, including the Five Eyes.

As I said in my Statement, it is not possible to exclude all risks in relation to telecoms. Cybersecurity and malicious cyberactivity are a 21st-century danger to all countries. That does not mean we should not have sophisticated telecoms networks and 5G networks. It means we have to be realistic about the risks and how we mitigate them. Finally, I absolutely assure the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, that in no way would this Government ever compromise national security, even for the very worthy goal of making sure that people in this country have access to broadband.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness to her role. This is a very happy and really unusual moment in this House, in that we have something that we all agree on. I encourage everybody to, first, apply for tickets, and, secondly, to look to sponsor another big sporting event soon.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, briefly, I associate myself with the expressions of support we have already heard. There is no question but that Birmingham has done both the Commonwealth and sport a great advantage through its willingness to take on the production of these Games at short notice after a previous candidate had to withdraw. So far as we can see, the arrangements are proceeding at pace and are well judged. On this occasion, we can comprehensively wish Birmingham a good strong following wind.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, this is too good an opportunity to miss. In thanking the noble Baroness and her colleague for steering the Bill through, I want to put a question to her, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Faulkner. Can she assure me that Kings Heath station will be reopened in time for the Commonwealth Games?

Football: Racism

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

My view is that one should always start with oneself; we can all play a part in that leadership. I hear the concern of both the noble and gallant Lord and the right reverend Prelate about what is happening more broadly in our society. I absolutely acknowledge that, but would temper it with the importance of celebrating some of the extraordinary work going on at a local level to bridge those divides, both between faith communities and across other divides. We need to keep some balance in this narrative.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, to return to the point made by my noble friend Lord Addington, it is generally recognised that UEFA has been pretty spineless in dealing with incidents of this kind. Might I respectfully suggest that the Minister approach her colleague the Minister for Sport and seek a direct audience with UEFA senior officials to encourage them to take exactly the kind of approach to incidents of this kind which public opinion in this country undoubtedly deserves?

[Baroness Barran]

My understanding is that my honourable friend the Minister is writing or has written to UEFA and is open to a meeting if that is what is requested.