Sports Grounds Safety Authority Bill

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Friday 13th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I, too, hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading and that it will proceed satisfactorily through all its stages.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Faulkner on introducing this constructive measure. It is not the first legislation that he has introduced in the field of sport, particularly football. The first time that I met my noble friend was in the august structure of Wembley Stadium where he kindly presented me with a cup. I hasten to add that it was not the Football Association Cup, which is a thing of my childhood dreams, but a cup given to the parliamentary football team, because we had succeeded, for once, in beating the press that year at Wembley, before a crowd of nine ardent spectators, of which the noble Lord was one.

Subsequently, of course, I came to recognise the extent to which the noble Lord involved himself in a range of constructive activities with regard to sport, particularly football. I am not surprised that he has introduced a Bill that is both helpful to sport—even beyond football—and carefully constructed. It probably assuages any of the anxieties that might attend noble Lords.

The noble Lord, in introducing the Bill, was bound, with regard to its safety role, to make reference to the horrors of 1989 and the changes that we were obliged to make to football grounds at that time. I was brought up when it was still a joy to be on the terraces. I cannot say that there were no moments of anxiety, but they were generally when we were leaving stadia and coming down steep stairs among masses of spectators who were all leaving at the same time, rather than in the grounds themselves. Nevertheless, we all recognised the importance of the 1989 Act and that is why the Bill builds on the significance of that Act.

I ask my noble friend about one point. If there is an area that causes me considerable concern—I have to say that at around 8.15 this morning my anxieties were raised again regarding the United Kingdom Border Agency—it is that when any organisation puts itself forward for enhanced operations, someone is able to say, “We are going to carry out these additional functions. We will be much more efficient. We are going to be hugely more successful, despite the fact that we anticipate a savage cut in our resources”. You have to say to such chief executives, “Why did you not act in that way before? Or is this merely a cover for what, in fact, will be a significant deterioration in services?”.

I am not suggesting that my noble friend has not thought about these matters and I entirely understand that some enhancement of the functions is related to the ability to charge a fee to cover the costs. The Bill indicates other areas where additional help may be given but it also clearly indicates that no additional resources will be needed. Therefore, my noble friend will not mind if I ask him to address that question when he sums up. However, I of course wish the Bill well and I am confident that my Front Bench will do so too.