National Women’s Sports

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Addington on obtaining this debate and opening it in such a thoughtful and constructive manner. In the short time allocated, I will concentrate my remarks on one specific area: the benefits of involving women in custody and those on the cusp of the criminal justice system in sport.

When I became Minister of State for Justice in the coalition Government in 2010, and later chair of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales between 2014 and 2017, I instinctively assumed, from my own experience, that sport would play an important part in diverting young people from the criminal justice system or helping in rehabilitation once they were within it. The advice I was initially given was that there was no evidence that participation in sport could play such a constructive role. I spent my seven years at the MoJ actively searching for such proof.

Fortunately, over those years, individuals and organisations helped change attitudes to the importance of sport in our criminal justice system, not just for boys but for girls and women too. There was the ground-breaking research by Professor Rosie Meek, of Royal Holloway, University of London, in her 2018 report for the Ministry of Justice, which reviewed sport in youth and adult prisons. In her foreword to that report, Professor Meek said:

“Evidence confirms that sport can play a huge role within our Criminal Justice System. As well as being a way to bring together disparate groups, develop communication skills and learn life lessons, it also has the advantage of being something many people are passionate about.”


I was also encouraged by James Mapstone, co-founder and chief executive of the Alliance of Sport in Criminal Justice, and was given great encouragement by a member of my Youth Justice Board, now the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. I look forward to her remarks later in this debate. Protocol prevents me referring to her as my noble friend, but perhaps I may refer to her as my partner in crime. She is now a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sport and Physical Activity in the Criminal Justice System, along with Clive Efford MP, with James Mapstone providing the secretariat and Rosie Meek as an adviser. I am confident that we can keep up the pressure for greater recognition of sport within the CJS.

Beyond the need for change in the criminal justice system, it is also clear that much still needs to be done to provide access to facilities and the right equipment, and in the recruitment of coaches. I was interested in the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, just made about equipment. Forty years ago, as an MP, I remember being approached by a young female constituent who told me that access to sports bras was a deterrent to girls playing sport. As the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said, a report earlier this week called for more comfortable and practical sports bras, shorts and hijabs, as well as boots and other equipment specifically designed for the needs of women and girls and their bodies. As she said, there is still work to be done at that level.

Although time has prevented me paying full tribute to the way that the skills of, and opportunities for, women in sport have exploded into the public consciousness, I do so now and hope that we will enjoy success in more sports and at all levels in the years ahead; that we will celebrate, as the Motion asks us, the success of our women’s team; and that we will put forward practical measures to underpin that success in future.