Community Sports: Impact on Young People

Lord Monks Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton on his excellent maiden speech. It demonstrated to everyone in the House that we have acquired a new Member with a deep knowledge of the rough ends of the world of work in the UK, combined with a strong record of working constructively with employers who seek to do the right things.

My noble friend will bring Liverpool wit and, because his office was in Manchester for many years, Manchester wisdom to the business of the House. I look forward to his future contributions and to those of my noble friend Lord Shamash, who will contribute shortly. I also thank my noble friend Lord Wood of Anfield for his initiative in securing this debate and for the excellent and comprehensive way in which he outlined the issues involved. We have had Anfield in the past and now we have Everton; I can tell your Lordships that the banter will be unbearable.

Civilisations have long been aware of the power and importance of sport. It was often linked to military prowess, and the UK was no exception. There was always a recreational side to sport here and, as the British Empire expanded, sport went with it—and beyond it, in the case of football to the whole world. To this day, our heritage remains strong. Juventus plays in the colours of Notts County, which donated its original set of shirts, and in Bilbao, Sunderland shipyard workers influenced the establishment of Athletic Bilbao, which still plays in colours like those of Sunderland.

However, politics was never far away. The poor physical state of many men from the industrial towns and cities worried the British Army in the Boer War and was an influence in developing support for the welfare state, which started shortly afterwards. English public schools evangelised, especially among boys, the role of team sports. They codified rules and spread an ethos of sporting excellence, manners and sportsmanship—which is not always the most fashionable thing to pay tribute to, but it is important. It spread quickly, and the vibrant institutions of working-class Britain—chapels, churches, local factories, the Scouts, the Guides, the Boys’ Brigade and, above all, the schools and local authorities—formed teams and leagues, especially in football, although rugby prevailed in some areas and a range of other sports came up as well. In retrospect, it was a huge effort by the community. We should remember that when talking about the social history of this country. It was commonplace to see 40 or 50 teams playing on a Saturday afternoon on a patch of grass such as Wormwood Scrubs and its equivalent in other towns and cities.

I think everybody in this debate appreciates that the role of sport is crucial in so many ways. I want to pick on three areas. It is a key weapon against the burgeoning growth of obesity, which is a national crisis. I know that the Government have applied their mind to this on more than one occasion, but we have so much to do that the profile of this campaign needs to be right at the very top. I was in the Netherlands just last weekend. If you go down a street there, you see the different physiques of the people compared to those of many in our own country, particularly in the poorer parts. Obviously, cycling has a lot to do with that, but participation in sports is also high and developing, and is publicly encouraged to a considerable extent. We need new ways of making sport and exercise generally attractive across all the population—able, disabled, regardless of gender and so on. It cannot just be for the elite and the enthusiastic.

The second problem—my noble friend Lord Wood touched on some of this—is the fact that, since pay-for-view came in, some sports have edged away from promoting mass participation and interest. In my view, cricket has suffered by not having test matches on general view. Sports need to rethink whether they have the balance right between paywalls on TV rights and the population in general having access to their sport. Even the existing listed events, which are free to air when transmitted live, are not protected in the digital on-demand coverage of sporting events, which is growing considerably as viewing of live events declines. We will lose free access in a few years’ time if we do not do something to regulate the digital world in this area, so I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Are the Government considering this issue in relation to the Media Bill, which is before the House? Do they have plans to extend the existing list of 10 free-to-air sports in relation to individual sports and, importantly, to the fast-developing digital world?

Finally, I will touch on medicine and medical research into sports and the many injuries that can come from sports. The current worries about dementia, particularly in rugby, must be a huge turn-off for parents who would like their children to play the game but want to know that it is safe to do so. I know that the football and rugby—both union and league—authorities are trying to improve research and tighten the rules. However, for contact sports—not just rugby—rapid improvements are necessary in the knowledge and treatment of potential risks.

For some of us, exercise and sport are a crucial part of our lives. In some form or other, they should be a crucial part of everybody’s lives. Can we, in our time, develop a surge in interest like the late Victorians did across the whole of the United Kingdom?

BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

Lord Monks Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the initiative of my noble friend Lord Young of Norwood Green in bringing this debate to the House. Now is the time for the many friends and admirers of the BBC to get into campaign mode, not just to save it from the attacks it has been experiencing, but to press for its expansion and development in order to put it on the best possible footing to face the future.

The UK does not have many national institutions that command widespread international regard and respect. The BBC does command that respect and also provides some much-needed glue for the relationships of the four nations of the UK. The concept of Britishness has diminished as Great British-labelled companies have shrunk or disappeared. Even BT and BA prefer to downplay their full names. The BBC and the NHS remain proud and strong flagships of the best of Britain, shaping as well as reflecting the nation. The BBC in particular, as others have said, is regarded as the gold standard, setting a very high bar for the rest, including ITV and Sky. But the BBC has powerful enemies, and they are mobilising. The enemies are not the public, of whom 40 million use the BBC every day; they are not the young audience, 76% of whom support the BBC’s mission; they are not the regions, where 50% of the BBC is now based; and they are not the many who regard the BBC as the most trusted source of news and the enemy of fake news.

The enemies, understandably, include rival media organisations, but they now include many in the Conservative Party and Government, who regard the BBC as being full of metropolitan lefties. This has led them to engage in a campaign against the licence fee and to the childish boycott of the “Today” programme. For the sake of fairness, I must say that the critics include some on the left who regard the BBC as a timid creature of the establishment—witness the unpleasant and disgraceful reception that Laura Kuenssberg has had to endure at times. My admiration for the BBC does not blind me to its weaknesses; the muddle on equal pay has been morale-sapping. More strategically, the competition now comes from deep-pocketed rivals, mainly from the United States, and the trend towards social media use—streaming and watching programmes at convenient times. This is a major challenge. However, the BBC can rise to these challenges. It has risen to previous ones and I am confident it can do so again.

Let us not assume that all is well on the other side of the Atlantic. As has been mentioned, Netflix has a long-term debt of $12 billion. So instead of sniping and weakening the BBC, now is the time to strengthen it and public sector broadcasting in general. For me, this means keeping the licence fee, enforcing its collection and finding an alternative source of funding TV licences for the elderly. Public sector broadcasting is a jewel in the UK’s crown—fight off its enemies and get behind a re-energised and strengthened BBC.

Museums and Galleries

Lord Monks Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on securing this debate, which reflects the enormous passion and commitment that he brings to this field of our national life. I share his passion and commitment to an area of our life which is too often rather neglected or marginalised—the role of museums and galleries.

I was very struck by the impact of the City of Culture accolade in Hull in 2017 and the role that museums and galleries played in that. The impact has been enormous in that city. It has raised morale, attracted tourism and brought about a different feel to the place; you can almost touch it when you go there. It is a great thing and culture and the museums and galleries played a very lively part in that process. This experience confirms what has gone before. Do noble Lords remember the old Glasgow’s Miles Better campaign which showcased its wonderful galleries and museums? Liverpool is a former European Capital of Culture and has three nationally recognised museums. This shows what can be done. Culture is not some kind of optional extra or outdoor relief for the intellectual elite; it is a means of deepening understanding and commitment and stimulating innovation and fresh thinking.

I have many favourite museums in this country and overseas, but my particular passion are the museums of Manchester, especially the People’s History Museum, of which I was chairman of trustees for many years. That baton has now been passed to my noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon, who unfortunately cannot be here tonight. The People’s History Museum is not just a museum of labour history: its central themes tells the exciting story of the way the right to vote was extended to the population in stages, culminating, 100 years ago this year, in votes for women. The museum is, appropriately, located in Manchester, which was the world’s first industrial city, and which, by the way, was the birthplace of the TUC, which this year also celebrates an anniversary—its 150th. Next year it celebrates too the most violent incident in the fight to widen the franchise: the so-called Peterloo massacre. It is also the repository of the history of co-ops and trade unions, and is the repository of the Labour Party’s archives, which are uniquely bureaucratic; other parties are much more individualistic and their archives are hard to access. So this is a museum with a story to tell which is highly relevant to our modern life in this country.

The museum is run as an independent charity and, like others, it is experiencing the cold winds of austerity. We receive support from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority—I was pleased to see my noble friend Lord Smith here earlier; more than once he has come up trumps for the museum in discussions about money—and the Arts Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund play an active role. However, we have lost significant national funding from central government, DCMS and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which tend to palm us off as a regional museum to Greater Manchester or the north-west rather than recognising us as the national museum we really are. The widening of our democracy is of course not a regional matter. I exempt the Minister from these charges as I know that he has an interest in the museum, not least through a distinguished Manchester heritage and his family’s background. His interest is most welcome.

I hope that the museum will be able in due course to regain its national recognition and support, which it had until a few years ago. It deserves it, and repays every penny it gets with its 100,000 visitors, and many more children come through the museum to learn the story of our history and the way in which democracy was entrenched in this country. In an era when there is a lot of fake news, disinterest in the complexities of government and a myopic search for simple solutions, the story the museum tells is one of compelling importance.

No doubt the Minister will enlighten us on the role of DCMS and the recommendations from the Mendoza review urging a joined-up approach from government and the various arms-length bodies. I will be interested to hear what he says about that and the museums action plan. However, I am particularly interested in his and DCMS’s latest thoughts on this marvellous museum, the People’s History Museum.

Battle of Passchendaele

Lord Monks Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Black, for initiating this debate and join those who have expressed appreciation for the standard that he set with his introductory remarks—a standard which I think just about everybody who has contributed so far has also reached in their contributions.

I was general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation and lived in Brussels for eight years. During that period, many family and friends visited Belgium and it became a pilgrimage to visit Passchendaele and Ypres. The repetition never bored: every visit stirred the emotions and burned into me and others the words, “Never again”.

We have to reflect from time to time on the origins of the Great War, how so few people saw it coming, how it erupted so volcanically after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, how the German emperor gave the Austro-Hungarians a blank cheque, which widened a local conflict into a European and global one, and, once the war had started, how it proved impossible to stop. It resolved none of Europe’s tensions while it bred plenty of new ones, which became fertile territory later for the dictators.

Yet the outbreak of war was totally unexpected by the mass of Europe’s population. There were, of course, many tensions: the rise of a sense of nationhood in the small countries which were part of Europe’s empires; the Prussianisation and militarisation of Germany under an erratic Kaiser; frontier disputes, social and class tensions and the rise of a powerful new political philosophy—socialism. But in 1913, none of these was expected to erupt into a European war. Is there a lesson here for today and tomorrow? I want to address that question briefly, because I think there is.

In the EU referendum, one argument I advanced, admittedly with limited success, was that the EU was a peace project to harness former enemies into a common endeavour. Yet it got very little traction. It was unthinkable to many that there was a risk of war in Europe—elsewhere yes, perhaps, but Europe, no, at least west of Ukraine. Peace is widely taken for granted in our part of the world. I just hope that those people are right. Yet the lesson of the start of the Great War is that peace should never be taken for granted. War can erupt with little warning.

Does the Europe of today generate complacency? We know that there is a new wave of nationalisms. Catalonia is today debating whether to declare UDI from Spain. We know, too, that extreme right-wing parties have gained support in many countries, now even surfacing quite noticeably in Germany. There is widespread disillusion with austerity and our economic models, especially since the economic crash of 2008. In addition, mass movements of migrants and refugees are under way and no one has a clear idea, beyond building walls, of what to do about it. However, you can say for sure that the EU and its member states have not risen adequately to all these challenges and so have fed scepticism and disillusion about the project. Into this tinderbox, the UK decision on Brexit has tossed a match—a match which we hope will not provoke other countries to think that they too need to “roar like lions”, to coin a current phrase.

One thing I remember from the time I spent in Brussels was the Europe-wide respect for Britain’s role in bringing peace and democracy back to Europe and for our stability and political maturity. We have to be very careful that we do not become a more nationalistic exemplar in the European world. Our Brexit negotiators should have Europe’s troubled history at the front of their minds, certainly not at the back.

So I advise all noble Lords who have not been—and many have, as has been said today—to visit Passchendaele and its cemeteries, especially Tyne Cot, the largest. Also, make a detour and take in the moving German cemetery at Langemark, which has affected everybody who has been there with me. Visit the Menin Gate and the wonderful In Flanders Fields Museum, which is in the Cloth Hall at Ypres. I hope that the many British visitors and schoolchildren who go there are as moved by all this as my family and my visitors have been. Reflect, too, not just on the sacrifice and the hopelessness then but on any contemporary lessons.

My own family came off lightly. There are Monks commemorated on the Menin Gate, but they are not of my immediate family, as far as we know. Six of my uncles were in the British Army in the Great War and all survived, although one was to die later of a wound contracted in Ireland. Nevertheless, we count ourselves among the lucky ones.

But while we remember and honour the past, the dead, the wounded and the disabled, we must resolve never to commit our young people to senseless slaughter and to work for a peaceful world. The hundreds of thousands of casualties of Passchendaele deserve no less.